China's ambitious £3.8bn mega train line across the Himalayas plagued by problems

China is attempting to build a major railway line through the Himalayas (Image: Getty)

China's incredible £3.8 billion ($5 billion) railway line is set to connect two countries separated by the world’s highest mountain range, but the ambitious mega-project has been on hold for years due to a series of major obstacles. The Trans-Himalayan Railway will connect Gyirong county in southern Tibet to the capital of Nepal - Kathmandu - once built.

The  vast line will be made up of tunnels passing through 105 miles (170km) of majestic mountains and bridges extending up above peaks and clouds. Landlocked Nepal could see a huge boost thanks to the project, with potential access to seas set to help it become more economically successful once the line is built. But it has not been an easy ride for the Nepalese authorities, which have complained of a lack of information coming from the Chinese side.

Aman Chitrakar, the senior divisional engineer and spokesperson at Nepal's Railway Department, said in 2022: "We heard that our government had signed a MoU on technical schemes of the railway project during Wang Yi's visit in March and now media reports have said a feasibility study will be carried out, but as an implementing agency we haven't been informed about any developments that were made in the recent months."

According to infrastructure Youtuber Simon Whistler, failure to involve Nepal's "limited expertise with Chinese engineers will stunt the development of Nepal's rail sector in its own right, and Nepalese railway engineers won't be sufficiently informed to properly maintain the railway when needed."

Meanwhile, funding issues have also hamstrung the project. China is expected to provded aid ammounting to £768 million ($1 billion) to help Nepal extend the railway from Kathmandu to Pokhara, one of Nepal's major tourist destinations, enhancing travel and economic opportunities.

The mountain range has average elevations beyond 4000 metres, with nine of the ten highest mountains (Image: Getty)

The line will connect Gyirong county in southern Tibet to the capital of Nepal (Image: Getty)

But Nepalese officials are reportedly concerned about getting caught in a Chinese debt trap, leading to fierce rounds of negotiations that have sparked multiple delays in the project's rollout. Meanwhile, the challenging terrain and extreme weather conditions across the Himalayas could make construction and maintenance dangerous, and there are also concerns that it could threaten the mountain range's ecosystems.

Basanta Raj Adhikari, deputy director of the Centre for Disaster Studies, said: “Any trans-Himalayan project of this scale will have serious environmental impacts and there should be more concern around the fragile geology of the region.

"This railway will pass through the main central thrust – a geologically weak zone in the Himalayas – and it’s important to use technical knowledge of geologists and other experts to minimise its environmental impacts. But it’s sad that no efforts towards this have been made."

This helps explain why it has been labelled "one of the world’s toughest railways to construct."

It is also a huge challenge in itself simply to cross the lofty and fragile Himalayan range, ecology issues aside. The mountain range has average elevations beyond 4000 metres, with nine of the ten highest mountains in the world, including K2 and Mount Everest.

However, Nepal's authorities said: "With China’s technological prowess it is possible as they have already built railways in higher altitudes in Tibet than the proposed Nepal-China railway."