Carriages on the train are pressurized as is an airliner's cabin, but supplemental oxygen is pumped in and passengers are presented sterilized plastic tubing to direct oxygen into both nostrils at the highest elevations, if they feel the need.

There have been reports of nausea and lightheadedness among some passengers, but I heard of no such complaints on my journey, from Lhasa to Xining, the rail head in Qinghai. I didn't see anyone using the oxygen.

I was in a four-bed sleeping compartment, two upper and two lower, shared with an Air China pilot, his wife and daughter. None of us became ill, nor did we need oxygen.

The oxygen tube plugged into a port at the head of the bunk near the window and the reading light.

There were flat panel television screens mounted in the bulkhead at the foot of the bed, adjacent to the corridor, with a remote control built into the partition between compartments to control the three channels available, including one featuring music videos and another on building of the railway.

I saw no use for video with the view available at any window. However, the eighth- grade daughter appreciated music videos instead of the jaw-dropping views passing by.

In the corridor, there were little fold-down seats to take in scenery from the side opposite the compartments. Passengers traversing the corridors could easily slip by a seated passenger.

The wide windows on both sides of the rail cars had ultra-violet ray protection built in, because of the intensity of the sun at such high altitudes.

There was great camaraderie among passengers as we enthusiastically called out when spotting yet another photo opportunity as we passed lone herders, small herds of yak and sheep and some other livestock, small encampments, even Tibetan antelope and yet another dazzlingly white snow-capped mountain, or deep river gorge.

The ride was quiet and quite comfortable. I was mid-carriage away from the wheels, as the train smoothly zipped along at about 60 miles an hour, slowing when encountering steep grades. I slept soundly.

While I didn't use the restaurant car, I ate less-than-memorable boxed meals in the compartment, remembering the sumptuous meals I had in food-fabled Sichuan Province before heading into Tibet, the cuisine of which relies heavily on yak.

Since the railway began passenger operations July 1, Chinese officials say visitors to Lhasa, at only 12,130 feet above sea level, have increased by at least 66 percent.

It provides jobs for thousands of workers, not just in the building of one of the world's greatest engineering marvels, but also in the continuing maintenance of the high-tech, highly monitored roadbed and rails, running over hundreds of miles of permafrost.

Nonetheless, a dining car derailed in late August on the newly inaugurated line, delaying rail traffic for five hours. There were no injuries reported.

The railroad has also brought new opportunities as well as jobs to towns along the way.

Officials say the cost of commodities imported into Tibet has dropped 75 percent and entrepreneurs are finding new markets for the products they -- until now -- could only sell locally.

Before embarking on my rail journey I met a 29-year-old herder in Damxung, about two hours by rail from Lhasa, who told me his father, a Communist Party member, was minding their "97 yak and 40 to 50 sheep ... over the mountain."

Local trains stop in the town and there is rail freight service.

Chidan Duoji, who is not a member of the party, said his family income is about 60,000 yuan a year, or about $7,500, "just above average."

But it comes not just from raising livestock, some of which is kept to feed the eight people from three generations in his modest but sprawling home outside of Damxung, complete with a flat screen television in a sunroom-like setting of traditional Tibetan furnishings. While he comes from a family of herders, they are not nomads.

Some of the income comes from the sand yard Chidan has at the foot of one of the mountains. He sold sand to the railroad during its construction and has been increasing the sand business as more roads are built and the region develops. That is why he is staying in town.

Addressing the question of the railroad's effect on the Tibetans' traditional way of life, he said some grassland was destroyed in construction, but the government compensated villages and worked to replace the grass.

In touring areas along the railway, and later from the vantage point of the train, I could see where numerous cuts had been made in the rail embankment to allow animals and herders to get from one side of the right-of-way to the other without having to go over the tracks. I could also see the railway's embankment was crisscrossed with stonework to hold in patches of grass and how permafrost cooling methods were employed to stop heat from passing trains warming the permafrost and destabilizing the roadbed.

"Items are cheaper here, now," Chidan said. "The whole country benefits from the railroad."

He marveled that items such as bananas and peaches had become available.

As for all the Chinese the railroad brought to Tibet -- those who critics said would subsume the robust Tibetan culture -- he called it part of a "cultural exchange" between Tibet and the rest of China.

(Editor's note: UPI sent U.N. Correspondent William M. Reilly to China earlier this summer. As a guest of the State Council Information Office he toured Tibetan regions of the nation, including Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, and areas of adjacent Qinghai and Sichuan provinces. He also traveled on the new Qinghai-Tibet railway. This is the fourth in a series of his reports.)

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