Significance of a railway to Tibet, completed on the day when China launched its second manned spacecraft, is no less than the country's ambitious plan of space probe, as such a project on the rugged and frozen land of the "roof of the world" was once seen by some as a mission impossible even in an era when human beings had set foot on the moon.

Chinese scientists and engineers, however, eventually made true the century-old dream of the nation to connect the isolated snow land with a railway with other parts of the country.

And the project, called in a Tibetan song as "a heavenly path to happiness", well deserves the title of a marvel in the world's history of railway construction for the breakthroughs Chinese engineers and workers made in the thin air on the snow-covered plateau and their considerations for ecological and cultural protection in design and construction.

All the feats, however, will turn dwarf when compared with the changes the railway will bring to Tibet and its people.

Poor local traffic has long hindered the development of the region, which locks many Tibetans in the Himalayas and makes access to health care, education or even pilgrim hard. And the entry of outside supply and travelers is no easy matter because the current two traffic alternatives of road and air are either slow or expensive.