Iron Dragons Crossing the Sand

　　Introduction    The 55-kilometer stretch west of Yingshuiqiao Town in Zhongwei City's urban area lies on the southeastern edge of the vast Tengger Desert. Along this route, there are towering mobile sand dunes ranging from several meters to dozens of meters high. Standing atop these high dunes, one can see trains speeding by like iron dragons surging forward through the golden sea of sand, undeterred by the wind. This is one of Zhongwei’s New Eight Scenic Spots — “Iron Dragons Crossing the Sand.”

　　    In the early 1950s, construction officially began on the Baotou-Lanzhou Railway. The section passing through Zhongwei’s Shapotou area was covered by drifting sand dunes seven to eighty meters thick, and in some places over a hundred meters. With exposed yellow sand, high mobility, and crisscrossing dunes of varying heights, the landscape formed an immense sea of sand, putting the railway at constant risk of being buried by drifting sands.

　　    To overcome this global challenge and create a miracle, the Ministry of Railways and the Chinese Academy of Sciences organized scientists, railway construction workers, and local residents to tackle the issue together. Through their joint efforts, they developed the famous “straw checkerboard” method of sand stabilization. Over the course of more than 40 years of desert control, they continuously refined and improved the technique, creating the optimal combination of manual, mechanical, and biological sand control methods. This led to the establishment of the “Shapotou Sand Control Model,” featuring an integrated system of five zones: high barriers to block sand, enclosed grass cultivation zones, sand barriers with vegetation, irrigated forest belts, and pebble firebreaks. These effectively tamed the rampaging sands and wrote a miracle into the history of human desertification control.

　　 Zhongwei, Ningxia