The Lijiang–Shangri-La Railway

The Lijiang–Shangri-La railway — 丽香铁路, Lìxiāng Tiělù — opened on 26 November 2023, 139.7 kilometres from Lijiang, at about 2,400 metres, up to Shangri-La on the plateau at over 3,200. It is the first railway in Diqing, the Tibetan prefecture of north-west Yunnan; before it, the only way up was a road that took more than three hours, longer in the rains. The fastest train now takes 1 hour 10 minutes.

The two cities are separated by two snow mountains and the river between them, and the railway goes through rather than round. It runs into a 14.7-kilometre tunnel under Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, comes out high on the side of the Jinsha — the upper Yangtze — above Tiger Leaping Gorge, crosses on a suspension bridge with a 660-metre span about 250 metres above the water, and goes straight into a tunnel under Haba Snow Mountain.

This page rides the line from Lijiang to Shangri-La, a town that was called Zhongdian until 2001, when it was renamed after the fictional land in James Hilton's novel Lost Horizon.

Lijiang to the Jinsha

Trains leave from Lijiang station, the end of the line from Dali. The railway runs west across the basin past Lashi Lake, where it has a station that no passenger train calls at, and climbs into the Jade Dragon range. Most of what follows is underground: the line has 20 tunnels and 34 bridges, and between them they make up 73.4 per cent of its length. The longest is the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain Tunnel, 14.7 kilometres through rock that deformed so badly that long stretches had to be dug by hand.

Across the gorge

The train leaves the tunnel high on the side of the Jinsha and is straight onto the bridge: 882.5 metres long, slung between towers that reach 194.5 metres on the Lijiang bank, with the river about 250 metres below. The Tiger Leaping Stone, in the gorge, is three kilometres downstream. On the far side the line goes directly into the Haba Snow Mountain Tunnel, 9,523 metres long, where the rock pressed in so hard that it was the last tunnel on the line to be finished, after more than eight years.

Onto the plateau

North of the mountains the line climbs, on gradients of up to 28.5 per thousand, to the open plateau, and the only stop on the way is Xiaozhongdian, where five of the ten trains a day from Lijiang call. The highest point, 3,283 metres, is just beyond it. The last stretch runs across grassland with yaks grazing beside the fence, past Tibetan farmhouses and a white stupa, into Shangri-La.

The train

The line was given its own train: the Fuxing CR200J1-D, a version of China's locomotive-hauled Fuxing built for its altitude. An electric locomotive of 7,200 kilowatts is at one end and a driving car at the other; the coaches are fitted with an oxygen supply, as the Tibet trains are, the seats all turn to face the way the train is going, and there are six business-class seats behind the driving cab. The first two sets left the factory for Yunnan on 23 November 2022, in a new livery of white with a dark-green front and window band and a red stripe.

Ten trains a day run each way between Lijiang and Shangri-La, all of them daily. Some start further back — at Kunming, Dali, Baoshan, and one, the D239, at Chengdu South — and every one runs to the end of the line. Five of the trains from Lijiang call at Xiaozhongdian, and three of those from Shangri-La: the D240, C640 and C984.

Lijiang to Shangri-La

Shangri-La to Lijiang

Trains from Kunming change their number at Lijiang: the C86 becomes the C87, the C118 the C119, and so on. Times are from 12306 for Thursday 15 and Sunday 18 October 2026, and were the same on both days — as of October 2026. 12306 sells about two weeks ahead. Times are published by the operator: China Railway · 12306 (opens in a new tab).

Every ticket is sold on 12306 against your passport, which is then your ticket at the gates. Between Lijiang and Shangri-La most trains charge ¥70 in second class and ¥111 in first, and business class is ¥219 or ¥243 depending on the train; on the C985 and the D239 the fares are ¥63 and ¥100.

From Kunming the through trains charge ¥260 in second class, ¥414 in first and ¥811 in business.

No rail pass covers this line. Interrail and Eurail are European passes and do not reach China, and China Railway sells its seats one journey at a time on 12306, so the fare is simply the ticket.

Checked in October 2026.

The first three places are around Lijiang, where the line starts; the gorge is reached by road, about 60 kilometres north of the city. The last three are in and around Shangri-La, more than 3,200 metres up.

The two hotels below are at either end of the line: one at Shuhe, outside Lijiang, and one in Shangri-La, beside the monastery.

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