CHENGDU, July 1 (Xinhua) -- A passenger train rolled out of the Railway Station of Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province at 6:18 p.m. Saturday, heading for Lhasa, capital of neighboring Tibet Autonomous Region.

The train carries more than 900 passengers. It runs more than 3,360 kilometers and is expected to arrive at the terminal of Lhasa in 48 hours and 10 minutes.

According to officials with Chengdu Railway Bureau, the train runs along four major rail lines, namely Baoji-Chengdu, Lianyungang-Lanzhou, Lanzhou-Xining and Qinghai-Tibet, linking all major cities in northwest and southwest China regions.

The train is scheduled to arrive in Lhasa at 6:28 p.m. on July 3.

Passengers can keep the train tickets, valuable souvenir marking the first train from Chengdu to Lhasa, for personal collection, the railway officials said, adding that railway workers will skip off the process to scissor a small cut on the paper ticket, as they usually do, in order to maintain the ticket intact.

Some seven hours before the train from Chengdu to Lhasa, the first train on Qinghai-Tibet Railway left Lhasa for Lanzhou, capital of northwestern Gansu Province, at 11:12 a.m., marking Tibetans' first access to rail transport.

The train, "Tibet 2", carries about 700 passengers with 16 carriages. It travels more than 2,100 kilometers across "the roof of the world" and is expected to arrive at the terminal of Lanzhou, provincial capital of Gansu, in some 30 hours.

President Hu Jintao attended a launching ceremony held at Golmud, another start-off point of the landmark railroad in Qinghai Province, and cut the red ribbon for the opening of the railway.

More than 2,000 merrymaking people hailed the historic moment at the square in front of the newly-built two-story Lhasa Railway Station, which stands on the south bank of the Lhasa River, 30 kilometers from the holy Potala Palace.

The Qinghai-Tibet Railway, also the world's longest plateau railroad, stretches 1,956 kilometers from Qinghai's provincial capital Xining to Lhasa. The section of 814 km from Xining to Golmud began operation in 1984 and the Golmud-Lhasa section started construction on June 29, 2001. Enditem