By the end of 20 15, the completed railways include Qinghai-Tibet Railway and Lari Railway, and Lalin Railway (a section of sichuan-tibet railway South Line) is under construction. By 2020, the railway from Shigatse to Zhangmu Port and the railway from Shigatse to Yadong Port will be built.

In the next 35 years, sichuan-tibet railway, Yunnan-Tibet Railway, Gansu-Tibet Railway and Xinjiang-Tibet Railway will be built one after another. By then, five railway lines, namely Qinghai-Tibet, Sichuan-Tibet, Gansu-Tibet, Xinjiang-Tibet and Yunnan-Tibet, will enter Tibet, eventually forming a "one vertical and one horizontal" plateau railway layout.

Li Jincheng, chief designer of Qinghai-Tibet Railway and deputy chief engineer of No.1 Railway Survey and Design Institute, revealed that in the long run, Xizang Autonomous Region will form a "one vertical and one horizontal" railway layout.