CHINA A batch of Golden Dragon XML6122 coaches has been delivered to the Gansu Hongyuan Tourism Investment Company. It’s the second batch to be put into operation at the Dunhuang Yardang National Geographic Park where they’re used to transport tourists.
The Park, 185kms from Dunhuang city, is known as the Geographic Museum in the Desert where there are large scale yardang landforms, a yardang being a streamlined protuberance carved from bedrock. Dunhuang is in the modern silk road economic belt and the annual Dunhuang-Silk Road International Travel Festival has become the regular event to open up this western region of China more to the outside world.
According to Jiao Yonghong, President of Gansu Hongyuan Tourist Investment Company, Dunhuang received 5.07m tourists in 2014. Even in its low winter and spring seasons, 1.1m came to the city.
The Westside, Hongyuan Tourism Company was set up in April last year in an effort to open up the Yangguan Gate – Yumenguan Gate-Yardang area, and nearly 40 Golden Dragon coaches have now been placed into service. The area is a desert enjoying a lot of sunshine the whole year around and little rain, but it can be quite windy with maximum wind force reaching 12. Such harsh weather conditions set much higher standards for vehicles, says Golden Dragon.
