The final stretch of route in a 2,712-km-long railway line which loops around China's largest desert, the Taklamakan, went into operation in the northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on Thursday after three and a half years of challenging construction efforts.

The new 825-km railway section moves eastward from Hotan City to the Ruoqiang County along the southern edge of the Taklamakan, the world's second-largest shifting-sand desert, with around 65 percent of the rail route running inside the desert itself.