 While the USSR had long been connected with China via the rail links in Northeastern China and Mongolia, since the 1950s plans existed to connect the two countries'rail networks at the Kazakhstan / Xinjiang border. The Soviets completed their line from Aktogay (a station on the Turksib in eastern Kazakhstan) to their border station Druzhba (now Dostyk), but the construction on the Chinese side stopped because of the Sino-Soviet split of the 1960s. In 1985 construction commenced on the Northern Xinjiang Railway to link the Chinese and Russian rail networks via Kazakhstan. The section between Ürümqi and Alashankou was completed on 16 September 1990, linking the railway lines of the two countries at Dostyk. In July 1991 the first goods train traveled along the line from China to Kazakhstan's then-capital of Almaty. In December 2009, a second rail link from China was built to the Kazakhstan border at Khorgos. The Jinghe – Yining – Khorgos Railway forks off of the Northern Xinjiang Railway at Jinghe and approaches Kazakhstan from the Ili River Valley. A rail link on Kazakh side will extend the line to Saryozek by 2013. The rail link through the Korgas Pass was completed in December 2012.
