Dear Tom, Nice to hear from you and your questions about Tibet tour, train, permit and visa. You have done good research on this tour. We are China based agency dealing train tickets and tours in Tibet. Ticket type including Hard Sleeper, 6 beds in one open cabin, soft sleeper with 4 beds in one closed cabin and hard seat in one coach. No two bed sleepers on this train as those from Mongolia to China.

Tibet railway starts from Golmud, the next station of Xining. So all the trains to Lhasa, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu meet at Lanzhou and Xining, and continue the trip for about 24 hours onto Lhasa. From 2018, high-speed railway reaches Lanzhou and Xining, then many people choose to take bullet train or flight there to make the train ride short and more comfortable. On the other hand, tickets from Beijing are also very difficult to book due to rare availability. So we are only able to guarantee the tickets for groups booked tour with us. If you start the tour from Beijing, we still recommend you take bullet train from Beijing to Xining, then Xining to Lhasa.