Alashankou railway station

Alashankou
View of the station from the outside in 2006
Location	Alashankou  China
Coordinates	45°10′13″N 82°34′13″E / 45.17028°N 82.57028°E / 45.17028; 82.57028Coordinates: 45°10′13″N 82°34′13″E / 45.17028°N 82.57028°E / 45.17028; 82.57028
Line(s)	Lanxin Railway Northern Xinjiang branch
Services
Preceding station   China Railway   Following station Wulandabusen towards Ürümqi Northern Xinjiang Railway Dostyk in Kazakhstan towards Aktogay

Alashankou railway station (Chinese: 阿拉山口站; pinyin: Ālāshānkǒu zhàn), also known as Alataw Pass railway station (also spelt Alatau and Ala Tau), is a railway station in Börtala Mongol Autonomous Prefecture of China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

Located on the Chinese side of the Dzungarian Gate pass through the Dzungarian Alatau mountain range at the 2358.376 km point of Lanxin Railway, it is the last station on the Northern Xinjiang branch of the Lanxin Railway before entering Kazakhstan. For the first twenty-plus years of its history it was the only railway port of entry in western China; during this time, the volume of international rail freight going through the Alashankou port of entry grew from 160,000 tons in 1991 to 15,160,000 tons in 2011.

In another report (not quite consistent with the previous one), the volume of rail freight crossing the border at Alashankou during the first 10 months of 2011 were reported as 8,921,000, which was said to be a 12.8 increase over the previous year. The volume of traffic, measured by weight, going from Kazakhstan to China is much higher than from China to Kazakhstan (7,412,000 tons vs. 1,509,000 tons). The main commodities that went from Kazakhstan to China via Alashankou were iron ore, high-carbon ferrochrome, wheat and steel. Among the goods shipped from China to Kazakhstan, the main groups were steel (in particular, steel pipes), electronics and tomato paste.