Permafrost along the Qinghai-Tibet railway is featured by abundant ground ice and high ground temperature. Under the influence of climate warming and engineering activities, the permafrost is under degradation process. The main difficulty in railway roadbed construction is how to prevent thawing settlement caused by degradation of permafrost. Therefore the proactively cooling methods based on controlling solar radiation, heat conductivity and heat convection were adopted instead of the traditional passive methods, which is simply increasing thermal resistance. The cooling methods used in the Qinghai-Tibet railway construction include sunshine-shielding roadbeds, crushed rock based roadbeds, roadbeds with rock revetments, duct-ventilated roadbeds, thermosyphon installed roadbeds and land bridges. The field monitored data show that the cooling methods are effective in protecting the underlying permafrost, the permafrost table was uplifted under the embankments and therefore the roadbed stability was guaranteed.