Abstract: In this paper the efficiency of the half-hidden straw checkerboard barrier reducing wind velocity and controlling sand-driving wind as well as various factors influencing the belt width of 1×1 straw checkerboard barriers have been discussed from the view-point of protecting of railway from sand burying. Knowing that shifting sand from outside is a prerequisite for burying the protection belt mainly by sand-driving wind and through observrvation, both the wind velocity curve and sand amount curve after the sand-driving wind entered the belt were obtained. It has been found out wind velocity at a height of 20 cm above the sand surface decreases greatly within 20m and sand amount at a height of 10 cm reduces sharply within 5 m. According to these results, which in combination with average annual width of protection belt buried by shifting sand and the effective life-span of barriers, a reasonable and valid formula used for determining the width of protection belt was developped.