China – Steam to the Gobi Desert – English • Great Railways

This classic documentary by Nick Lera takes us on a 1991 journey on China’s railways, the world’s last great bastion of steam operation. Starting in the last standard gauge steam locomotive factory at Tangshan, where we join coal miners in their steam-hauled shuttle to the pithead, we travel from Beijing past the Great Wall of China and on through the wilds of inner Mongolia to Zhongwei on the edge of the Gobi desert. En route we enjoy a good lunch in our dining car express, and take a dramatic cab ride aboard our steam locomotive, one of China’s famous QJ class 2-10-2 locomotives. Other classic steam types featured are YJ 2-6-2 at Baotou steel works, plus JF 2-8-2 and SY 2-8-2 on branch line and mine service. A rare archive clip shows an ex-Soviet Railways FD class 2-10-2 filmed inside the great Yangtze bridge.
We conclude with double-headed heavy freights in stunning mountain scenery on the horseshoe curves beyond Zhongwei en route to China’s Far West. In all, a fascinating portrait of a now vanished era.

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laughs [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] to anyone who thought the age of steam was over a visit to China would come as something of a surprise the People’s Republic is now the last country in the world to use the steam locomotive as a prime source of power on its Mainline railways [Music] foreign population being the world’s largest the volume of traffic handled is simply colossal in 1994 the system carried just over 1 billion passengers and one and a half billion tons of free figures that rise every year foreign traction is now responsible for long-haul passenger work but the old Iron Horse still plays its part in a massive task of Shifting the frame accounting for about 20 percent of the traffic sheer power steam engine is hard to beat the length of this freight train [Laughter] steam engines were built for the main line right up until 1988 when the Chinese were finally satisfied with their own home-built versions of imported diesels and electrics local shunting traditional domain of the superannuated steam Loco is now increasingly in the hands of chinese-built diesels this old Loco being shunted off for scrap had worked in the Harbin area in the Northeast since the 1930s there we go this generation Chinese model proudly letter the East is red China’s Railway manufacturing industry is now completely modernized and turns out Diesel and electric locomotives in great numbers but the rate of production only just keeps ahead of the demand all over the country brand new Railway routes are constantly being opened up and this is where most of the new engines go the network is growing at the rate of about a thousand kilometers a year and decided to reach 70 000 at the turn of the century existing main lines which still have the facilities for steam operation such as water columns coal bunkers and turntables have therefore been slow to change in these areas an abundant supply of cheap labor and home produced coal is tended to perpetuate a steamage economy foreign being serviced here is a JS or construction class Loco built as recently as 1983 and still used on passenger service around about two in inner Mongolia China’s Railways seems certain to see these for vast descendants of George Stevenson’s rocket still harbored work into the new millennium foreign starting in a place of special significance for fans of the steam locomotive the industrial and Mining City of tangshan 160 miles east of Beijing we received an official welcome from the Charming of China international travel service Mrs Ying proudly showed us how the city had been rebuilt since the Great Earthquake of 1976 and took us to visit one restored Factory in particular the railway Rolling Stock plant they are um about before workshops the old plant s are only produces team locomotives the national Railways may have finished with steam engines but they’re still in demand by the Chinese coal and steel industry and tangshan is where they’re built barely one a month now but the production line is still rolling just about this is the last place in the world where the traditional skills of pattern maker welder Boilermaker and wheelwright still come together to produce the steam locomotive [Music] when Mainline steam construction China raid ceased in 1988 plans were drawn up to phase out the industrial steam as well the last Loco was scheduled to leave The Works in the summer of 1990 but the government’s New Economic policies gave Regional industry Chiefs more freedom of choice many of them found advantages of low unit costs simple maintenance still favored Steam and continued to place orders So the plan to phase out steam was deferred and six years later production was still underway the tangshan product is a powerful and economical Freight hauler known as the Sy class this stands for Aiming High typical of the upbeat slogans used to designate Chinese locomotives less than a mile from the factory is the tangshan coal mine Railway a faithful customer for Sy locomotives the mine manager is so devoted to his Sy Lucas that he has customized one of them with the front-end decorations normally associated with big passenger Locos on the main line number 964 was in fact being used for passenger work but not in the normal sense early every afternoon he takes a few battered old Passenger cars down a short Branch to number two pit to collect miners at the end of the morning trip some of the carriages in this rather basic train are little more than converted box cars beneath it sleep passenger disguise number 964 reveals itself to be just a rap champion for me [Laughter] after a planar less pretentious that’s why Lego passes by I’m afraid the passenger train is clear to leave [Music] Chinese trains habitually carry rather ugly air horns most Unbecoming to a steam locomotive but the steam whistles remain fitted to all Locos and the drivers use both forms of warning at random thank you [Music] with characteristic Chinese punctuality a rival of the Mind coincided precisely with the mass Exodus of the morning shift this was a privileged trip for us as this service only runs within the mine complex and is not normally accessible to the public foreign ERS too were privileged not only by virtue of having their own private train but because they’re paid three times the rate of the average Chinese worker going to the dangers they face in this earthquake prone area running to catch the train was one of China’s little generals the spoiled sons of Chinese City families limited by decree to one child foreign returned to the junction locomotive number 964 showed off once more its ponderous exhortations to construct aim high and being always a model worth of estate such relics of the Great Leap Forward are getting quite rare now the coating of grime over the slogans would never have been tolerated in the days of Chairman Mao the next part of our journey took us from the capital Beijing westwards through the province of inner Mongolia to the edge of the Gobi desert on a Six-Day round trip the first thing to strike you about Beijing main station is not only in sheer size double Grand Central in New York but the presence of a constantly shifting tide of long-distance travelers from all over the country enabling one to take in a complete cross-section of this country’s vast population at a single glance the trains are always full the people unable to book in advance have to sit outside and wait sometimes for days an electronic display as high as the station itself keeps them entertained during their enforced vigil a little choice of matter because there’s no effective long-distance Road Transport in China and only the wealth they can afford to fly [Music] such as the pressure on Beijing Central that some long distance trains have to terminate in the suburbs to share lack of space both for the trains and waiting passengers a new even larger station is now being built in Western Beijing whether it can take the screen and remains to be seen foreigners traveling soft class can enjoy a brief respite from the crowds in a special Lounge but all other ticket holders have to wait in one of the departure Awards train number 43 to lanjao is ready to leave the soft class attendant welcomes the support coach number six which will be our home for the next 20 hours [Music] commotives clearly demonstrate China’s modernization one was imported from Germany in 1972 and the other proudly placed to the head of the train was Chinese built in 1989 a year after they stopped making steamed locomotives steam has long since disappeared from Beijing Central in fact visitors traveling by rail to the main centers of China nowadays are unlikely to see any steam engines at all as many of the main lines have been rebuilt on new roofs the transport Monopoly enjoyed by China rail is all embracing including not just passengers Freight but all the nation’s mail as well [Music] music is usually played when expresses leave important stations underscoring the achievement of red China’s revolution in bringing transport to the masses Beijing yard full of new diesel Locos film is also crowded [Music] [Music] west of Beijing the lion soon climbs towards the mountains of Mongolia here the famous Great War was built in the Middle Ages to protect the emperor’s Middle Kingdom from the Mongol hordes the railway up the PASS gives us a grand stand view of China’s most famous historic Monument foreign [Music] tunnels from an old alignment show how China is constantly improving her railways the track stops in the dead end mounting station of King long goyal which rather picturesque translates as Green Dragon Bridge [Music] here the train reversed and our Chinese diesel locomotive was attached to the other end of our train for the Long Haul through inner Mongolia foreign [Music] catering lady having completed her duties the train was now ready to leave okay [Music] as we left the wall behind we descended the hills through the kanji grasslands to the flat featureless Landscapes of province but China is never lacking in interest a large Christian Church from the outskirts of an industrial town is typical of the surprises that beat the Western traveler in this Bleak terrain the wide plane between the great wall and the Yellow River contains many of China’s Industries and one of these a factory complex near Zhang Zhao Carl five hours from Beijing provided us with our first glimpse of working steam locomotives since leaving the capital foreign a Chinese copy of an American type supplied to The Manchurian Railway in 1918 through the 1930s and dumped the Mikado after the festival was supplied to Imperial Japan in 1897. [Music] JFS are mostly in Industrial Service and we were lucky to see one running as most of its stablemates could be seen lined up ready for scrap while a brand new diesel had already taken over some of their work foreign we headed towards the province of inner Mongolia one of China’s semi-autonomous regions the largest city in the province is about to a major industrial center which was the original destination of this Railway which opened in 1923 [Music] R2 was the first major Center of steam operation we came to after leaving Beijing this was the daily passenger train of Bayan OVO arriving at a port about to touch them of course [Music] like most of China’s remaining steam trains this was powered by a locomotive of the Invictus QJ or Advanced forward pass foreign [Music] served bautu’s locomotive Depot still home to around 50 steam locomotives despite the increasing number of diesels here the QJ class is located represents the last great success story in the history of speed its design was based on a post-war Soviets team type introduced into China with Russian Aid in 1956. construction lasted 30 years and over four and a half thousand of them were built the last ones as recently as 1987. the flashback is QJ stand for advanced form symbolizing the expansion of China’s railroad system from the 1950s onwards the process still underway today a thousand or so QJ is built in the 1980s should see service at least until the year 2010. although the campsite decorations of this locomotive leave one in no doubt add to the preferred mode of traction nowadays the carefully chalked up notices for safe and efficient steam operation no longer seem to attract any attention just as the symbols of Chairman Mao’s Great Leap Forward are starting to fade into memory so too are the steam Giants that powered the growth of the new China [Music] beside the depot is the so-called pow 2 locomotive Museum not quite what a Westerner would understand by the term but at least this small collection appears to have been saved from the scrapyard the large 10-coupled Loco is another relic of the old sino-soviet Alliance the Russian FD or Felix jajinski class built in the 1930s by 1955 the fds had become redundant due to electrification enabling Russia to settle 1200 of them to the Chinese despite their age the fds gave good service in China and were used until the early 1980s their last stamping ground was the main line out of Nanking where they hauled heavy Freight northwards over the new Yangtze Bridge the scenes were taken in night six now it is the turn of the older qjs to be withdrawn and two of them have been set aside for the baltu museum dominating the city Horizon is the bow to Iron and Steel Works a major industry set up by the Russians in the 1950s when Soviet influence in China was at its height now expanded by the Chinese the complex is over three miles long and possesses a substantial internal Railway Network mostly steam-powered familiar outline of one of tangshan’s Sy Locos comes into view falling cauldrons of slack to the tip on the city’s outsky foreign much of the Steelyard track has very sharp curves resuscitating a locomotive with a short coupled wheelbase hence the use of his handsome american-style Prairie type designated the YJ class this chinese-built engine dated from 1959. a regular time yjs is to propel billets of molten steel into the cooling sheds foreign [Music] steel factory was set up the Soviet Aid package included the development of iron ore mines at Bayan oboe about 100 miles due north towards Mongolia and of course a brand new Railway to connect the two foreign 20 train loads of iron ore speed southwards to Batu to keep the furnaces supplied foreign ERS but we were allowed about 10 kilometers out to far enough to get an impression of a ragged senior traveled on this intensively used groundhog foreign the braid dropped sharply down towards baltu and the engineer of the daily passenger frame shut off steam as he started his quarters descent [Applause] this busy single track line hardly has enough capacity to accommodate a passenger service a steam-powered Freight could be seen impatiently awaiting the passenger train in a passing Loop lower down the valley this ridge above the tunnel is ideal for the video buff offering a grandstand view of steam operations on this Scenic line it deservedly gains a high rating among visiting train Watchers in China [Music] this is a typical mine Railway with the downhill braids favoring loaded trains although all the trains going up are empty the gradients are so steep that the locomotives have to be driven at full power to get their trains of 24 heavy steel wagons up the great Kunal [Music] foreign [Applause] foreign was built it was intended to Electrify it to increase its capacity but the iron ore being carried was of poor quality suitable only for low-grade Chinese Industrial Products Enthusiast by the Soviets the expansion of bow two steel Works in recent years has been in the production of high quality steels for which Bayan oboes ore is unsuited iron ore of a better grade now obtained elsewhere so the demand for Bayern oboe’s low-grade ore although still substantial has stagnated at levels easily handled by a single track Railway wide Bridges and tunnels have never carried the double track for which they were built and the electrification poles remain unused after more than 30 years so the bayanova railway remains a stronghold of steam with the big qjs exerting all of their 63 000 pounds attractive effort up the Steep breaks [Music] the extent of the grade could readily be seen as another QJ tackled the last few meters of the climb to Kunal Sun before leveling out in the tunnel foreign [Laughter] foreign [Laughter] [Music] ‘s frozen lake the QJ continued on its three-hour trip through the mountains of Inna Mongolia to Bayern Urban having looked at the railways of the bow to area we resumed our journey Westward who turned out in the small hours of the morning to be entertained by some energetic steam company while we waited to catch 1833 foreign [Music] broke over the barren Plains of inner Mongolia silhouetting some more of the brim smokestack industries that have developed in this area which was almost uninhabited for the coming of the Railway in 1958 we then crossed into ningxia Province and stopped at the capital Yin Chuan [Music] as usual train number 43 was besieged by Travelers most of them workers in these remote industrial regions who come from the west and For Whom the railway is the only way to travel home we were glad to observe Fresh Food Supplies being taken on board by the restaurant car staff on Whose Services we would depend for the day ahead foreign to the comfort of our soft class Carriage we took a quick look at the front of the train to see what our locomotive would be our delight at finding one of the big QJ steam Locos was a slightly marked overzealous Railway policeman he seemed to consider this a quite unsuitable shop because it is attention to another photographer who have just enough time to savor the rare site nowadays that steam locomotive preparing to fall and expect things [Music] foreign [Music] once more it really was time to head for the soft class photography isn’t usually such a problem it turned out we hadn’t noticed an Army Depot next to the station thank you as we pass the station yard the character of our journey began to acquire the atmosphere unique to a full speed round this was the last place left in the world without a passenger on an Express train would view the countryside through those once Familiar whisks of steam passing the window on this single track Main Line there was a loop every 10 kilometers or so and at each one a steam freight train was held waiting for our Express to pass as one contemplated this bleep and fearless landscape it was comforting to know that the restaurant car shaft was working hard to make our trip and enjoy [Music] one could certainly not accuse a China rail of abusing their virtual monopoly over land transport a good selection of freshly cooked traditional Chinese food was promptly served in a well-appointed dining car however it well Behold The Traveler to acquire some basic skills in the use of Chopsticks each course seemed to be punctuated by the passage of yet another student gastronomic Paradise for the record disaster mundane sites were of no interest to the train stop taking one of their periodic breaks in a continuous Six-Day shift the hard glass passengers comprising 95 of those on board were not doing too badly considering the very low fares they were paying the sanitary facilities where everyone basic and the seats hard but at least there was enough room for everybody playing to the strictly enforce ticket controls to prevent overcrowded foreign took us to zhongwei second largest city in ningxia Province on the edge of the great Gobi Desert it was once a Garrison town on the frontier of the Old Middle Kingdom protected by a section of the Great Wall that is now a barely discernible ruin the impetus of the Red Revolution to open up the country in the 1950s brought about the extension of the railway from bautu to the Western interior and zhongwei was one of several places that were transformed from desolate outposts to thriving cities in just a few years not surprisingly in contrast to other parts of China Chairman Mao is still revered here and his statue will Darkness have private place for many years to come in a modern city that owes its very existence to Mao’s policies jonway’s isolation is still reflected in an almost complete lack of Motor Vehicles the absent effective Road Network in China’s interior makes possession of a motor car a poor proposition for the average city driver even if you could afford one bicycle easily transported by rail rains Supreme inclusion-free John Wayne whose worst environmental problem seems to be a clutter of banks around the old Ming Gateway using as a base the newly refurbished zhongwei hotel we set out to Dawn across the flood Plains of the Yellow River just to the east of the city to take a line-sided view of the all-steam main line on which we’d arrived the day before [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] it is not only the town benefited from the railway here in the rural areas Villages have sprung up all along the Route [Music] [Music] the constant Rumble of passing trains far from being considered a nuisance is positively welcomed by The Villages of Huang Yang one oh man the railway brings everything they need including regular surprise of tofu the processed bean curd that is part of the staple diet of the Chinese [Music] [Music] [Music] small Pumpkin station with just one passenger train a day forms a rail head for miles around and becomes a gateway to the rest of China foreign local roads are still very poor but at least the people can make better use of them thanks to the Tractor units brought to the area by the railway the 1950s model Chinese Lorry once the only transport in the region still finds employment taking coal to the nearest railway standing from small mines in the surrounding Hills the railway also provides work-fetching Stone to widen the foundations of the Railway a second track is needed to carry extra traffic opening of a new line in the Far West linking China by rail the Central Asian Republicans this single track provincial Revenue through inner Mongolia is about to be transformed into an international East-West Overland route that bypasses Russia in direct competition with the Trans-Siberian Railway [Music] the villagers provide Manpower for the track gangs always kept busy with the upkeep of this line now being operated at maximum capacity [Music] [Music] while the line is still single the enforced weights at passing Loops give the train Crews time to carry out routine checks on the locomotives this will become an unacceptable source of delay once the line is doubled so diesel traction is expected to take over soon as a Prelude to eventual electrification foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] second act [Music] after blowing down a few minutes are needed to restore the steam pressure allowing time to finish checking the oil levels [Music] the ball s we were invited in the camp of double six one seven just in time to see the same 43 inchuan rushing down [Music] I did [Applause] [Music] thanks to our guide Mr Zhang we were able to stay in the club for a ride to the next station and experience a first-hand cycling genuine steam room s incredible yeah [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] trains heading for the steeper parts of the route approaching the Gobi Plateau needed needed locomotives to make to make the ground [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] due to a lack of water this mountain desert region is largely uninhabited not even the coming of the Railway could bring any life to this place when the land was built a constant problem was the formation of sand banks right across the tracks this was solved by laying grass matting over the sand dunes in the area of the Railway encouraging just enough natural growth to keep the surface stable rail fans from all around the world converged on this remote spot and the last years of steam drawn by the seemingly endless procession of double-headed trains toiling up the Horseshoe curves on route to China’s Far West thank you thank you [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] from zhongwei to gantang has now been electrified but for the steam van all is not lost the powerful QJ class Steamers are considered too valuable to scrap so most of jonway’s locomotives have now been transferred to a new 800 kilometer trunk line in the north of inner Mongolia so scenes such as this now no more than a memory in the great Kobe can still be witnessed elsewhere in China the remarkable feat of endurance from the world’s oldest fall mechanical traction foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music]