Imagine my delight to find that the Ji-Tong Railway, a 900 km line built in 1995 by a consortium consisting of China Rail and the government of the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region, was almost entirely steam operated. A few pictures of double-headed “QJ” 2-10-2’s on drag freights appeared on the internet, and I was determined not to let this one last big steam show slip away without having experienced it firsthand. Through the help of Rob Dickinson’s International Steam Pages at http://dialspace.dial.pipex.com/steam/internat.htm I was able to locate a tour operated by an extraordinary guide, Weishu Li, a Chinese-born Canadian guide, formerly with CITS (the state-run, China International Travel Service), a steam locomotive fan and master photographer. Preparations made, on February 7, 2002 I found myself on Air Canada to Beijing.

I deliberately chose to take an extra day in Beijing for I knew that once I joined the tour, it would be non-stop, heavy-duty railfanning. For the first day, though, I walked and walked through the massive Chinese capital of 13 million people, a huge place that everywhere has striking contrasts between the “New China” represented by Vegas-like neon, wide boulevards and rampant consumerism, and the China that slowly evolved over thousands of years. Determined to present a modern face to the world for the 2008 Olympics, the authorities are obliterating everything considered to make the country look old fashioned, steam engines included.

After a day of Tian’anmen Square, the Forbidden City and other delights, I met the other two participants on the tour (yes, only three of us made up the paying contingent), Daniel from France and Pete from Philadelphia. Both had been to China several times before so I was the neophyte among them. Sunday morning, we were collected by Weishu, loaded into a van – and driven half a block for a lunch consisting of Beijing Duck. It was a good start, we weren’t going to starve on this trip and our guide prides himself on choosing food of a high standard that appeals to the western palate – no easy task in some of the small places we ended up in.

Our first afternoon was spent driving north-east from Beijing to the city of Chengde. In that four hour drive, we went back in time sixty or seventy years. Chengde is on the secondary tourist track, receiving visitors to a famous series of imperial palaces and temples, so we did not feel particularly out of place. Darkness fell as we checked into our hotel, but not before we discovered that we had a view of the river bridge where, all night long, chunky SY and elegant JS class 2-8-2’s would shuttle back and forth with loads and empties from the China Rail interchange.

There is a large steel mill located about 20 km from Chengde, served by its own railway. The iron is mined locally but coal is imported by rail, and this involves a climb over a low pass on a steady 3.2% grade. Finished product leaves by rail as well. Standard procedure is for seven or eight trains a day during daylight, each consisting of twelve cars, to be brought across the river from the China Rail line by a single locomotive. At the banking (helper) station located in the town, two additional engines are attached to the rear of the train in readiness for the 3.2% grade. is prohibited here due to the large prison located next to the tracks; it looks fearsome enough from the outside and we certainly didn’t wish to view its interior). The railway climbs up a valley that very quickly becomes rural, and we spent two full days on the hillsides above small farms and tidy but small houses, scanning the horizon for the telltale plumes of steam and smoke. The sight and sound of three Mikados working hard on regular, everyday trains is not soon forgotten.

A couple of other railfan groups were encountered, one from Britain and one from Germany. The British group brought news that diesels were on their way to this line, due to concerns about air pollution in the town, and, sure enough, I read with regret that the diesels started work on May 10, 2002, with the lovely Mikados being relegated to switching work at the largely inaccessible steel mill, or to the scrap line.

On February 13, we said good-bye to Chengde and drove all morning through rural countryside on a road which started out as surprisingly good (though with 10 tonne load limits on all the bridges, and frequent toll booths, as is common throughout China) but which later became much more typical with a rough surface, trees with their trunks painted white lining each side of the roadway, all manner of domestic animals appearing unexpectedly, along with pedestrians, bicycles, motorized tricycles and farm carts. Not to worry, Mr. Wong our driver, soon disposed of all interlopers with his hands on both horns (and apparently none on the steering wheel). Chifeng was reached at lunch time, this is an important rail centre but there is no steam in the immediate area of the city though we did see a couple of diesels. Worse for us, it was Spring Festival (New Year) and the planned lunch stop at a hotel was impossible, the place being shut up tight. A little bit of negotiating by our genial guide produced a lunch at a second hotel although we were the only customers. In the afternoon, we entered the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region, and the country became drier and the villages were further and further apart. A domestic camel was seen in late afternoon, and we arrived at Reshui just before sunset.

This was to be our home for the next few days, but we did not stop, driving instead down the village’s single street and heading out over Jingpeng Pass…and there it was, our first train, just as it had looked in the internet pictures. A pair of double-headed 2-10-2’s with a maximum load train of 2300 tonnes was tackling the ruling 1.2% grade up to the pass. There was just enough light left to snap some pictures, and to return to Reshui to our hotel.

You must understand that northern China’s continental climate means its winters are like Winnipeg’s, though perhaps with less snow. Winter 2001/2002 was very dry, and the warmest in 50 years, but at Reshui’s altitude of over 1000 metres, the temperature is never above freezing in the winter, and when the wind whistles through Jingpeng Pass, it can be a lot colder. The village’s claim to fame is that it is on a hot spring, and indeed the domestic hot water in our hotel came from the spring – although if you were first up in the morning, it would take twenty minutes to feel anything other than ice cold water coming from the tap.

The Post Office hotel, where we stayed, is normally shut in the winter, but it opens up to accommodate the only visitors the area sees: railfans. My room had the misfortune of facing north, so the weak winter sun couldn’t penetrate, and everything was soaking wet from condensation. I had the joy of sleeping, nearly fully clothed, with two heavy Mongolian wool blankets and still freezing – but it was worth it. The next few days were pure joy – up before dawn for a rather delicious breakfast arranged at the only restaurant in town that was open during Spring Festival, consisting of doughnut-like pastries, rice gruel (you will eat it to keep out the cold!), the ubiquitous fried eggs, and instant coffee made from packets brought with us from Beijing. Then, a line-up was obtained (the restaurant’s proprietor is related to a railway man) and shared with the other groups, as many as four, also eating in the restaurant – and then we were off, in search of steam, shooting pictures all day until the light was gone.

The Ji-Tong Railway, like virtually all Chinese routes, is named for its end points: Jining and Tongliao, 943 rail kilometres apart, and entirely within the province of Nei Mongol, or Inner Mongolia. These places are hard to find on all but the very best maps; Jining is north of Datong at 40.58N, 113.01E while Tongliao is northwest of Shenyang, erstwhile capital of Manchuria, at 43.37N, 122.15E. The railway was built in 1995 and so does not show on most maps in atlases, unless you happen to have Quail’s China Railway Atlas. Complicating matters is that some places have an official Chinese and unofficial Mongolian name.

The most spectacular part is the Jingpeng Pass, between Jingpeng/Keqi at km 468 and Reshui/Galadesitai at km 516. Both sides of the pass feature two horseshoe curves where the railway doubles back on itself to gain elevation, including one on the spectacular curved and graded viaduct at Simingyi. spectacular model railroad crammed into a narrow basement. The pass itself is crested in a tunnel at km 494 at 1,273 metres elevation; the road goes over the top and the general impression at the summit is that the pass is not particularly high. All the way from Jineng, the general trend eastbound is downgrade, with Jineng being at 1,439 metres, a summit at DeYi at km 95 (1,515 metres), and dropping to just 183 metres at Zhelimu, adjacent to Tongliao Bei (North). Jingpeng is in a bit of a valley so it is upgrade in both directions from there, but only the run up to the pass has the continuous 1.2% grades that require double heading on all trains.

Our guide is a perfectionist. Only “uphill” trains will do, for they give the greatest display of steam in the cold winter air. The fires are remarkably clean so little smoke is apparent, and as the day warms, the steam plumes are less and less. Weishu has been to the pass so many times that he knows every knoll and hill, and which ones give the best photos at particular times of day, which ones are too cold to stand and wait an hour and which ones are sheltered from the wind. Our usual quota is seven or eight uphill trains in a day, and in many cases we are able to get the same train in two or three locations. Our van driver is enthusiastic, and will chase a train down the narrowest farm tracks and even over the frozen fields if necessary.

The local populace are now quite used to two or three vans or minibuses charging down their village street, only to disgorge camera-toting westerners who scramble over the countryside, get their pictures, and then roar back through their village off to the next location. The pass can get quite crowded at times, but on other days, it was just our small party. The cold plays havoc with our equipment. Batteries drain at an incredible rate; I packed four batteries for my digital camera and kept the charged ones close to me for heat; my film camera froze on one day, by the end of the trip it had been rattled apart and was non-functional.

The landscape of Inner Mongolia is bleak, particularly in winter. The only crop which appears to be grown is corn, used as food for animals in winter. All farmyards have a supply of corn, stalks, leaves, cobs and all, piled in a corner for future use. Most of the landscape is dry grassland and the few trees appear all to have been planted deliberately. The dry brown earth contrasts to the brilliant blue skies we encountered almost every day. I’d love to see the land with a dusting of dry snow, but there was none last winter.

It seems hard to believe that we can actually spend nearly a week on the Ji-Tong line with its endless procession of trains, but we manage to do just that. Our next stop would involve an overnight trip on the sleeper-equipped train to Baotou, further west in Mongolia, but a group of French railfans bring the news that steam ended there last week. Our plans are altered; we are to keep Mr. Wong’s van and drive away from the pass to Lindong, a less visited part of the Ji-Tong line, where most trains are only single-headed, but with interesting scenery nonetheless.

So after four freezing nights at the Post Office hotel in Reshui, we drive in the late afternoon to Lindong. A fruitless stop at Linxi, a fair-sized town, didn’t produce the camera battery we sought. We briefly pause at Daban, the main motive power depot on the line, and admire the large engine terminal from a road bridge as the sun sets. We had previously agreed to forego the trip to the locomotive depot (admission 200 Yuan=$40) in favour of spending the remaining daylight photographing trains on the mainline. Lindong, at km 693, brings the bonus of being far enough down the line that we can photograph the daily passenger train in daylight. We arrive after dark to a dirty hotel (that at least has heat). The next morning we immediately checked in to the cleaner hotel up the street, which has only recently been approved for foreigners.

Lindong station is about 5 km from town, and is best viewed from a hill overlooking it, on which is a large pagoda, making for some spectacular photographs. Train traffic is not as intense here, and one day we are nearly skunked with just four trains during daylight, but it gave us a lot of time to explore for good locations and to set up for our shots. Mercifully, the temperatures are more moderate, too. Traffic continues to be endless processions of QJ 2-10-2’s on mixed freights – how odd to see a container train pulled by steam.

Two days line side proved sufficient for us, and we were ready to move on. We had a full day’s drive to our final location, Tiefa, north of Shenyang. We drive east through what we discover later to be an area more or less closed to foreigners, but we don’t get arrested(!). China’s first satellite, launched into orbit shortly after our visit, was brought back to earth in this region. Military influence is everywhere. In Chabuga, we find the main street occupied by a parade featuring a lot of people doing a local dance, but, no problem, we drive through anyway. Lunch on the road is once again problematic as most places are closed for spring festival, but eventually we find a nice place in Tongliao where an excellent meal is produced. Here, the landscape is even drier, with sandy soil and even less vegetation than at Jingpeng. The afternoon is spent on a rather good road following a parallel China Rail line where lots of trains, pulled only by diesels, are in evidence. A couple of narrow gauge lines, used for quarrying the sand, cross the new road, but, being diesel operated and with no locos in sight, are passed without stopping Around dark, we turn off the good road and head across country to the concentration of mines focussed on Tiefa (a compound name, made up from Tieling and Faku.) It is late and we want nothing more than to eat and sleep.

The first order of business the next day is to present ourselves at the offices of the colliery company which owns the mines and the cross-shaped railway system so that our photography/linesiding permits can be obtained. We are escorted to a small room where lots of relics are on display and it is made clear that these are available for purchase. I contemplate lugging an SY builder’s plate home and think the better of it. Permits, and passenger schedule, in hand, we explore the system. This was not on our original itinerary but was offered as a replacement for Baotou, now without steam. The company runs about 20 SY class 2-8-2’s, and uses them to provide local passenger service (below) as well as pulling coal to the China Rail interchange. There are several underground mines in the area, each served by rail. Shift changes see a passenger train on each line, too.

For the most part, the area served at Tiefa is flat and uninteresting but interest is provided by the trains and the heavy industrial landscape. There are no turning facilities at the outer ends of the line so locomotives spend 50% of their time running tender first, not the best for photographs, and it seems that our luck is against us as we certainly get more than our 50% quota of tender-first photos. A genuine steam crane is used to coal the locomotives at Tiefa, and a gang of labourers fill baskets of coal to be loaded onto each coach for the heating system. Coal smoke is everywhere. The railway’s roster includes one of the very last SY’s built, in 1999, but we don’t spot this particular engine. We learn that the railway system will replace steam with electric locomotives in a few years.

Two days at Tiefa is just about enough, and at the end of our second full day we realize, suddenly, that our trip is almost finished. All that remains is the three hour van ride to Shenyang, another delicious dinner, and then to say goodbye to Mr. Wong and his trusty JinBei van which has looked after us since Chengde. The three of us and Weishu have a soft class sleeper booked for Beijing – and it is convenient that there are four of us, as each compartment sleeps four. The sleeper looks brand new, it is certainly very comfortable once we get the heat turned down, and we are soon making our way through the night to Beijing. Despite the car’s newness, the toilet facility is strictly Chinese style – hold on and squat! We did have one last day in Beijing which involved a road trip to Dahuichang where a narrow-gauge line serves a limestone quarry; alas, it is not working due to Spring Festival, and we head back to Beijing for our final meal together – Beijing Duck again! All was not lost as I found the trip through the narrow streets of the suburban villages around Beijing to be very interesting, even if we got skunked on our quest for trains. The next day, I’m back on Air Canada, mercifully upgraded to Business Class once we’re in the air, and home to Vancouver. It all seems like a dream, now – one that, hopefully, will recur this winter.

If you have any interest in seeing big steam’s truly final hour, you should go this year for next year may be too late. I’m happy to talk to anyone contemplating a trip – call me at 604 228 1087, evenings before 9.pm. please, or weekends. You may also be interested in my website at http://www3.telus.net/ChinaRail/ which has more photos as well as links to other sites with further information.

For my next trip, I’m hoping to take in the last gasp of the narrow gauge forestry lines in Manchuria: horse logging and narrow gauge steam in the middle of the winter: anyone interested?

Tips for a visit to China:

• Unless you know exactly what you want, speak Mandarin and can read Chinese characters, independent travel for railfanning in China is almost impossible. You need to find a group – my preference is the European organized groups as they offer the best value. You can join virtually all groups in Beijing. The best sources of information are magazines such as Steam Railway (Chapters has it) or the internet, start with the International Steam Pages cited above.
• Do as much research as you possibly can to know what you’re facing and what the pitfalls are. Most general travel guides have nothing on the places of interest to railfans and are therefore a waste of money. I did buy two books on Beijing which include a good introduction to history, culture and customs and which contained maps which I needed for my independent days in the city. Quail’s China Railway Atlas costs around $25 from British booksellers and is well worth it, though it is now hard to find.
• DO TAKE lots of warm clothing capable of being layered, very warm boots/shoes, heavy gloves, head and face protection, sunglasses, film, batteries, snacks like granola bars, and just about anything else you think you’ll need. Once I left Beijing, I spent all of $4.00, and this was in “civilized” Chengde for postcards and stamps; after that, there was almost nothing to buy. At the same time, travel as light as possible, as it’s all got to go on the bus or under a sleeper berth. Don’t count on being able to have laundry done for the duration, and doing it yourself in your room is also impractical as it is very difficult to get things dry.
• Build in some redundancy to allow for loss or failure: at least two cameras are essential, I took both film and digital pictures. Recharging batteries is not a problem if you have a universal charger (220v) and an adaptor plug (Radio Shack or Travel Bug).
• Don’t expect grand luxury, even if you’re booked into the best hotel in town (chances are you will be). Without fail there’ll be something that doesn’t work—get used to it! Most tours do not waste precious daylight by stopping for lunch—we had noodle soup made up in the van with a thermos of hot water obtained from the hotel. Some groups skip breakfast, too, depending upon the train schedules. You can buy all the snack food you want in self-serve supermarkets in Beijing but after that, you may find it difficult to acquire food without the help of your guide.
• Try to avoid Spring Festival (lunar new year, mid-February) as the country shuts up tight for about two weeks. Trains run, but at a reduced schedule, and the passenger trains are crowded even more than usual. Most tour companies just do not schedule trips at this time
• If you’re thinking of going—go now.