Railways - China: books - history and rolling stock

The World's Last Steam Trains: China

The last steam locomotives were withdrawn from China Rail in 2003. After that, some continued to operate heavy freight trains on local railways for a short while, but most were deployed for use on the country's industrial railways, mainly at coal mines and steel works.
This trend continued into the first decade of the 21st century, but subsequently, the number of steam engines in service declined substantially and were confined to just a handful of industrial locations. Steam rail operations in China are now facing extinction.
The modernisation of the railways with the switch from steam to diesel, the closure of unsafe and loss-making collieries and China's drive to reduce pollution and combat climate change from burning coal, have all conspired towards the demise of the industrial lines operating steam in China.

This book looks at the last of the standard-gauge steam operations in China, including Sandaoling, the last steam-worked opencast coal mine in the world; Fuxin, a coal-mining city in Liaoning Province, which until recently, operated the largest surviving fleet of SY locomotives; Baiyin, in Gansu Province, which operated some of the last steam-hauled passenger trains in the world; and Wu Jiu, a remote coal-mining outpost in Inner Mongolia.
Beautifully illustrated with over 120 colour photographs and a description of the operations, this is a striking portrait of the last of the world's operating steam trains.

Chinese Steam - The Last Years

China was the last bastion of the steam railway, with construction of new steam locomotives for industrial use continuing up to the end of 1999. Even now a few locomotives struggle on at collieries and other industrial premises, but this is likely to end very soon as boiler overhauls are almost impossible to obtain at an economical price.
As the steam era was drawing to a close in China, steam enthusiasts visited the remaining operational locations in an increasingly desperate attempt to record what was happening before it was too late.

The Chinese, while often perplexed at the interest expressed by the foreign enthusiasts, were generally welcoming and allowed access to industrial premises and linesides across the vast country. The locations ranged from the far western deserts of Xinjiang to the industrial heartlands of Manchuria with excursions into central China and the Mongolian Autonomous Region. Steelworks and collieries were prominent along with the occasional narrow gauge survivors.

This book showcases the photographs obtained by one enthusiast over ten visits to China between 1992 and 2017.

Chinas letzte Dampfloks - Unterwegs im Reich der Mitte

Edward Broekhuizen jagte nicht nur die Dampfloks der Deutschen Reichsbahn, sondern gehörte auch zu den ersten Dampflokfreunden, die sich Ende der 80er-Jahre auf den Weg ins Reich der Mitte machten: Als andere noch den DDR-Dampfloks hinterhertrauerten, reiste der umtriebige Niederländer bereits mit einer kleinen englischen Reisegruppe durch China.

Damit gehört er zu den Pionieren, die den Einsatz von Dampflokomotiven noch zu ihrer Hochzeit erlebten, fast zehntausend Loks standen auf dem rund 55.000 Kilometer langen Streckennetz im Dienst. Einmalige,bislang unveröffentlichte Bilder gewähren faszinierende Einblicke.

A Belgian Passage to China (1870-1920)

From 1870 to 1914, Belgium - one of the major financial and industrial powers at the time - financed, built and operated hundreds of kilometers of trains and tram lines across the five continents.
The Western sense of supremacy and King Leopold II's urge to colonize were the driving force behind the companies in this country. In China, this adventure resulted in the construction of the railway between Beijing and Hankou and a tram network in Tianjin.

"A Belgian passage to China (1870-1930)" highlights two projects. François Nuyens left Ghent for Tianjin in 1905, where he built a power station and a tram network. In a well-documented diary, Nuyens records his impressions of his stay in China between 1905 and 1908.

The brothers Philippe and Adolphe Spruyt, both doctors, traveled to China to provide medical service at the yards of the Beijing-Hankou railway line. They returned with suitcases full of Chinese antiques. Their interesting correspondence and more than 1,200 photographic glass plates offer a unique insight into the daily life of China in the early twentieth century.