China's New Railways
The Ji-Tong Railway
The "new" Ji-Tong Railway in Inner Mongolia, nearly 1000km of line built through the wild barren landscape of steppes and mountains - all steam operated! Opened to traffic 1st December 1995.
"This line was built by the Inner Mongolia autonomous Region and Central Government on the principle as the common cause of joint investment, joint construction and enjoy profit and run risk in common". The "JTR" (Jining-Tongliao Railroad) was built for a cost of 2,170,000,000 Yuan ($270,000,000) from central and local government including a loan from the world bank of $150 million.
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Some most spectacular viaducts, tunnels and steep climbs abound, mostly at the Jingpeng Pass.
The mighty "QJ" class 2-10-2
There are 98 of these massive engines allocated to three depots to operate this line. They weigh 135 tones plus the tender 85 tones. Just to put this in proportion a UK "9F" 2-10-0 weights 86 tones plus 53 tones. It is quite a climb up those steps and onto the footplate, they need to be sloping otherwise you would seem to be climbing a sheer face.
There is only one passenger train every two days but countless coal trains going east and timber trains going west. This picture is taken from the Daban (Bairin Youqi) depot which has an allocation of 61 QJs. It is January 2nd and the temperature is about -20c, as can be seen by the ice on the front of the left hand loco, to the right, the main single line shows a west bound freight with two QJs storming out of the yard on the climb out of Daban. On the left two locos are about to leave the depot to join their train, all trains going west from here are double headed due to the grades on this section. It takes the passenger train 22 hours to go west from here to Jining on the main line.
The population in this area is a mixture of Han Chinese, Mongol and Manchu. It is a very bleak and cold part of the world and one of the least populated in China.
The Depot at Daban
Daban (Bairin youqi) locomotive depot is the largest of 3 on the line and here we see on the left the depot director and one of his three deputies on the right, "visitor" in the center. In the background is the main entrance and ornamental wall opposite.
Conditions here can be very bleak with an icy wind and snow flurries. The sight and sound of steam was always present, day and night, even the steam coal shovels never seemed to stop at this busy place. The amazing sunsets are well shown in the picture below looking away from the depot across the main line towards the distant hills with the temperature rapidly falling to very "uncomfortable".
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