IN THE dust of the Gobi desert in China's far west, ultra-modernity sweeps past an eddy of industrial history in one of railway transportation's most remarkable close encounters. Hundreds of kilometres of track are being laid to connect the country's bullet-train network with Xinjiang, a region bordering on Central Asia. Near Sandaoling, a grim and remote mining town on the edge of Xinjiang, the new line runs close to the world's largest concentration of steam locomotives in active service.
The Sandaoling mine, which opened in 1970, is on a branch of the old railway line between Lanzhou and Urumqi. When the bullet trains start running, coal diggers in the area expect a boom; the plan is to dedicate the old line to freight, which should make transporting coal much cheaper. Every day Sandaoling uses steam locomotives to haul thousands of tonnes of coal out of the vast pit. Around 20 are still in use, far more than a trainspotter can expect to see at work in one place anywhere else.
Steam trains fell out of common use in America in the 1950s and in Britain a few years later. China had the last ones in the world on a main line until 2005. Coal being plentiful and labour cheap, small numbers of steam locomotives remain in industrial use. But Sandaoling is not for the casual day-tripper.
Remote and inhospitable, its locomotives are visited only by the determined (unlike Sichuan province's readily accessible pandas). One visitor, Roger Croston, a British enthusiast, says steam trains are threatened by a desire for modernity. In Sandaoling "the locals think we are mad", he says. "All they are interested in is the high-speed trains."
No comments:
Post a Comment