After a period of refusing to allow night access, the steelworks are now issuing permits to visit the slag dump during hours of darkness again. Night time visits to the “big light show” are charged at 300 RMB, in addition to the day visiting fee.
The use of steam will finish by the end of 2008. One out of three slag dumps is already served by diesel. By November 2008 the last slag dump will be dieselised. The steelworks at Baotou has the last officially accessible slag dump in China, which is still served by steam. This means September/October will be the last chance to watch the spectacle. After the diesels have taken over here, there will still be a chance for an unofficial visit to the slag dump in Baiyin, but this location is not really photogenic. Locos in Baiyin always face towards the safety wagon which is in between the loco and the only two slag wagons.
During our visit these locos were in service:
No changes in Baiyin regarding the use of steam. Just recently they postponed the decision when to buy diesel locos by three years! But before you light a fire of joy you should consider that decisions last as long as the manager is in office. A change in the manager’s chair may change everything within days.
The old smelter in Sanyelian will be shut down as soon as the new smelter has been finished. The capacity of the new smelter is well above that of the old one, so more trains to Sanyelian are to be expected. Unfortunately most of them are tender first uphill.
Bad news as well: we were told that a group of British visitors almost caused an accident, as a participant nearly fell down the 800 metre deep shaft of the mine in Kuangshan. Because of this, a special permit has been needed, since Chinese new year 2008, to enter the mine area. Also permits for foreign railfans are not issued any more for the area beyond Dongchanggou. It’s also not allowed to walk along the track beyond Dongchanggou. However, even with the limited permit to Dongchanggou you can still experience one of the best standard gauge steam lines in China, and hence all over the world. Hard working engines, sometimes even stalling on the steep gradient, passenger trains and mountain scenery put Baiyin firmly on the route map as “well worth a visit”.
We saw the following locomotives:
The local line has ceased all passenger services, including the school train and the mixed. Only the freight traffic with one or two trains a day remains. There was no fixed schedule for the freight trains, they can run at any time of the day (or night).
They told us they were to get their first diesel loco in April 2008. After its arrival it should take over about 50% of all trains, the other half should be still steam operated. From the experience of other local lines in China we are almost sure that all line service will be dieselised as soon as the diesel has arrived. They’ll use steam only for shunting and serving the fertilizer factory and the industries around Liujiaxia.
They’ll continue to offer charter trains. After a tour operator paid 60,000 RMB for a charter train (I was told by the manager) it’s rather unlikely that negotiations will start from a reasonable price. The contract they offer after you’ve paid them, contains only five photo stops along the line, so you need to calculate in some extra expenses if you want to use the potential of the line, which is immense. We paid about three quarters of the above mentioned price as a base, but including all the tips, we touched almost 50.000 RMB. After we finished our tour they told us that if we were to come again the price would be at least 15 % higher.
In Sanyuangzi, east of Lanzhou, we passed by a steel works or something like that. We saw the recently dumped SY 1459. Two diesels were seen in use. It was not clear whether there is still any steam around.
The narrow gauge line is slowly transforming into a tourist attraction. Visiting tourists are mainly from the mega cites of Chengdu and Chongqing (which is – with more than 33 million inhabitants – considered to be the largest city in the world). For these tourists they have introduced the new glass boxes – coaches with a round view of the countryside. The normal consist for the locals has again been reduced by one coach, making a train now only six coaches.
When there are many tourists flooding the railway they’ve become used to running special tourist trains. Because of this, the local passenger trains are unspoiled by tourist coaches and well worth photographing. This happens frequently at weekends. We visited Shibanxi during the rape flower season. The management have just introduced a rape flower festival which should be held annually in mid March. The special trains, usually two per day at weekends, have tourist coaches only. The tourist trains will stop at least once at a place, where rape can be taken as the foreground of a train picture. In our case kilometre 9.5 was chosen. The local tourists went into the rape field, damaged many of the rape flowers, made a picture, left plastic rubbish and empty cigarette boxes behind and continued. The farmer was not amused. Obviously children from the big cities don’t know where their food comes from. They just buy it from the supermarket around the next corner ...
The passenger train schedule has been changed back to the old one.
Besides the passenger trains there were up to two freight trains per day. We didn’t only see the usual coal trains, but also trains with mixed goods, such as cable drums and bricks. The brick train also had a traditional passenger coach at the end for the use of railway staff.
The management do not allow any visitors to their depot any more. They said it’s too dangerous ... if you see the crowds from Chengdu and Chongqing you tend to believe them.
The railway bought locomotives from the now closed line in Pengzhou (west of Chengdu). The locos can’t be used on the Shibanxi line unless they make several adjustments. But they’re using the four axle tenders on the Shibanxi locos, which doesn’t make them looking any better. One still carries the three axle tender but two already have the long tender.
Locos in use:
Between August and December 2008 they’ll open up the new mine in Longwangzhuang. This mine is situated close to the tunnel and already has a railway link. This new mine will be served by diesel locomotives. The management told us they are going to buy brand new diesels but the type and the number of new diesels was not yet known. Once the diesels have arrived, the line service will be exclusively diesel operated.
The area of the triangle near the unloading facility was already sold to another company so locos can’t be turned at the end of the line any more. Most of the operation is now chimney first downhill and tender first uphill..
After the diesels have arrived it will still be possible to charter trains. But tender first uphill trains combined with rising prices and a not so friendly management makes this offer rather uninteresting.
The production at the old mine was low. Only a few trains ran, although more than during our last visit the previous year. The new mine will become the main source of coal in a few months.
Locomotives (all ZM16-4/C2)
No changes on the brickworks line of Xingyang. Even the manager could not give any forecasts about the line. The brickworks which are served by rail give the impression of being very busy. This gives a little hope to see the line in working condition for the next few months or, maybe, even years.
The additional new diesels haven’t replaced the QJ’s, they’ve replaced more JS’s. However, the heavy overhaul of QJ 6786 seems to be the last overhaul of a loco of this class at Pingdingshan. The loco, which has even got new tyres, should be outshopped in April 2008.
The use of steam is further declining. On the line to Yuzhou, the last domain of the QJ’s, some trains were diesel hauled. You can expect only a few single QJ-hauled trains during daylight hours. There are more trains, but several run during the night.
The use of JS’s was limited to the passenger trains, shunting engines and three locos for freight duties. In the signal cabin at Bakuang they assured us there would be no steam freight any more, all except the passenger and the line to Yuzhou is dieselised now. Less than three hours later a JS powered freight ran passed our group, so … on the line to Hanzhuangzhan there are still some freights with steam.
Beside these locomotives there is still a number of JS and QJ in the depot at Pingdingshan under steam as spare locomotives.
By June 2008 there should arrive three additional diesels. The end of 2008 should mark the end of classes SY (in March were none of this class in use) and JS. It’s likely that a QJ will end steam use in Pingdingshan. No one could say when exactly this might be expected.
Besides a number of diesels, these steelworks northwest of Kunming use about a dozen SY’s. We were told that they do not carry out main repairs any more but just replace steam by diesel. However, the locos in use were in good external and technical condition, even dumped locomotives in the depot were well kept and cleaned. All dumped locos had no builder’s plates any more. They had also removed all armatures from the cab, either to prevent them from being stolen or to use them as spares for the running fleet.
The steelworks are much greener than others in China. Around the blast furnaces you’ll find the steam locos. They are used for shunting raw iron trains and slag trains. Slag trains will be handed over to diesel just before the slag dump. The slag dump is operated by another company and not accessible with the steelworks permit.
There are several good photographic opportunities around the blast furnaces. Between the two complexes there is a pedestrian bridge spanning the shunting area. The bridge is just placed at the best position for getting good shots. Many movements are chimney first and this makes the steelworks well worth a visit.
SY 0320 is a decorated loco in pristine condition.
The ore open cast lines in the area are served by Chinese built electric locomotives. The operation has only a very rarely used link to the state railway for transferring rolling stock but is otherwise an isolated network. The spur in a steep gradient is obviously used less than once per week. The spur goes to the unloading point, where the ore is shipped to the state railway via an underground conveyor belt. During a brief visit to the unloading point we saw four electric locomotives (all in use):
In the steelworks we found:
Diesel, all in use
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