:''This article is part of the

history of rail transport by country The history of rail transport began in the BCE times. It can be divided into several discrete periods defined by the principal means of track material and motive power used. Ancient systems The Post Track, a prehistoric causeway in the va ...

series.
'' The history of rail transport in China began in the late nineteenth century during the

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...

. Since then, it has become one of the largest rail networks in the world.

Qing dynasty

The first railways in China were built during the

in the late 19th century, after extensive railway networks were already in place in Europe, North America,

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

.(Chinese
"中国铁路的发展历程" ''中国铁路年鉴''
2000 edition The late arrival of railways in China was due both to the lack of industrialization and skeptical attitude of the Qing government. Although diverse and prominent personages such as

Lin Zexu Lin Zexu (30 August 1785 – 22 November 1850), courtesy name Yuanfu, was a Chinese political philosopher and politician. He was the head of states (Viceroy), Governor General, scholar-official, and under the Daoguang Emperor of the Qing dynast ...

and Taiping rebel

Hong Rengan Hong Rengan (; 18 February 1822 – 23 November 1864) was an important leader of the Taiping Rebellion. He was a distant cousin of the movement's founder and spiritual leader Hong Xiuquan. His position as the Gan Wang (干王, lit. "the Shield Ki ...

called for the building of railways in China in the mid-19th century, the conservative Qing court considered steam engines to be "clever but useless" contraptions, and resisted the railways, which would "deprive us of defensive barriers, harm our fields and interfere with our '' feng shui''. In the 1860s, Chinese laborers helped build the

Central Pacific Railroad The Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) was a rail company chartered by Pacific Railroad Acts, U.S. Congress in 1862 to build a railroad eastwards from Sacramento, California, to complete the western part of the "First transcontinental railroad" in N ...

in the United States.

Early efforts

In 1865, a British merchant built a 600-meter long

narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structu ...

railroad outside the Xuanwu Gate in

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

to demonstrate the technology to the imperial court.(Chinese
王勇, "慈禧用太监拉火车酿世界铁路史最大笑话" 《皇城根下的京味文化》时事出版社
2014-01-11 The court found it "exceedingly special and strange in the utmost" and promptly had the railway dismantled. The first railroad to operate commercially in China opened in

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

in July 1876. The railway, known as the

Woosung Road The Woosung railway (Chinese: s , t , p ''Wúsōng Tiělù'')Also Wusong Road or Woo Sung RailwayIt is sometimes also called the Songhu railway, although that name more properly refers to the 1890s railway which ran principally along the same r ...

, ran from the American Concession in the present-day

Zhabei District Zhabei, formerly romanized as Chapei, is a neighborhood and a former district of Shanghai with a land area of and a resident population of 847,300 as of 2013. It is the location of the Shanghai railway station, one of the main railway stations ...

to Woosung in the present-day Baoshan District and was built by the British trading firm,

Jardine, Matheson and Co. Jardine Matheson Holdings Limited (also known as Jardines) is a Hong Kong-based Bermuda-domiciled British multinational conglomerate. It has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and secondary listings on the Singapore Exchange and ...

Construction took place without approval from the Qing government, which had paid 285,000

tael Tael (),"Tael" entry
at the

Kaiping Tramway and Imperial Railways of North China Often described as China's first railway, the first railway to be built and survive in China was the Kaiping (開平) colliery tramway located at Tongshan in Hebei province. However, this was not the first railway in China. An earlier attempt to i ...

constructed by British engineer Claude William Kinder. Initially, a 10 kilometre (6.2 mi) line from

Tangshan Tangshan () is a coastal, industrial prefecture-level city in the northeast of Hebei province. It is located in the eastern part of Hebei Province and the northeastern part of the North China Plain. It is located in the central area of the Boha ...

Xugezhuang Xugezhuang is a former village (Chinese: t , s , p ''Xūgèzhuāng'') and modern town (, ''Xūgèzhuāng Zhèn'') of Fengnan District in Hebei, China. It was the terminus of the second railway to be constructed in China after the abortive Woos ...

built in 1881 to transport coal from the coal mine in Tangshan, this line was extended to

Tianjin Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popul ...

in 1888 and

Shanhaiguan Shanhai Pass or Shanhaiguan () is one of the major passes in the Great Wall of China, being the easternmost stronghold along the Ming Great Wall, and commands the narrowest choke point in the Liaoxi Corridor. It is located in Shanhaiguan Di ...

and

Suizhong Suizhong County () is a county of southwestern Liaoning, People's Republic of China. It is located on the northern coast of the Bohai Sea and is the southernmost county of Huludao City (as well as non-peninsular Liaoning), bordering Hebei to the s ...

in 1894. This railway became known as the "Guanneiwai Railway" (literally, inner and outer Shanhaiguan railway). The railway was backed by the powerful

Viceroy of Zhili The Viceroy of Zhili, fully referred to in Chinese as the Governor-General of Zhili and Surrounding Areas Overseeing Military Affairs and Food Production, Manager of Waterways, Director of Civil Affairs, was one of eight regional Viceroys during ...

Li Hongzhang Li Hongzhang, Marquess Suyi ( zh, t=李鴻章; also Li Hung-chang; 15 February 1823 – 7 November 1901) was a Chinese politician, general and diplomat of the late Qing dynasty. He quelled several major rebellions and served in important ...

, who overcame objections from conservative ministers. To secure the support of the

Empress Dowager Cixi Empress Dowager Cixi ( ; mnc, Tsysi taiheo; formerly Romanization of Chinese, romanised as Empress Dowager T'zu-hsi; 29 November 1835 – 15 November 1908), of the Manchu people, Manchu Nara (clan)#Yehe Nara, Yehe Nara clan, was a Chinese nob ...

for railway construction, Li Hongzhang imported a small train set from Germany and built a

railway from her residence in

Zhongnanhai Zhongnanhai () is a former imperial garden in the Imperial City, Beijing, Imperial City, Beijing, adjacent to the Forbidden City; it serves as the central headquarters for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the State Council of the People' ...

to her dining hall in

Beihai Beihai (; Postal romanization: Pakhoi) is a prefecture-level city in the south of Guangxi, People's Republic of China. Its status as a seaport on the north shore of the Gulf of Tonkin has granted it historical importance as a port of internation ...

in 1888. The Empress, concerned that the locomotive's noise would disturb the

geomancy Geomancy (Greek: γεωμαντεία, "earth divination") is a method of divination that interprets markings on the ground or the patterns formed by tossed handfuls of soil, rocks, or sand. The most prevalent form of divinatory geomancy invo ...

or '' fengshui'' of the imperial city, required the train be pulled by

eunuchs A eunuch ( ) is a male who has been castrated. Throughout history, castration often served a specific social function. The earliest records for intentional castration to produce eunuchs are from the Sumerian city of Lagash in the 2nd millennium ...

instead of steam engine. The next effort was made by

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

Governor

Liu Mingchuan Liu Ming-chuan (1836–1896), courtesy name Xingsan, lived in the late Qing dynasty. He was born in Hefei, Anhui. Liu became involved in the suppression of the Taiping Rebellion at an early age, and worked closely with Zeng Guofan and Li Hongz ...

. From 1887 to 1893, of railway tracks were laid from

Keelung Keelung () or Jilong () (; Hokkien POJ: '), officially known as Keelung City, is a major port city situated in the northeastern part of Taiwan. The city is a part of the Taipei–Keelung metropolitan area, along with its neighbors, New Taipe ...

Taipei Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the n ...

Hsinchu Hsinchu (, Chinese: 新竹, Pinyin: ''Xīnzhú'', Wade–Giles: ''Hsin¹-chu²'') is a city located in northwestern Taiwan. It is the most populous city in Taiwan Province not among the special municipalities, with estimated 450,655 inhabi ...

. However, this railway was later demolished for modernization when Taiwan was under Japanese rule.

Rapid development during 1895–1911

Qing China's defeat in the

First Sino-Japanese War The First Sino-Japanese War (25 July 1894 – 17 April 1895) was a conflict between China and Japan primarily over influence in Korea. After more than six months of unbroken successes by Japanese land and naval forces and the loss of the po ...

greatly stimulated the railway development as the government both recognized the importance of modernization and was compelled by foreign powers to grant concessions to build railways along with settlement and mineral rights. The imperial powers then took to building railways in their spheres of influence. The railroads already built in 1900 had a total length of only 292 miles. Another 4000 miles were in the planning stage. The British built the Shanghai–Nanjing Railway (1905–1908) and

Kowloon–Canton Railway The Kowloon–Canton Railway (KCR; ) was a railway network in Hong Kong.Legislative Council information paper CB(1)357/07-08(0 THB(T) CR 8/986/00, CB(1)1749/07-08(0/ref> It was owned and operated by the Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation (KCRC ...

(completed 1911). The French built the

Sino-Vietnamese Railway Sino-Vietnamese is often used to mean: * Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary, the portion of the Vietnamese vocabulary of Chinese origin or using of morphemes of Chinese origin. People of Chinese origin in Vietnam: * Hoa people or "Overseas Chinese" * Ngá ...

(1904–10), an 855 km line to connect Kunming with Vietnam, then a colony of French Indochina. The Germans built the

Jiaoji Railway Jiaoji (? – ?) was an ancient Chinese figure and the son of Shaohao. History According to the ''Records of the Grand Historian: Annals of the Five Emperors'' by Sima Qian, Jiaoji was the grandson of the Yellow Emperor and a son of Shaohao. Neith ...

in Shandong Province. British and German industrialists jointly built the

Tianjin–Pukou Railway The Tianjin–Pukou or Jinpu railway ( Postal spelling: Tientsin-Pukow Railway; ) runs from Tianjin to Pukou district outside Nanjing in Jiangsu province. History The first proposals to build railways in China began in the 1860s with oppositi ...

. The Americans built the Canton–Sam Shui Railway in Guangdong in 1902–04. Czarist Russia built the

China Eastern Railway The Chinese Eastern Railway or CER (, russian: Китайско-Восточная железная дорога, or , ''Kitaysko-Vostochnaya Zheleznaya Doroga'' or ''KVZhD''), is the historical name for a railway system in Northeast China (als ...

(1897–1901) as a shortcut for the

Trans-Siberian Railway The Trans-Siberian Railway (TSR; , , ) connects European Russia to the Russian Far East. Spanning a length of over , it is the longest railway line in the world. It runs from the city of Moscow in the west to the city of Vladivostok in the ea ...

and the

Southern Manchuria Railway The South Manchuria Railway ( ja, 南満州鉄道, translit=Minamimanshū Tetsudō; ), officially , Mantetsu ( ja, 満鉄, translit=Mantetsu) or Mantie () for short, was a large of the Empire of Japan whose primary function was the operatio ...

to Port Arthur. To prevent domination by bigger powers, the Qing Court gave the rights to the Beijing–Hankou railway to Belgians. The Japanese initially received numerous concessions along the coast of Fujian and Guangdong, and built the

Chao Chow and Swatow Railway The ChaoChow–Swatow Railway or "Chao-Shan" railway was a privately financed and constructed standard gauge railway which ran between Chaozhou, Chaochow () and Swatow () in Guangdong Province between 1906 and 1939.The China Year Book 1929-30, e ...

(1904–06). After winning the

Russo-Japanese War The Russo-Japanese War ( ja, 日露戦争, Nichiro sensō, Japanese-Russian War; russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, Rússko-yapónskaya voyná) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and 1 ...

in 1904, the Japanese took over the southern section of the China Eastern Railway (from Changchun to Port Arthur) and the entire Southern Manchuria Railway. By 1911, there were around 9,000 km of rails in China. Most of the rails used the . KCRC early railway network of China

The imperial capital,

, was designed as the center of the Chinese railway network. Several lines radiated out from Beijing. Three main lines are Beijing–Hankou Railway, Beijing–Fengtian Railway, and

. Jinghan railway was from eh Beijing to

Hankou Hankou, alternately romanized as Hankow (), was one of the three towns (the other two were Wuchang and Hanyang) merged to become modern-day Wuhan city, the capital of the Hubei province, China. It stands north of the Han and Yangtze Rivers wher ...

. The construction started in 1897 and was completed in 1906. The Guangneiwai railway was extended west to Beijing and east to Fengtian by 1912 and renamed as Beijing–Fengtian Railway. The Tianjin–Pukou Railway, built from 1908 to 1912. It ran from Tianjin, which was connected by the Beijing–Fengtian Railway, to

Pukou Pukou District (), is one of 11 districts of Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu province, China, lying northwest across the Yangtze River from downtown Nanjing. The district was formerly the southern terminus of the Tianjin-Pukou Railway; railcars ...

across the Yangtze River from Nanjing.

Railway protection movement and the Xinhai Revolution

The rapid expansion of foreign railroad ownership and operation in China aroused strong public resentment and led to calls for domestic development of railways. To help local economies develop and retain earnings from railways, the Qing government in 1904 permitted local provinces to organize their own railway companies and raise funds by selling shares to the public. From 1904 to 1907, 15 provincial governments formed their own railway building companies and raised funds by selling shares to citizens and levying taxes. The Beijing–Zhangjiakou Railway built from 1905 to 1909, was the first railway to be designed and built indigenously. The chief engineer was

Zhan Tianyou Zhan Tianyou/Chan T'ien-yu (; 26 April 1861 – 24 April 1919), or Jeme Tien-Yow as he called himself in English, based on the Cantonese pronunciation, was a pioneering Chinese railroad engineer. Educated in the United States, he was the chief ...

, who is known as the Father of China's Railways. The

Shanghai–Hangzhou Railway The Shanghai–Hangzhou railway, also known as the Huhang railway (), is a double-track railroad in eastern China between Shanghai and Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province. Its name in Chinese, the Huhang Line, is named after the railway's two terminal ...

, 189 km in length and completed in 1909, was financed by the provincial governments of Jiangsu and Zhejiang. The Zhengding–Taiyuan Railway, originally planned to run from Zhengding County in Hebei Province, was routed from Shijiazhuang instead and opened in 1907. In 1911, when some of the provincial railway ventures fell into bankruptcy, the foreign powers pressed the Qing government to permit them to take over the ventures. In May 1911, the Qing government sought to nationalize these locally controlled railway companies and pledge their railway concessions to foreign banks in exchange for loans. The nationalization order provoked fierce public opposition that led to the

Railway Protection Movement The Railway Protection Movement (), also known as the "Railway Rights Protection Movement", was a political protest movement that erupted in 1911 in late Qing China against the Qing government's plan to nationalize local railway development proje ...

, which contributed to the outbreak of the

Xinhai Revolution The 1911 Revolution, also known as the Xinhai Revolution or Hsinhai Revolution, ended China's last imperial dynasty, the Manchu-led Qing dynasty, and led to the establishment of the Republic of China. The revolution was the culmination of a d ...

. Troops sent to Sichuan from neighboring Hubei weakened defenses in

Wuhan Wuhan (, ; ; ) is the capital of Hubei, Hubei Province in the China, People's Republic of China. It is the largest city in Hubei and the most populous city in Central China, with a population of over eleven million, the List of cities in China ...

where revolutionaries launched the

Wuchang Uprising The Wuchang Uprising was an armed rebellion against the ruling Qing dynasty that took place in Wuchang (now Wuchang District of Wuhan), Hubei, China on 10 October 1911, beginning the Xinhai Revolution that successfully overthrew China's last i ...

. The ensuing

toppled the Qing dynasty.

Republic of China

After founding the

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...

on January 1, 1912, Dr.

Sun Yat-sen Sun Yat-sen (; also known by several other names; 12 November 1866 – 12 March 1925)Singtao daily. Saturday edition. 23 October 2010. section A18. Sun Yat-sen Xinhai revolution 100th anniversary edition . was a Chinese politician who serve ...

agreed to cede the provisional presidency to Yuan Shikai in exchange for the latter's assistance in securing the abdication of Qing court. Sun believed that a national railway network was key to the modernization of China. He sought and received from Yuan Shikai, the portfolio of railway development for the new republic. From 1928 to 1937, the Republican government in Nanjing built 3,600 km of railway inside the

Great Wall The Great Wall of China (, literally "ten thousand Li (unit), ''li'' wall") is a series of fortifications that were built across the historical northern borders of ancient Chinese states and Imperial China as protection against Eurasian noma ...

, some after 1934 financed through the

China Development Finance Corporation The China Development Finance Corporation (CDFC, zh, 中國建設銀公司) was an investment company formed in 1934 to facilitate investment in the Republic of China, specifically into infrastructure development and in particular railways. Its ...

Manchuria Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endo demonym " Manchu") for a historical and geographic region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China (Inner Manchuria) and parts of the Russian Far East (Outer Manc ...

, located beyond the wall, had 900 km of railways built from 1928 until 1931, when the region was captured by Japan.

World War II

During the

Second Sino-Japanese War The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Th ...

of 1937–1945, the Republican government dismantled a number of railways to slow the Japanese advance and added 1,900 km of railways, mostly in the interior of China after coastal regions were occupied. Among the completed lines were the Longhai Railway (Lingbao–Tongguan and Xi'an–Baoji sections), Zhejiang–Jiangxi Railway (Hangzhou–Pingxiang section) and the Guangdong–Hankou Railway (Zhuzhou–Shaoguan section). The Shanxi warlord

Yan Xishan Yan Xishan (; 8 October 1883 – 22 July 1960, ) was a Chinese warlord who served in the government of the Republic of China. He effectively controlled the province of Shanxi from the 1911 Xinhai Revolution to the 1949 Communist victory in ...

built the narrow gauge Datong–Puzhou Railway across Shanxi Province. The Japanese occupiers, using forced labor, built 5,700 km of railway in

and

Rehe Province Rehe (), also romanized as Jehol, was a former Chinese special administrative region and province. Administration Rehe was north of the Great Wall, west of Manchuria, and east of Mongolia. Its capital and largest city was Chengde. The second ...

and 900 km of railway in

China Proper China proper, Inner China, or the Eighteen Provinces is a term used by some Western writers in reference to the "core" regions of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty of China. This term is used to express a distinction between the "core" regions popu ...

. In 1941, construction began of the Yunnan Burma Railway, an attempt to link British occupied

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

with

Kunming Kunming (; ), also known as Yunnan-Fu, is the capital and largest city of Yunnan province, China. It is the political, economic, communications and cultural centre of the province as well as the seat of the provincial government. The headquar ...

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked Provinces of China, province in Southwest China, the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is ...

province. Ultimately, however, the project was aborted.

1945–1949

In 1945, just after the

, the Chinese mainland had 27,000 km of rail, and it was estimated about 23,000 km was usable. By 1948, the number of usable kilometers of rail was estimated at only 8,000 km due to the

Chinese Civil War The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China and forces of the Chinese Communist Party, continuing intermittently since 1 August 1927 until 7 December 1949 with a Communist victory on m ...

. The

Communists Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a so ...

actively sabotaged rail lines to disrupt the ruling

Nationalists Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...

(Kuomintang), and the Nationalists scavenged lesser used railways in order to repair the most important ones.Norton S. Ginsburg, ''

Geographical Review The ''Geographical Review'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by Routledge on behalf of the American Geographical Society. It covers all aspects of geography. The editor-in-chief is David H. Kaplan (Kent State University). ...

'', Vol. 41, No. 3 (Jul., 1951), pp. 470–474

People's Republic of China

In 1951, after extensive investment in reconstruction, the Communists, who established the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

(PRC) in October 1949, had restored the usable network to about 22,000 km. Most of the early reconstruction (about 11,000 km) was in Manchuria because Soviet and Japanese occupation there reduced the amount of sabotage between the fighting parties, allowing for quick repairs. On October 14, 1949, the cross-border service on the

was suspended as a result of the

communist revolution A communist revolution is a proletarian revolution often, but not necessarily, inspired by the ideas of Marxism that aims to replace capitalism with communism. Depending on the type of government, socialism can be used as an intermediate stage ...

, and it was not resumed until April 4, 1979. Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge - the railway level

In fact, when the PRC was established in 1949, China had constructed 27,380 km of railway, but only 24,090 km was kept, including 10,309 km in the northeastern part of China, and 919 km in

.中國鐵路1863－1949:在愚昧、專制、侵略下掙扎(一), 袁偉時

Railway construction in the 1950s

The end to decades of warfare in China allowed railway construction to proceed on a large scale. In the 1950s, the government initiated numerous railway building projects to fill in missing links in the country's rail network. The new government undertook a vigorous railway building campaign. From 1952, when the first railway of the People's Republic, the

Chengdu–Chongqing Railway Chengdu–Chongqing railway or Chengyu railway (), is a single-track electrified railroad in the Sichuan Basin of Southwest China between the cities Chengdu and Chongqing. Chongqing's short form name is Yu (渝) and the railway is named after the ...

entered operation, to the end of the

First Five Year Plan The first five-year plan (russian: I пятилетний план, ) of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was a list of economic goals, created by Communist Party General Secretary Joseph Stalin, based on his policy of socialism in ...

in 1957, of railroads were built, accounting for 18% of the national total. The lines completed during this period include the final sections of the Longhai and Xianggui Railways, the Litang–Zhanjiang, Yingtan–Xiamen, Lancun–Yantai and

Xiaoshan–Ningbo Railway The Xiaoshan–Ningbo railway or Xiaoyong railway (), is a double-track railroad in eastern China between Hangzhou and Ningbo in Zhejiang Province. Its name in Chinese, the Xiaoyong Line, is named after the railway's two terminal stations, Xiaos ...

s. These lines, along with the

Baoji–Chengdu Railway The Baoji–Chengdu railway or Baocheng railway (), is a mixed single- and double-track, electrified, railroad in China between Baoji in Shaanxi province and Chengdu in Sichuan province. The Baocheng Line is the main railway connection between t ...

(completed in 1958) and the 1,900 km

Lanzhou–Xinjiang Railway The Lanzhou−Xinjiang railway or Lanxin railway (), is the longest railway in Northwestern China. It runs 1904 kilometres (1,183 miles) from Lanzhou, Gansu, through the Hexi Corridor, to Ürümqi, in Xinjiang. It was Xinjiang's only rail link wi ...

to Urumqi (completed in 1962), extended the national rail network to the Northwest and Southwest, and added connections between the coast and interior. In 1957, passenger trains averaged 34.8 km/h and freight trains averaged 25.2 km/h.

The Great Leap Forward

The launch of the

Great Leap Forward The Great Leap Forward (Second Five Year Plan) of the People's Republic of China (PRC) was an economic and social campaign led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1958 to 1962. CCP Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to reconstruc ...

in 1958 was intended to rapidly expand railway transport, but produced counterproductive results. The shipment of freight, which was not quite 300 million tons in 1957, was targeted to reach 900 million tons by 1959 and 3 billion tons by 1972. The length of newly planned railways rose from 20,000 km to 70,000, and 120,000 km over the next 15 years. To reach these targets, the railroads were pushed beyond their capacity. Without experimentation, freight trains on all major lines increased carrying load from 2,700 tons to 3,600 tons without adding power to locomotives. This caused trains to backslide on slopes, damage to rolling stock and steam engines to dry boil. On time rates fell precipitously. The railways did set new records, 1.4 billion passenger rides and 1.5 billion tons of freight delivered in the three years between 1958 and 1960, some 200 million passengers and 0.5 billion tons more than the five years from 1953 to 1958, but the freight load fell to 345 million tons in 1962. The economic dislocation caused by the Great Leap Forward slowed down railway construction. Numerous lines such as the Dazhou-Chengdu Railway were delayed for decades as a result. Rail operations were revamped in 1961 and performance improved. In 1965, freight carried reached 480 million tons and the system set a new record for net income. The

Sino-Soviet split The Sino-Soviet split was the breaking of political relations between the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union caused by doctrinal divergences that arose from their different interpretations and practical applications of Marxism–Len ...

prompted the leadership to shift railway building toward the "Third Line", in the mountainous regions of the interior, away from the east coast and Soviet border.

Cultural Revolution

The launch of the Cultural Revolution in 1966 brought political turmoil to the country and disruptions to railway operations. In the fall of 1966, by Chairman Mao's edict, the Red Guards from around the country could travel on trains for free. To prevent political factional fighting to spread into the railways, the national railways were assigned to the command of the military in the summer of 1967. Railway management and operations, nevertheless, slipped rapidly. Accident rates rose 25% from 1966 to 1967, and another 20% from 1967 to 1968. Premier

Zhou Enlai Zhou Enlai (; 5 March 1898 – 8 January 1976) was a Chinese statesman and military officer who served as the first Premier of the People's Republic of China, premier of the People's Republic of China from 1 October 1949 until his death on 8 J ...

and other moderate leaders pushed back against leftist-radical management of the railway and operations began to improve in 1969. In 1973, the system shipped 800 million tons, a new record. In 1974, however, the

Gang of Four The Gang of Four () was a Maoist political faction composed of four Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials. They came to prominence during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) and were later charged with a series of treasonous crimes. The gang ...

with the Criticize Lin, Criticize Confucius Campaign, reasserted the leftist line and railway performance plummted again. From the summer of 1974 to early 1975, railway hubs in

Xuzhou Xuzhou (徐州), also known as Pengcheng (彭城) in ancient times, is a major city in northwestern Jiangsu province, China. The city, with a recorded population of 9,083,790 at the 2020 census (3,135,660 of which lived in the built-up area ma ...

Changsha Changsha (; ; ; Changshanese pronunciation: (), Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is the capital and the largest city of Hunan Province of China. Changsha is the 17th most populous city in China with a population of over 10 million, an ...

Guiyang Guiyang (; ; Mandarin pronunciation: ), historically rendered as Kweiyang, is the capital of Guizhou province of the People's Republic of China. It is located in the center of the province, situated on the east of the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau, ...

, and

Baotou Baotou (; mn, Buɣutu qota, Бугат хот) is the largest city by urban population in Inner Mongolia, China. Governed as a prefecture-level city, as of the 2020 census, its built-up (''or metro'') area made up of its 5 urban districts is h ...

experienced freight bottlenecks. In April 1975, Deng Xiaoping took control of the leadership and directed the railways to focus on productivity and safety. In April 1975, the railways' coal carrying targets were met for the first time in nearly five years. In early 1976, after Deng Xiaoping was removed from power and the Gang of Four reasserted control, railway performance declined again. Compared to 1975, freight fell by 46.3 million tons year-on-year, accidents rose by 17% and tax revenues paid to the state fell by 740 million. Despite the turmoil of the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goal ...

and slowdown in rail construction at home, the Chinese Railway Ministry and the Rail Corps managed to build a 1,860 km railway across

Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands and ...

and

Zambia Zambia (), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa, although it is typically referred to as being in Southern Africa at its most cent ...

. The

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was by far the largest foreign aid project undertaken by China in Africa. As many as 56,000 Chinese engineers and workers were sent overseas from 1968 to 1975. After the Cultural Revolution ended and the

economic reforms An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the p ...

were launched in 1978, the railways were reorganized and rededicated to improving safety, performance, technology and profitability. These principles have guided the railway's operations in the decades since. In 1998, passenger trains averaged 54.5 km/h and freight trains averaged 31.8 km/h.

Slowdown in the 1980s

After China initiated market-oriented economic reforms in 1978, railway building slowed as state funds were directed toward higher return investments. It was not until the 1990s, after more than a decade of economic growth, that the state committed the funds to renew large-scale railway building.

Railway building boom since 1990

In 1990, the Lanxin Railway was extended by the Northern Xinjiang Railway to the Kazakh border. In 1999, the Southern Xinjiang Railway brought railway service to

Kashgar Kashgar ( ug, قەشقەر, Qeshqer) or Kashi ( zh, c=喀什) is an oasis city in the Tarim Basin region of Southern Xinjiang. It is one of the westernmost cities of China, near the border with Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Pakistan ...

in the far west. The railway to

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however, was more difficult to build due to the high altitude and terrain. Rail lines were first extended to

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, and by 1984 another section between Xining and

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was completed. It was not until 2006 that the whole of the Qingzang railway was finished, linking

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with rest of China. Since then, every province-level entity in the People's Republic of China has a railway network.

End of the steam age

Train and traffic going to the Great Wall

Before the 1980s, due to the low labor cost, ease of manufacture, and cheap coal price,

steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...

s dominated the Chinese railways. During the 1980s and 90s,

diesel Diesel may refer to: * Diesel engine, an internal combustion engine where ignition is caused by compression * Diesel fuel, a liquid fuel used in diesel engines * Diesel locomotive, a railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engin ...

and

electric locomotive An electric locomotive is a locomotive powered by electricity from overhead lines, a third rail or on-board energy storage such as a battery or a supercapacitor. Locomotives with on-board fuelled prime movers, such as diesel engines or gas ...

s gradually replaced steam engines on the main lines. On some provincial rails, however, steam locomotives were not retired until the 21st century. In December 2005, the world's last regular revenue mainline steam train finished its journey on the Jitong railway, marking the end of the steam era. Nevertheless, there are still some steam locomotives used on the industrial railways in China. As a part of infrastructure upgrade, China in 2007 opened its first

high-speed rail High-speed rail (HSR) is a type of rail system that runs significantly faster than traditional rail, using an integrated system of specialised rolling stock and dedicated tracks. While there is no single standard that applies worldwide, lines ...

lines using trains with origins in Canada, France, Germany and Japan.

Network length table

Notes

* a. There is a significant discrepancy in the total length of China's railways reported by ''

China Statistical Yearbook The ''China Statistical Yearbook'' (traditional Chinese: 中國統計年鑑; simplified Chinese: 中国统计年鉴), also translated into English as ''China Statistical Annual'', is a large-scale yearbook of statistical information comprehensivel ...

'' ( at year end 2015)''China Statistical Yearbook 2016'' "Length of Transport Routes at Year-end by Region (2015)"
Accessed 2017-02-16 and the ''CIA Factbook'' ( in 2014).
Accessed 2017-02-16 The ''CIA Factbook'' figure is based on "the total length of the railway network ''and of its component parts.''" The ''Statistical Yearbook'' figure includes "the total length of the trunk line for passenger and freight transportation in full operation or temporary operation" and measures the actual route distance between the midpoints of railway stations.(Chinese

Accessed 2017-02-16[http://data.stats.gov.cn/english/easyquery.htm?cn=C01 National Bureau of Statistics of China, ''National Data'', Annual Data, Length of Transport Routes, Length of Railways in Operation (10000 km), Explanatory Notes of Indicators"] Accessed 2017-02-16 Any double-tracked route or route with a return track of shorter distance is counted using the length of the original route. The length of any return tracks, other tracks within stations, maintenance and service tracks (such as those used to turn trains around), tracks of fork lines, special purpose lines and non-revenue connecting lines are excluded. The ''Statistical Yearbook'' provides cross-year and cross-regional breakdowns of railway length and its figures are presented in China railway articles.

References

External links

China Academy of Railway Sciences
{{DEFAULTSORT:History Of Rail Transport In China