The first action we saw was diesel 015 shunting.  Diesels work the freight with 016 on line work and 015 on shunt.  Although we were not able to confirm this before we arrived, one steam loco works the mixed trains and stables overnight at Baishuihe.  A visit to the shed gives every sign that diesels have taken over with steam in reserve.  Luckily this appearance is false.  

Rob comments on guides who are enthusiastic and guides who are experienced and how we got one of each but not one with both qualities.  This is pretty much my total experience in North China as well although I have had guides who are inexperienced, unenthusiastic and incompetent.  Our Sichuan guide were much better than that.  Helen, our guide, was indeed enthusiastic and insisted she had been here before but, when asked which way was the main line to Baishuihe she pointed left.  Wrong!  That's why we were down at the shed looking the wrong way when C2 0-8-0 71 arrived on train 104.

We boarded the loco for the wagon shunt.  71 dropped off the fulls at the exchange siding with the standard gauge and then picked up some empties to take back up to Baishuihe.  From what we saw, the steam engine serves the hoppers here and the diesel works only to the hoppers at Qingjiangqiao station.  At Pengzhou, the diesel shunt involves different sidings between the station and the shed.  The steam worked siding are beyond the shed near the triangle.  However, this is based on just one afternoon's observations.  

Pengzhou station has been changed in recent years and there may have been a realignment.  The station offices are set back and lower on the right as we depart.  The extensive buildings behind the offices are also marked up with the China Rail symbol but are now used as shops.

We decided that the best course of action on this first short day was to ride the final train of the day until it got dark and then to trust to a bus back.  The road to Baishuihe has been improved recently and apart from two section where the road is the wrong side of the river, most stations are now served by a frequent bus service.  The course of action was based mainly on Rob's experience of independent travel in China and worked perfectly.  So today, we benefited from having a guide with the very smooth transfer from the airport to the line and being independent in spirit and using public transport.  Hiring transport today would have been at considerable expense and to no particular effect.

It was a marvellous thrash out of Pengzhou to Guankou.  Turn up the volume for the noise!

At Guankou 71 collected 2 empty wagons to add to the train from a small siding near a factory.  This siding may be used to deliver coal to the factory.  From Guankou the line gets more scenic and passes several monasteries and a pagoda before turning hard right and crossing a large river bridge with under girders.  The bridge has a flag person who stands at the Guankou end to signal to all trains.  The railway now runs away from the road as far as Tongji.  This is the best section of the line but is accessible only by walking from either end or getting off a train.  We did walk in from the road across the river to Hongxing on the final day but this is not recommended (there is no bridge and the water is cold!).  Hongxing is the site of the disused branch to a coal mine.  The track is still in place and may be used occasionally.  On this first day we left the train at Tongji with a clear idea of two bridge shots we wanted before we left the area.

16 December 2001 
Day 2 started with a visit to the station and a look inside the office.  The map in the office shows the station area layout.  The line to Baishuihe goes left and the interchange sidings worked by steam show clearly to the right of the second shop of the map.
We watched train 101 arrive and when the loco went on shed we walked to find bus to take us to the big river bridge beyond Guankou.  We were there about 30 minutes ahead of the train.  Rob and Helen took a broadside shot of the bridge while I went for the classic video long shot.  The train is seen on the far side approaching the sharp bend before the bridge, the flagman/woman is clearly visible and the train crosses the bridge and accelerates away.  The sharp bend is the spot where a branch formerly went straight on and into a tunnel dated 1982.  Rob and I are not sure if this was the original route of the line or was a branch to a mine.  Any details of this would be welcome.
After the bridge shot we ran back across the bridge but had to wait a while for a bus.  We just managed to catch up with the train after running through the market at Xiaoyudong.  The shots that follow are of the loading operation at the end of the line.  This loading method involving a loco slowly shunting forward and back several times was seen on the standard gauge as well at on the SY worked Gansui line.  After a nutritious lunch with plenty of dofu we rode train 104 as far as Meiziling.  The loco worked tender first to Xiaoyudong where it ran round and turned on the triangle at the Baishuihe end of the station.  This triangle seemed to lead on to a siding into a factory and possibly was where the original line which stayed on the west side of the valley rejoined but that is speculation.  The seemed to be a severe speed restriction over the bridge between Xiaoyudong and Qingjiangqiao and the survival of this bridge may be important to the survival of steam as diesels do not work beyond Qingjiangqiao.  We got off the train at Meiziling and we see 104 departing before we walked down the track to the small coal mine featured below.

The small coal mine is at Shuangxianzi between Guanzhou and Meisuling

Mine on the Pengzhou line.

Another view of this hand and cable worked mine railway.  Note the single bladed points.

Rob Dickinson has these comments on this mine:

"Well worth investigating if you haven't visited one like it before. There is no road access and you need to walk from Meiziling or the Guankou river bridge.

The mine is a tiny private operation with a lightweight 400mm gauge railway, with single blade points. A small tunnel leads to the mining area (best not investigated). Tubs are hauled up three at a time by an electric winch from some considerable depth (I would estimate the haul to be at least 200m). They are then ridden out over the edge of the river with one branch for the waste and one for the coal itself. The tubs are tipped by hand and then pushed back in. The coal lands in a shallow pool off the river and is then filtered. 'Primitive' does not do justice to it." 

The following grim statistics support Rob's comment of "best not investigated."

"China leads the world in coal production--and in lives lost in the mines.  About 5,400 coal miners perished in explosions and other accidents during the first 11 months of last year (2001).  That compares with about 30 mining deaths a year in the United States, which ranks a close second to China in coal production."  Ching-Ching Ni, Los Angeles Times (as syndicated in the Daily Yomiuri February 4, 2002).   The article quotes Shanxi as being the province with the most small mines and some of the worst accident statistics.           

Following the mine footage we see an old man making popcorn for a housewife at a farm house along the line.  This is a popular 'old-boy's' skill and involves a very satisfying explosion at the end of the process.  This man can take his mobile kit from farm to farm.  

We walked across the major rail bridge over the river and rounded the corner on the other side.  The lifted branch is very clearly visible.  The railway buildings (former station?) in the V between the two lines are still used by the flag person.  It seems that the branch had a dedicated track to Guankou.  It's fairly common on single track lines to arrange the split at a large station and to continue parallel but not double track to the actual split.  This is a safety feature.  We speculated on how a tunnel built in 1982 could be out of use.  Any information on this branch or old alignment would be welcome.

The close up of the tunnel confirms the date of 1982 on the disused branch.  The bird is a River Chat.

As we walked on to Guankou station, diesel 016 passed us on the afternoon empty working.  After a pleasant beer at Guankou, we saw the afternoon down passenger arriving before we took a bus back to the hotel, dinner and bed.

17 December 2001 

Our last morning.  We couldn't use the train to get to Hongxing where we wanted to photograph the train on the smaller river bridge so we decided to walk in from the road.  This involved a river crossing and despite being sure that there would be a bridge, there wasn't.  The water was icy but we made it to the station well ahead of the train.  I seem to remember we had an early beer from the shop as we watched the staff and old boy play a poor man's version of mahjong using cards instead of tiles.  Future visitors would be wise to go to Tongji on the bus and then take a 3 wheeler taxi to Hongxing.  The final part is a track but a good road goes part way before branching off to the coal mine formerly served by the branch at Hongxing.  Shots of Honxing show the turntable pit.  The branch is just south of the station and the rails although rarely used didn't look abandoned.

The shot below is a still from the bridge sequence.  The train appeared out of the mist with plenty of white steam.  The reflection in the river was not really planned by when watching a video, you are torn between images to watch and watching it twice both train and reflection is recommended.

Reflection shot of C2 on the morning up mixed at Pengzhou.  This looks great on video.

We ran back to the station where we had asked the staff to hold the train.  This wasn't necessary as 071 waited for 016 to pass on a freight. We rode the mixed to Tongji, grabbed a final station departure shot and then caught a bus back to Pengzhou via the hotel to pick up out luggage and then via Chungdu to Leshan by bus to our hotel for the night in a touristy town famous for its giant Buddha in the river cliff.  Our next narrow gauge line was the Shibanxi - Huangchungjing (the Jiayang Power Company line) south of Leshan.

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