The Railway system in China is its most important connection with other cities. China has over 2 billion people and so most stations can accommodate passenger trains up to 20 and 30 cars long. It seems that the employment opportunities are also on a very massive scale, although the conditions for the workers are unknown to me. At nighttime the major stations are always bustling with porters and station attendants and many trolley pushers with merchandise for selling to passengers. I recall travelling down the mainline and frequently, in the middle of no where, two or three railway workers would come out of a little hut next to the railway line and salute the train as we passed.

This is a station in between Shanghai and Hong Kong. Our train stopped here and I got this photo of the station, still bustling with activity at 2:30am. The windows were all locked, most of which were unlocked by passengers (including myself for the photo!) using our finger nails.

This is Hang Zhou Dong station, which is quite close to the Hong Kong border. There were two other trains in the station, both locals with orange DF4b’s. January 14 1999.

Ghanzhou Station on the 1st of February, 1999. Ghanzhou, also known as Canton, is the capital city of Guangdong province. There were many DF11’s and DF9’s and a line up of brand spanking new DF5d’s ready to be put into shunting service. Ghanzhou station is a very large station and many of the trains split up here for other destinations.

All records have failed me as to where this station is or when it was taken! I do know it would have been taken out of the train window somewhere.

Beijing’s main station as the sun sets.

Best viewed in 800x600 screen resolution. All pages, images and text are Copyright, 2001.