Arrival Beijing 12.00, Taxi to China Rw Publishing Office, 2-7 factory
and Dahuichang and back for 450.
More info about Dahuichang can be found from the following link: http://Steam_in_China/dahuichang/dahuichang.html
Nobody at Dahuichang. Looked around in the works for 30 miutes until someone came and requested money. Thus I moved out. The narrow gauge railway looks as decrepit as ever before, but locomotives 3 and 4 waited for service in the evening hours.
Dahuichang works has a web address:, www.sgjchg.com.cn
Address: Beijing Fengtai area DaHuiChang Lu 88,† Telephone: 010-83874411
(switchboard) †Fax: 010-83879145 †††† zip code: 100074
E-mail: sgjc@mail.east.net.cn
Text from their web page: «The Beijing Beijing Steel Corporation building materials chemical plant is situated at the Beijing western suburbs Fengtai area within the boundaries, subordinated the Beijing Steel Corporation main corporation, The works started in 1954. Staff is more than 1200 people, the factory district area 2200000 square meters, the is one limestone mine, annual production of limestone is 800000 tons; They produce lime for using in metallurgy, building, calcium hydroxide, calcium carbonate, clolonite and other products.
This factory has 10 kilometers of railroads and is connected to the China Rail lines to Beijing.
Back to 2-7 factory where newly repaired JF 2446 shunted. They invited me into the cab, stopped then at a sunny place and asked me to take photos there.
Flight to Huhehaote in the evening, ticket 500 Yuan, airport tax 50
Yuan. I slept in TaiYuan DaJiuDian, single room 188 Yuan, everything worked
and warm. Few other guests.
Visit to Jitong headquarters to discuss some matters. The locomotive
roster can be found <a href=»../jitongtielu/jitonglocos.html»>here</a>.
Jitong got its first QJs 1994 from Jining - Erlian, depot Saihantala, for
use in work trains etc.
Just now, every year they train 15 new locomotive drivers.
I met the dispatchers. They described their job as merely tracking the train movements on the railway. Basically the procedure is as follows: China Rail informas Zhelimu and Benhong stations a while before a freight arrives there for Jitong line. They in turn phone dispatchers at Daban and Baiqi stations about these trains. (From China Railways magazine I know that the China Rail schedule is updated typically every three hours because freights run unreliably). Dispatchers at baiqi and Daban set up the timings for these trains, maybe after first having a cenference with the depots. The timings are approximate and are drawn on the diagram scgema by pencil and ruler. They have a sheet for every 24 hours, with the passenge rtrains put in first, and then they put the frieghts in between. The depot dispatchers in Daban and Baiqi decide which engines and crews are going to run these trains. If engines are lacking, they decide on light engine movements, and probably rearrange train timings to make locomotives available. Baiqi and Daban also have regular conferencing in order to exchange trains at Haoluku. The final step is that Daban and baiqi inform the dispatchers at Huhehaote, who more or less just track what is going on. The people in Huhehaote are also informed baout which engines are ready every day for which section, which are washed out, repaired or in reserve. It looked like the Huhehaote dispatchers just track what goes on and that the depots decide what to run and when.
Evening bus to Zhungeer. The bus station at Huhehaote is right outside
the railway station on the right hand side of the railway station place.
A bus to Zhungeer leaves about every 25 to 30 minutes. 1/2 hours extra
waiting at start (do buses always run half an hour late?), then 3 hours
ride. I went to Xi Yue Xiang Jiudian, tel 0477 4222119, besides the bus
station, 20 yuan for a good room, but only cold water. They own a very
good restaurant in the door besides. The young girls who serve there get
400 Yuan per month. None of them had middle school, as middle school costs
2000 - 3000 in school fees per year. Local police people had a dinner and
proposed help with 4WD cars.
14.00: QJ6573 down from Xiyinghe with 25 loaded wagons.
14.409 QJ 6613 up from Zhoujiawan, and it went up to the mine at 15.
15.40 next empty train with 7054 (Giesl ejektor) and 6759. The locomotives
turned and we coupled on the train. But they somehow decided else, and
at 16 we ran up without the cars. Xiyinghe is just an enormous coal loading
palce with many sidings. Container cars with small containers and two water
tank cars wer parked. We got coal from a bulldozer, the drivers chose which
coal. The shunting for a while, and we went down with a train and an empty
water car. 17.37, arrival Hushi 17.46. We romoved the water car at Hushi.
Further at 18.10, full steam before Fuxingcheng, especially in the 1500
m long tunnel 2. Fuxingcheng 19.08. One hour waiting there for another
westbound train, too long to fit into the siding, maybe more than 50 wagons?.
Departure at 20.08 not too much work until Haizita, but the real hard work
until tunnel 1, 830 m. Full steam there. 6563 with its Giesl ejector made
a real volcano of its chimney.
I alighted at Zhoujiawan eastern station entrance, where the shunted
to. No problem to follow the rails while there was full moon. 3 DF4B og
2 SS3: 0666, 0674, in the city depot (DaZhun railway). This was just behind
the hotel.
Locomotives seen on Feb 15 to 16: 6555 and 6944 dumped in depot
6563, 6565, 6573, 6613, 6759, 6827, 6907, 6995, 7054, 7058, 7067 in
use.
I needed 1 1/2 hours to walk the line to the top at km 9, then through
the tunnel to km 12 and back through the tunnel. There is a niche every
80 steps. Some wildlife, rabbits and big birds, but no trains. Farmers
partly live in homes dug out of caves! 15.30 QJ 6613 light engine westbound.
16.30 QJ 6563 and 6907 light engine westbound.
I gave up and went to Huhehaote, as eastbound traffic would probably
come during the night.
Huhehaote Wang Fu Fandian besides the station for 100Yuan. They had
a good buffet dinner, so you did not need to know what the things were
called, just point on what you liked best....
They have three more diesels now, DF4 9516 to 9518, all looking like
the other DF4D. In principle they could run everything diesel between Baiqi
and benhong, if they ran the diesels a bit more. If they ran them with
four crews each, they could put in more kilometers and probably run 600
kilometers a day. However, the DF4 are run like steam enegines with three
crews each and run in between the steam engines, thus they are underutilized.
They run as much as a QJ, only putting in an extra day every month when
the QJ would have boiler washout. Jitong railway is planning to finish
steam on Baiqi to Benhong this year.
At 21.05 train 6051 (50 min late) to Daban. 10 cars. The train was in Daban at the correct time!
19.2.2003 - 28.2. 2003 Daban - Jingpeng - Haoluku - Daban back and forth, working.
I got my usual room in the depot, greeted the people, and at 11 left
again.
7009 (+6763) to Jingpeng. Empty coal cars, light train. The engine
had a good boiler, easy to fire. Good for the first real work day, for
exercise. Emergency braking just before Jingpeng, as a little girl tried
to cross the line just in front of us. To our luck she had escaped unhurt.
Dinner with the drivers in the little station restaurant near the water
column. We got the same food every coming day, it is made of primarily
local raw materials, but good.
My plan was to return with K 997, and as we were late I had to leave
here. At the station was a doctor waiting to go to Haoluku: He rode by
freight train caboose, like many others. It seems to be the normal way
of transporting people to Haoluku.
Another day 7009 had problems with slag: new coal! Thus coal is of varying quality even if it looks the same!
Yet another day there was a fireman exam. After that the fire was a mess at Linxi. They had to get rid of the slag, and part of the fire went down the drain, as the grate did not close again, so only half the grate was covered with fire at the end. It took half an hour until that engine had steam again.
Yest another day the showel was loose, and on one engine the firedoor would not open. Repairing the showel and then getting hte firedoor open again took more than five minutes, whereafter steam pressure was down to 10 Bar and remained there for a long time. All kinds of small trouble.
Sometimes heavy trains, sometimes light ones. The empty coal car trains
are about 1000 tons, the heaviest drag was 2350 tons. With that load up
from Jingpeng, we had a hard time pulling through the curves and tunnels
above ErDi! Optimal driving was needed to keep the train moving, with a
lot of sanding, opening up steam on the short straights and closing down
a little in the tunels and curves.
Fire difficulties sometimes lead to only one engine working for some
time, while the other one is cooking water. Maybe it is frustrating for
photographers to see one engine shutting steam completely, but of there
is too much slag, you sometimes have to save steam... One day the driver
saw photographers, and decided just there to shut off steam for a while,
letting engine number 2 do the work alone. Another driver did the opposite:
On Feb 27, he opened up full steam and 50% cutoff every time there were
people along the line. That was on QJ 6230 with 6763 as second engine.
Does someone have a photo of that day?
On 20 Feb a little encounter with the mafia at Simingyi bridge: The mafia came, but the driver Zhang Wen Zhong definitely did not want to transport me in his new and clean Mitsubishi 4WD number D 20814. He got scared as I climbed in, dressed in my oily and coaly work dress. A photo of their car is now on my web site. Finally a minibus taxi came and transported me to Linxi, but needed more than one hour on this bad road. Two trains came westbound and made the trip slower... From Linxi another taxi for 80 to Daban depot.
A good way to go to the depot when arriving Daban with the passenger train is hitchhiking with the engine. However, you have to be fast out of the train then! Some engines had up to 15 people standing in the cab, all of them railway workers. Thus, from the station to the depot there was no firing. There is less hitchhiking with the engines the other way around, however.
Yes, and there were the coal scavengers at Linxi station: They creep below the engine and scrape away the coal on the tender coupling. Some drivers were chasing them away as fast as they could. Some drivers just let them get the coal. Poor people! Once we cleaned the back end of the tender from all coal dust lying around there. The scavengers were happy for this: Bags of coal dust!
And then all the photographers: They tend to be at the same places every
time. You see a bus or taxi, and then after we pass they speed along. Soon
after you see them again. I think they have never seen as many laowei as
this winter.
I bought another pair of glasses at the optician in town. The optician has served me well for years. He makes good glasses in half an hour. I was lucky buying them, as Ouzhuwang broke two lenses on two different days. Thus returning from China I still had one pair of galsses...
The photo shop, however, is not good. They develop the film well, but to get good pictures you have to tell them the settings for their machine, standing behing them.
They had bicycles in the bike shop in town. A good one with gears costs about 700 Yuan. Maybe next time I have my own bike here.
The level crossing crossing guard at Haoluku is 72 years old, still working. His little granddaughter showed me her schoolbooks, how she learned pinyin and Hanzi. Most of the texts are rhymes. They served me salt tea with milk. Not bad, especially after a hard day with work. I got an excellent video shot taken by the little girl, of a train starting towards Baiqi, with enormous steam plume and thunder. But she felt so big and educated as I could not read much of her schoolbooks!
One day I took train A 201 from Haoluku back to Daban. Soft Sleeper!
Luxury! There were even taxis at Daban station upon arrival in the middle
of the night and I thus came back to the depot easily. (but they took double
price at that time). Another evening I was in town too late and had to
walk back all the way. Absolutely no taxis out on the road. But nice starts
and absolutely dark night. You never have the stars likie this in Europe!
From here back to Beijing no problems. In Beijing there were the two model shops, and I got the last QJ 6800s they had this time. Maybe I will rebuild one into a Daban engine.
In the evening Ouzhuwang and I had a trip to the fruit market. The seller asked where I was from. I answered «from Norway» and he answered «good you are not a bad American». He got a lot of trouble explaining when Ouzhuwang said he was from the US :-)
And then we went to the acrobat show in Chaoyang theatre. It is a real treat. Jinghua Fandian arranges the driver and all! I have never seen as many people on one bicycle as in this show! Definitely worth a visit.
My wife is a Psychiatrist and Ouzhuwang asked for her professional
opinion on what could be done about this obsession with steam locomotives
("absolutely no cure")? NO, there is absolutely no cure! Being away from
the engines for too long time leads to really depressing symptoms. Work
at the museums railway helps a bit. And she
whill definitely not come to China with me, because I will not go to much
else than steam engines. If we go to Beijing visiting places I will always
think I should rather be at Dahuichang...
Railway workers are selling souvenirs of all kinds, and even cab rides come at a price (I never paid anything, as they consider me to be a fellow worker). In principle it is forbidden to have foreigners in the cab. Some station people report to managers. Thus the crew will want foreigners to disappear at certain places. If they take money, part of that is to cover the risk of the fine. With the low pay they have compared to us, I think it is more than fair that they try to extract money from rich people along the line. I was quite «done» after nine days of work out there, and thinking about the pay that would have given me if I was an ordinary worker I just have to honor them. The more they earn from foreigners along the line, the better!
There is one thing I do: Daban depot gets a sum every year to plant trees. Maybe a few more people may want to join in, paying for new trees at more places along the line. Get a forest on hills along the line called up with your name!