Rail transport in China began in the late nineteenth century during the Qing dynasty. Since then, the Chinese rail network has become one of the largest in the world.
Qing dynasty The first railways in China were built during the Qing dynasty in the late 19th century, after extensive railway networks were already in place in Europe, North America, India and Japan.(Chinese) "" 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 and Taiping rebel Hong Rengan 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 in the United States.
Early efforts
In 1865, a British merchant built a 600-meter long narrow gauge railroad outside the Xuanwu Gate in Beijing to demonstrate the technology to the imperial court.(Chinese) 2016-03-30(Chinese) , Beijing Book Co. Inc. 2015(Chinese) 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 in July 1876. The railway, known as the Woosung Road, ran from the American Concession in the present-day Zhabei District to Woosung in the present-day Baoshan District and was built by the British trading firm, Jardine, Matheson and Co. Construction took place without approval from the Qing government, which had paid 285,000 taels of silver for the railroad and had it dismantled in October 1877.Woosung Road – the story of China's First Railway” by Peter Crush, published Hong Kong 1999 () The rails and rolling stock were later shipped to Taiwan, where they idled and eventually became unusable due to rust. In late 1884, Jardine Matheson arranged a loan of 500 million taels of silver to the Chinese government in late 1884 "for the purpose of building railways".
The first railway to endure was the Kaiping Tramway and Imperial Railways of North China constructed by British engineer Claude William Kinder. Initially, a 10 kilometre (6.2 mi) line from Tangshan to Xugezhuang built in 1881 to transport coal from the coal mine in Tangshan, this line was extended to Tianjin in 1888 and Shanhaiguan and Suizhong 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, Li Hongzhang, who overcame objections from conservative ministers. To secure the support of the Empress Dowager Cixi for railway construction, Li Hongzhang imported a small train set from Germany and built a narrow gauge railway from her residence in Zhongnanhai to her dining hall in Beihai in 1888. The Empress, concerned that the locomotive's noise would disturb the geomancy or fengshui of the imperial city, required the train be pulled by eunuchs instead of steam engine.
The next effort was made by Taiwan Governor Liu Mingchuan. From 1887 to 1893, of railway tracks were laid from Keelung to Taipei to Hsinchu. 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 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 . Another were in the planning stage.Appletons' annual cyclopaedia and register of important events of the year 1901 (1902) p 151.
The British built the Shanghai–Nanjing Railway (1905–1908) and Kowloon–Canton Railway (completed 1911). The French built the Sino-Vietnamese Railway (1904–10), an line to connect Kunming with Vietnam, then a colony of French Indochina. The Germans built the Jiaoji Railway in Shandong Province. British and German industrialists jointly built the Tianjin–Pukou Railway. The Americans built the Canton–Sam Shui Railway in Guangdong in 1902–04. Czarist Russia built the China Eastern Railway (1897–1901) as a shortcut for the Trans-Siberian Railway and the Southern Manchuria Railway 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 (1904–06). After winning the Russo-Japanese War 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 of rails in China. Most of the rails used the .
The imperial capital, Beijing, was designed as the center of the Chinese railway network. Several lines radiated out from Beijing; three main lines were the Beijing–Hankou Railway, Beijing–Fengtian Railway, and Tianjin–Pukou Railway. The Jinghan railway was from Beijing to Hankou, and its construction started in 1897 and was completed in 1906. The Guangneiwai railway 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, 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, who is known as the Father of China's Railways. The Shanghai–Hangzhou Railway, in length and completed in 1909, was financed by the provincial governments of Jiangsu and Zhejiang.Travelling By Train In China 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, which contributed to the outbreak of the Xinhai Revolution. Troops sent to Sichuan from neighboring Hubei weakened defenses in Wuhan where revolutionaries launched the Wuchang Uprising. The ensuing Xinhai Revolution toppled the Qing dynasty.
Republic of China
After founding the Republic of China on January 1, 1912, Dr. Sun Yat-sen 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 of railway inside the Great Wall, some after 1934 financed through the China Development Finance Corporation. Manchuria, located beyond the wall, had of railways built from 1928 until 1931. On September 18, 1931, a bomb was detonated on a Japanese-owned railway track in Manchuria, which later turned out to be a false flag operation. The Japanese used this incident as a pretext for their invasion of Manchuria.
World War II
During the Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937–1945, the Republican government dismantled a number of railways to slow the Japanese advance and added 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 built the narrow gauge Datong–Puzhou Railway across Shanxi Province. The Japanese occupiers, using forced labor, built of railway in Manchuria and Rehe Province and of railway in China proper.
In 1941, construction began of the Yunnan Burma Railway, an attempt to link British occupied Burma with Kunming in Yunnan province. Ultimately, however, the project was aborted.
1945–1949 In 1945, just after the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Chinese mainland had of rail, and it was estimated about was usable. By 1948, the number of usable kilometers of rail was estimated at only due to the Chinese Civil War. The Communists actively sabotaged rail lines to disrupt the ruling Nationalists (Kuomintang), and the Nationalists scavenged lesser used railways in order to repair the most important ones.Norton S. Ginsburg, Geographical Review, 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 (PRC) in October 1949, had restored the usable network to about . Most of the early reconstruction (about ) 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 Kowloon–Canton Railway was suspended as a result of the communist revolution, and it was not resumed until April 4, 1979.
In fact, when the PRC was established in 1949, China had constructed of railway, but only was kept, including in the northeastern part of China, and in Taiwan.
No Chinese enterprises had designed or built a locomotive until after the founding of the PRC. Because of the emphasis on national self-reliance in Mao era China, the locomotive industry relied primarily on domestically developed technologies. Because of limitations in coal, China developed and mass-produced diesel locomotives.
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 entered operation, to the end of the First Five Year Plan 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 Railways. These lines, along with the Baoji–Chengdu Railway (completed in 1958) and the Lanzhou–Xinjiang Railway 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.