Is there a "meter gauge" or "inch gauge" railway in China?

Quasi-rail is the abbreviation of standard gauge railway. In the railway system, the gauge is generally in millimeters. The standard gauge of China is 1435mm, which is the gauge of most railways in China. Besides quasi-gauge, there are some railways in China whose gauge is wider or narrower than 1435 mm, which are called wide gauge and narrow gauge. Inch track refers to a railway with a gauge of 600 mm.

The Trans-Asian Railway, which has been discussed for many years, is about to start construction between Yuxi and Mongolia. The meter-gauge railway of Kunming (Ming) River (Kou) line, which has experienced a hundred years of wind and rain, will soon be reborn in the construction of the Trans-Asian Railway. In order to feel the magic of this railway on the spot and verify all kinds of rumors about it, in February 2004, we boarded the meter-gauge train on the He-Kun line as relatives of local railway workers.

Quasi-gauge meter gauge inch gauge

Meter gauge refers to the railway with the distance between two rails of 1 meter. There are many kinds of railway gauge, besides meter gauge, there are also quasi-gauge. Quasi-rail is the abbreviation of standard gauge railway. In the railway system, the gauge is generally in millimeters. The standard gauge of China is 1435mm, which is the gauge of most railways in China. Besides quasi-gauge, there are some railways in China whose gauge is wider or narrower than 1435 mm, which are called wide gauge and narrow gauge.

There are four kinds of wide rails in China, and the gauge is between 1520mm and 1676mm. The railways built by some Russians in the northeast of China are wide gauge railways. The gauge of narrow gauge is between 597mm and 12 19mm, and there are many 19mm, typically 600mm, 762mm, 1000mm. According to the data published in China Railway Yearbook, in 2003, the official business lines of China's national railways included more than 50,000 kilometers of quasi-rails, 9.4 kilometers of wide rails and more than 600 kilometers of narrow rails. China's famous narrow-gauge railway is not only the narrow-gauge railway of He-Kun Line, but also the slow-moving railway built by 1966.

He-Kun Railway is a railway with a gauge of 1 1,000 mm, with a total length of 467km, from Kunming to Hekou, a border city between China and Vietnam. The Yunnan section of Yunnan-Vietnam Railway was built by the French in 1, 9 10. Before the He-Kun Railway was built, the French had built some meter-gauge railways in Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries. At that time, the Qing government in China was relatively weak, so it could only choose the gauge according to its own wishes.

People who often run on the Kunming River generally use the words quasi-rail, meter rail and inch rail to distinguish the railways in southern Yunnan. Quasi-rail means crossing the national railway network in Kunming. The meter gauge is the Kunming River line built by the French. Inch track refers to the railway with a gauge of 600 mm from Bisecun Station in the middle section of He-Kun Line to the west.

From Bisecun Station in the middle section of He-Kun Line to Gejiu Station in the south and Shiping Station in the west, there is a "Bishi Railway" built by local capitalists in the 1930s. The track of this railway is 600 mm, and the locals call it inch-track railway, because there used to be a unit of length called square inch, and 600 mm is 6 square inches.

Later, after many reconstructions, the Bishi Railway is now divided into two lines: Mengbao and Chicken. The Mengbao line starts from Mengzi in the east and ends at Baoxiu in the west, with a total length of 143 km. 1970, this railway was changed from 600 mm gauge to meter gauge. The Chicken Line starts from Chicken Street in the north and reaches the famous Gejiu City in Xi Du in the south, with a total length of about 34 kilometers. This line has always been a railway with a gauge of 600 mm, and the passenger traffic on the Ji 'an line was stopped in 1988. 1990, freight on Ji 'an line stopped. Now from Ji Jie Street to Gejiu, there is only a track with a gauge of 600 mm left, and there is no train.

Liu Baoan, who is in charge of drafting telegrams at Ji 'an line bus station, is now the technical section chief of Kunbei Railway Depot. He recalled to us: "At that time, the stop order was issued by railway telegraph. I remember that the reason for the suspension in the telegram was that the locomotive and rolling stock equipment was aging and could not maintain operation, so I decided to stop passenger transport from a certain point on a certain day. When the passenger cars on Ji 'an Line stopped running, the roads there were not as developed as they are now, and the local people had a great response. The local government's appeal to the railway department has been handed over to me, and there is a sentence that has been deeply imprinted in my mind, that is,' where the railway goes, there will be civilization'. "

Just when we went to southern Yunnan for an interview, the Kunming-Gejiu Expressway was just opened to traffic. It only took us four hours to go back to Kunming by car from Gejiu and take the expressway. In the past, I wanted to take a train from Kunming to Gejiu. It took about 8 to 10 hours to take the rice rail train from Kunming to Yudian, and then it took several hours to transfer from Yudian to Gejiu by inch rail train.

3 d hekun line

We have no chance to experience the strangeness of inch-gauge trains, but only the taste of meter-gauge trains. At Zhicun Station in the middle section of the He-Kun line, as the families of local railway workers, we boarded the meter-gauge train heading south to Hekou Station on the Sino-Vietnamese border. The passenger train on He-Kun Line was stopped on June 1 2003. In order to facilitate the commuting of railway workers along the line and solve the traffic difficulties of people in underdeveloped areas along the line, some freight passenger trains are still running on the meter rail and can carry passengers.

The appearance and interior of the meter-gauge bus are no different from our common quasi-gauge bus, except that the body is slightly smaller, with two seats on both sides, while one side of the quasi-gauge bus has three seats.

The biggest feeling of taking the meter-gauge train is slowness. We got on the bus from Zhicun on 10, and it was past 3 pm when we arrived at Baihe Station. When the conductor heard that we were going to Hekou, he suggested that we get off at once and take a long-distance bus instead. Because it takes only 2 hours by bus and 8 hours by train from Baihe to Hekou, that is, at 1 1 p.m.

After we got off the bus, the train left. Looking for a local taxi to bargain, it took half an hour to get on the road. It took the taxi 20 minutes to catch the train that took us to Baihe. The photographer wanted to take a picture of the train, but before focusing, the train was thrown out of sight. This is one of the "eighteen eccentrics of Yunnan" that people in Yunnan often say that "trains are not as fast as cars".

Why is the meter-gauge train so slow? Before going to southern Yunnan, Mr. Huo Taohong from China Railway Museum explained to us, "Because it can only be so slow."

/kloc-At the end of 0/9, the French who had occupied Vietnam sent at least 7 groups of scientific explorers to inspect the mountainous area in southern Yunnan in order to transport the ore out of southern China. The finally selected He Kun River line is the only railway line that can meet the following conditions:

1. Mountain and subgrade with sufficient load.

2. The maximum slope is less than 25‰, that is, the drop per kilometer shall not be greater than 25m.

3. The minimum turning radius shall not be less than 100m to avoid excessive centrifugal force during operation.

4. The traction and braking capacity of the locomotive can cope with the road conditions.

5. Feasibility of construction and feasibility of building materials.

Under the restriction of so many objective conditions, such a railway can only be built on the existing Kunming River. The southern section of the East Line of the Trans-Asian Railway, which is about to start, will transform some meter rails of the He-Kun Line into quasi-rails. This shows that even today, the locomotive traction, braking capacity and construction capacity have been developed for 100 years, which is still restricted by local natural conditions. Comparatively speaking, it seems more flexible to build an inch-gauge railway. For example, the Ji 'an line has a detour with a curve radius of 65 meters, and the section with the largest gradient drop reaches 30‰. However, the following problem is that the speed of trains on the inch gauge railway is slower.

There is a book describing a train with a linear gauge, saying: When a small train is going to drill into the No.7 tunnel, someone will jump off the train, bypass the cave from the path outside the tunnel, wait for the small train to come out at the tunnel exit, and then jump on it.

The meter rail is still the main artery in southern Yunnan.

This "freight bus" has only four passenger cars, and the other five or six are trucks. Chatting with passengers shows that although the speed of meter-gauge train is very slow, it is still the only way for many people in southern Yunnan to contact with the outside world. The bananas and pineapples of those small businessmen have to be shipped out through it, and the fertilizers, cement and even some necessities they need have to be brought in through it. We asked them why they didn't take the bus, and the answer was that there were no expressways in many places along the route. For example, between Didi Station and Xi No.2 Station on the way from Kunming to Kaiyuan, it is still impossible to reach by road.

Communication is also a problem locally. We went from Zhicun to Baihe, and there was no signal on our mobile phone all the way. We got off at Baihe and got in touch with the editorial department. On the way from Baihe to Hekou, there is also a "blind area" without cell phone signal.

The economy of southern Yunnan is still underdeveloped, and the local consumption level is not high. The starting price of taxis in many towns along the railway is 3 yuan. Generally, in the off-season, the standard hotel room is in 50 yuan or 60 yuan for one day, and the monthly bonus for the conductor on the meter-gauge train is only 70 yuan.