Chinese Railways Views

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Rail transport is the most commonly used mode of long-distance transportation in the People's Republic of China. Almost all rail operations are handled by the Ministry of Railways, which is part of the State Council of the People's Republic of China. By the end of 2010, the operating rail network traverses the length and breadth of the country, covering a total length of 91,000e km (56,545 mi), making only the rail networks in the United States and Russia larger in size. As of 2009, Chinese Railway owned about 603,082 wagons, 49,355 coaches and 18,922 locomotives and ran more than 38,000 trains daily, including about 3,500 passenger trains.[1] The network today serves all provinces, with the exception of the special administrative region of Macau.

By 1911, there were around 9000 km of tracks in China. However, many railways were designed, constructed, or even owned by foreign companies. The first indigenously designed and constructed railway by Chinese is the Jingzhang railway built from 1905 to 1909, a difficult job due to the mountainous terrain. The chief engineer of this railway was Zhan Tianyou, who is known as the Father of China's Railway.[citation needed]

Not only has the Chinese railway network expanded in size since 1949, but it has also seen great technological advances. Before the 1980s, most of the railways were powered by steam, due to low labour costs and cheap coal prices.[citation needed] However, the first diesel locomotive, the Dongfeng, was introduced in 1959. During the 1980s and 90s, diesel and electric locomotives gradually replaced the steam engines on main lines. However, steam locomotives didn't retire from some provincial railways until the 21st century. In December 2005, the world's last regular revenue mainline steam train finished its journey on the Jitong railway, marking the end of the steam era. Nevertheless, there are still some steam locomotives used in the industrial railways in China.

The two main categories of conventional Chinese locomotives are the Dongfeng diesel locomotives and the Shaoshan electric locomotives. In the first decade of the 21st century the railways of china began to import and produce AC-DC-AC transmission electric locomotives; the most numerous of these are the HXD series Harmony locomotives for freight work, of which over 3000 were ordered. Most modern trains, for example for the China Railway High-Speed service, are either imported or produced in China using technology transfer agreements.