China Trip Report : North East Steam

A short trip to two of the best surviving steam operations. We planned to start with a couple of days at Jixi, a coal mining centre employing more than 20 SY class 2-8-2s, and then to move on to the narrow gauge operation at Huanan, potentially the best surviving narrow gauge line in China but notoriously unreliable these days. Things didn't quite go according to plan!



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Chinese Diesel Videos

I've put five video clips from my recent trip to China up on YouTube. The quality isn't quite as good as I'd like but I'm reasonably pleased with the results. The clips include the inevitable green DF4Bs around Modaoshi, an orange DF4B at Daoqing, a DF4DK near Bei'an and a pair of DF8s west of Mudanjiang, all unsilenced of course.



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China Trip Report - Diesels in the North-East

A trip to photograph diesels on scenic lines in the north-east of China, starting with the Tonghua-Hunjiang area then Fushun, Bei'an, Mudanjiang and finishing on the Beijing-Longhua line. As well as the diesels, there are a few industrial electrics on standard and narrow gauges and a handful of steam locomotives as well.



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German Trip Report (Alex & Ludmilla's Allgäu Adventure) - August 2008

Engineering work on ÖBB's Arlberg line for much of August led to the diversion of freights and overnight passengers to one of Germany's most scenic diesel worked lines. The Allgäubahn normally hosts a good number of locomotive hauled trains and the diversions added even more variety. It was just too good to miss!



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Spain - Ponferrada Villablino Pictures

The Ponferrada - Villablino was one of those railways that stood out from the crowd. This 62km metre gauge coal carrier in north-west Spain remained 100% steam worked until 1980. It was blessed with superb scenery, plenty of impressive bridges and tunnels and a fleet of very distinctive locomotives. I made three visits between 1979 and 1981 and despite being a photographic novice who couldn't compose or expose a picture to save himself, came away with a few photos I'm happy to publish more than quarter of a century later.



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China - Fushun Pictures Added

Some vintage pictures from the Fushun Opencast Mining operation in 1984. The big pit was filled with fog but we got some interesting pictures of the surface operation including 3 different classes of electric loco, a KD6 (USATC 2-8-0) and an East German V100.



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Tractive Efforts Finally Scrapped

The publication of the new China Main Line photo galleries has finally consigned the last remnants of Tractive Efforts to the scrap heap. Virtually all the pictures that were in the Tractive Efforts Photo Galleries are now available in the Railography galleries and those that aren't need re-scanning anyway. Hopefully that won't take too long but as Tractive Efforts took about two years to disappear, don't hold your breath!

China - Main Line Galleries

The China Main Line Galleries have been reorganised on a CNR Bureau basis. Many of the pictures have been published before but there are quite a few brand new pics and others that have been re-scanned or otherwise improved. In particular, there are fresh scans of 35mm slides from 1984/5, using a proper film scanner this time, not a flatbed, and a new gallery of pictures from the spectacular Datong - Qinhuangdao coal line. In total, there are over 200 photos covering a wide variety of steam, diesel and electric classes in Harbin, Shenyang, Beijing and Lanzhou Bureaux.



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China - JiTong Pictures

It's taken a long time but I've finally got round to organising all the JiTong railway pictures in the same place. There are almost 200 pictures in 14 galleries covering the line from near Fuxindi, east of Chabuga to near Majiazi, west of Jingpeng. In addition to the pictures in the old Tractive Efforts galleries and those already on Railography, there are many previously unpublished images. This is just the tip of the iceberg and covers the line from early 2003 onwards with a handful of scans from 2002 and 2003. This was the ultimate main-line steam spectacle in more ways than one. Enjoy!



JiTong photo galleries

French Pictures Added - May 2008

Pictures from my May trip to the Narbonne - Cerbere line along the Cote Vermielle have now been added to the photo galleries.



Narbonne - Cerbere photo gallery

Railography goes XHTML

If you have any difficulty viewing the Czech photo galleries mentioned in the previous item then please contact me. These pages have been produced with XHTML code rather than the traditional HTML. Although they've been checked on a variety of different browsers on both PC and Mac computers, it's always possible that some older browsers won't be able to cope.

The intention is that all future content will be coded in XHTML and many existing pages will be replaced with XHTML equivalents when they need revising.

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More Czech Pictures Added - April 2008

The remaining pictures from my April 2008 Czech trip have been added to the photo galleries. These cover diesel worked lines in the north of the country, notably Sumperk - Jesenik, Jaromer - Trutnov and Liberec - Zawidow.



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Railography Search Facility

I've added a search facility to Railography courtesy of Google. You can now search the site using the search box that appears close to the bottom of most pages including this one.

There's also a dedicated search facility available for the loco lists on the Chinese Steam Locomotives Contents Page. This just searches the Class, Location and Bureau lists.

Czech Pictures Added - April 2008

These pictures are from the first part of my April 2008 Czech trip and include new galleries covering the Ostrava - Valasske Mezirici and Olomouc - Sumperk lines as well as additions to the Brno - Jihlava, Zdar nad Sazavou - Tisnov and Brno - Veseli nad Moravou galleries. Pictures from the other lines visited will be added later.



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Chinese Pictures Added - March 2008

Pictures from my March 2008 trip to Baotou, Gongwusu and Baiyin have been added to the photo galleries.



Baotou photo gallery
Gongwusu photo gallery
Baiyin photo gallery

Cuban Pictures Added - March 1996

I've been meaning to start adding pictures scanned from slides to the photo galleries for some time but it's proven difficult to obtain suitable quality results. I'm not entirely happy with the colours on some of these pictures but there comes a time to stop tweaking and get them published.

The big attraction in Cuba was the sugar cane harvest that took place in spring every year. Most mills had their own rail system to bring cane from outlying loading points to the mill and many of them still used steam locomotives right up to the end of the 20th century. An unbelievable variety of engines from the main US builders could still be seen at work in the mid 1990s, from diminutive 2-4-0s to main line 2-8-2s and most of them over 70 years old. There are 18 shots of Cuban sugar mill steam in this gallery, all taken on a March 1996 trip.



Cuba 1996 photo gallery

French Trip Report (Rails Along The Cote Vermielle) - May 2008

The Perpignan to Cerbere line runs along the Cote Vermielle or Vermillion Coast, an area of superb scenery where the Pyrenees meet the Mediterranean sea. This is one of the two main lines linking France with Spain and sees a variety of passenger and freight trains worked by a number of different classes of locomotive. I visited the area for a few days in early May 2008.



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Czech Trip Report (A Bagful of Brejlovics) - April 2008

The main aim of this 20-day trip was to fill in some gaps in my coverage of Czech diesel worked lines. In the event. I couldn't resist revisiting some old favourites as well. My travels took me to the Brno area then on to Ostrava for class 754s, to the Jesenik line for class 749s, 751s and old railcars, more 754s around Trutnov and finally the 753 hauled freights around Liberec.



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Chinese Trip Report (Steam Along the Yellow River) - Feb/Mar 2008

After three successful spring trips to North-East China, it seemed time to do something different. This time we travelled west from Beijing to visit three steam operations along the Yellow River. The steelworks at Baotou is largely dieselised but still employs a number of SYs. Further west at Gongwusu, a quiet and rarely visited coal mining system uses a couple of JSs. Our final destination was the mine and smelter complex at Baiyin with its very active fleet of SYs.



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Slovak Pictures Added - May 2003

It's only taken 4 years to get these shots up on the website! They cover the electrified east-west main line in the area around Strba, where the line runs close to the High Tatra mountains, the electrified lines to the Ukrainian border east of Kosice, including the 5' gauge line, and the diesel worked lines north and east of Presov.

Skirting the High Tatra
East of Kosice
Presov to Humenne & Bardejov

Chinese Pictures Added - Mar & Nov/Dec 2007

Pictures from my November/December 2007 trip to Jixi and Nanpiao have been added to the photo galleries. There are also some shots from Jixi, Hegang and Zhalainuoer in March 2007 that somehow got missed in earlier updates.

Hegang gallery
Jixi-Chengzihe gallery 2
Jixi-Didao gallery
Jixi-Donghai gallery
Jixi-Hengshan gallery
Jixi-Lishu gallery
Nanpiao gallery
Zhalainuoer gallery