This update contains the remaining industrial railway pictures from Tractive Efforts together with a good selection that haven't been published before. Locations include Baiyin, Dahuichang, Dayan, Hegang, Tongchuan, Yaojie, Yuanbaoshan and a gallery of photos from miscellaneous locations.

Baiyin photos
Dahuichang photos
Dayan photos
Hegang photos
Tongchuan photos
Yaojie photos
Yuanbaoshan photos
Miscellaneous photos

As part of the migration from Tractive Efforts to Railography, four more photo galleries totalling almost 60 pictures have been added to the Chinese Industrials section. As usual, these contain a mixture of previously published material and new images. The operations covered are at coal railways at Meihekou, Nanpiao, Pingdingshan and Sandaoling.

Meihekou photos
Nanpiao photos
Pingdingshan photos
Sandaoling photos

There's still plenty of steam working on the industrial railways of north-eastern China and this report covers a visit to three centres in November 2006. Jixi is the largest coal mining centre in the north-east and home to several busy steam worked colliery systems. Huanan is at the other end of the volume scale, a scenic narrow gauge line that hauls tiny volumes of coal out of the hills. Fuxin was once a great mining centre but has been in steep decline for several years. Despite this, there's still enough traffic to keep more than a dozen steam locos busy working between the remaining mines and power stations.

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Jixi - Chengzihe photos
Jixi - Didao photos
Jixi - Hengshan photos
Jixi - Lishu photos
Huanan photos
Fuxin Photos

Two more photo galleries covering the Tiefa Mining Railway and the Weihe Forestry Railway have been added. Most of the pictures were previously on Tractive Efforts but many have been remastered. There are some previously unpublished pictures as well.

Tiefa Mining Railway
Weihe Forestry Railway

Tractive Efforts is no more. My original Chinese Steam website has now been de-activated. Following the transfer of the Locomotive Lists and Loco Profiles to Railography, the Links, Trip Reports, Maps and Movies have also been moved leaving only the Photo Galleries. These are accessible from within Railography anyway and will remain available until the material has been transferred to Railography galleries. In the short term, anyone attempting to access Tractive Efforts pages will be redirected to Railography.

Tractive Efforts Reports, Maps, Movies, Links have all been moved onto Railography, leaving only the photo galleries. Tractive Efforts effectively ceased to exist on this date.

The JiTong Railway was a dream come true. A brand new steam worked main line with an incredibly photogenic mountain section that opened just as the rest of China dieselised. For nine glorious years we scrambled up the hills and exposed miles of film and terabytes of memory recording big steam's last stand. This gallery contains photos taken on the east side of Dabaliang (Jingpeng Pass) during the last few years of steam operation as well as a few pictures of current diesel workings. Many of these pictures have been transferred from Tractive Efforts but a few are published for the first time.

Galadesitai - Dabaliang photos

Two new photo galleries added covering the Beijing - Longhua and Beijing - Chengde lines, both of which run through mountainous country north-east of the capital. The Longhua gallery features photos of DF4 and DF8B diesels taken in September this year. The Chengde gallery includes pictures of diesels taken in the 1990s and 2006.

Beijing - Longhua photos
Beijing - Chengde photos

Photo galleries from my recent visit to Germany have been added and the existing German pictures have been re-arranged on a line by line basis.

Bebra - Fulda photos
Gemuenden - Wuerzburg photos
Kempten - Immenstadt - Oberstdorf / Lindau photos
Bayern (misc) photos

This report details a photographic trip to one of the busiest electrified main lines in Germany. The railway north from Würzburg through Gemünden, Fulda and Bad Hersfeld to Bebra runs through hilly country close to the former East German border and funnels traffic from Austria, Italy and Bavaria towards northern Germany. The line lost its express passenger workings to the Würzburg – Kassel Neubaustrecke some time ago but it remains a busy freight route, handling all types of traffic. Many different classes of loco can be seen, including those belonging to DB, Railion and a number of domestic and international competitors.

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The Beijing - Taiyuan line has to cross a formidable mountain range just west of the capital. The mountains aren't particularly high but the terrain is broken and rugged and not at all suitable for a railway line. This wasn't enough to stop the Chinese engineers who pushed the line through by tunnelling and bridging on a dramatic scale. The railway they built is a scenic delight and very rewarding to photograph, not least because of the continued use of BJ class diesels on some services. These photos were taken in Autumn 2006.

Beijing - Taiyuan photos

A gallery of photographs taken on the Lanzhou - Wuweinan line in northwestern China. Many of the pictures are from 1989 when the line was single track, steeply graded and steam worked. By September 2006, when I next visited the area, a completely new, double track, electrified railway on an easy alignment had replaced the original route and some of the photos show the current situation.

Lanzhou - Wuweinan photos

A subject close to my own heart.

International Railway Photography (IRP) is designed to assist railfans from the UK travelling to Europe and overseas to find the best photographic locations for railways photos in attractive scenic locations. Useful info will include how to get to the best locations and the best times to be there and links to sample photos and maps.

Go to International Railway Photography

Following my recent visit to China the BJ, DF4C and DF4D pages have been updated with new photos and additional information.

Go to Chinese Diesels

With no QJs on the Jitong Railway this autumn, my thoughts turned to photographing China's diesels and electrics. Steam is now confined to industrial operations and I was beginning to miss the excitement of photographing big trains on scenic main lines. China has a remarkably varied modern traction scene and those used to seeing nothing but QJs, JSs and SYs might be surprised at the plethora of different diesel and electric classes in use. For my first modern traction trip to the middle kingdom, I didn't attempt to maximise variety but chose five lines with good scenic potential including one threatened with imminent closure and one with rare diesels on some passenger workings.

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More pictures from the mine railways around Jixi, this time the busy SY worked Chengzihe system north of the city.

Jixi - Chengzihe Mining Railway photos

The Hanusovice – Jesenik line in Northern Moravia is a gem of a railway running over the hills just south of the Czech / Polish border. As well as the excellent scenery there are several loco hauled passengers, regular visits by a couple of classes of vintage railcar and one of the most spectacular diesel freight operations it has been my privilege to witness for a long time.

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go to Czech Republic photo galleries

Some background information on the development and use of steam locomotives in China together with detailed profiles of 16 significant classes. These include historical and technical details and photographs.

Locomotive Profiles

The Chinese Locomotive Lists, the most comprehensive database of locomotive sightings on the web with data on the whereabouts of around 6500 Chinese steam locomotives over the past 30 years, is now available on Railography. The lists, which were part of my Tractive Efforts website, have been updated with sightings from recent trips as part of the transfer.

Locomotive Lists

In spite of a huge DMU building programme, there are still a fair number of diesel hauled passenger trains in some parts of Germany. The network of secondary lines in the Allgäu area of south-western Bayern sees more diesel haulage than most these days. This report covers a short photographic trip to the Oberallgäu, the scenic area around Kempten, Immenstadt and Oberstdorf, in July 2006. Now with photos as well.

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Bayern photos

Praha is the hub of the Czech rail system and sees a variety of classes working heavy freight and passenger traffic on the electrified main lines radiating from the city. A few less heavily trafficked lines are still diesel worked and see some loco haulage. The capital's main station, Hlavni Nadrazi boasts an impressive overall roof and there are pleasant photographic locations on a number of lines in the greater Praha area. This report describes a photographic trip to the city in late June 2006.

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go to Czech Republic photo galleries

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This report covers a short trip to Ceska Trebova from 07 to 11 June 2006. This is one of the Czech Republic's major rail centres, located at the junction of the electrified main lines from Praha (Prague) to the major cities of Brno and Ostrava. It has marshalling yards, a large shed, a locomotive works and plenty of passenger and freight trains worked by a wide variety of electric locomotives.

The most scenic sections of the Praha - Ostrava main line lie either side of Ceska Trebova, making it a natural target for the photographer. However, my recent trips there have all suffered from poor weather and two have been notable for not producing a single decent photograph. Fortunately this time was different and there were some good sunny breaks as well as long cloudy periods.

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go to Czech Republic photo galleries

To make it easier to find material relevant to a particular country, a Country Index has been added. Each index links to all the relevant material for the country in question.

Country Index

Two of China's surviving steam worked mining railways and very different operations. Zhalainuoer is probably the most spectacular steam location left in the world today, a huge opencast mine worked by a sizeable fleet of SY class 2-8-2s. Lishu is much smaller but is set in attractive rural scenery. Many new photos have been added to those previously published. These galleries will be the first of many to be transferred from Tractive Efforts.

Jixi - Lishu Mining Railway photos
Zhalainuoer Opencast Coal Mine photos

Most Railography Photo Galleries reworked so they are based more on location and less on individual trips. This should make it easier to find photos. Galleries are now generated directly from Aperture then reformatted by a VBA macro to the Railography style. Numerous new pictures added.

Photo Galleries

Railography reworked and relaunched with a Milonic JavaScript Menu system and a cleaner, less cluttered interface.

For the railway enthusiast, China offers a fascinating mix of old and new locomotives, American, Japanese, Soviet and European influences, steam, diesel and electric traction, heavy traffic, stunning landscapes and friendly people. This feature describes more than a dozen classes of loco with brief technical details where known, history and operational data. Classes are listed alphabetically.

Go to Chinese Diesels

The Hanusovice - Jesenik line had been on my to-do list for some time and two weeks holiday at the end of April finally provided a suitable opportunity for a visit. This line features class 749 and 751 diesels and old railcars of classes 831 and 851. The middle of the trip was spent avoiding the rain in Ceska Trebova by travelling around and photographing the loco hauled passengers and heavy freights on the Letohrad - Lichkov line.

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go to Czech Republic photo galleries

Unusually, the main reason for doing this trip wasn't the trains. I'd promised myself a trip to see a total solar eclipse ever since missing the best of the 1999 eclipse in Britain due to cloud. None of the following eclipses had been at convenient times or in places I was particularly keen to go. This one was different as it passed over Turkey, a country I had visited several times in the '70s and '80s and thoroughly enjoyed. At that time there were still steam locomotives around but they had all disappeared years ago. An added bonus was that the eclipse passed over Kapadokya (Cappadocia), one of the natural wonders of the world with its surreal landscape of amazing rock formations. This was an opportunity not to be missed. The trains weren't ignored altogether although they were definitely relegated to second place.

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Turkish rail photos

Return to SY Heaven. Report of a return visit trip to some of the main industrial steam centres of the north-east including Meihekou, Jixi and Zhalainuoer. Includes Jiaojie Ironworks, a JF guarding the Russian border and the Iron Bull of Jixi.

This report describes a week long trip to photograph Czech diesels and electrics around Ceska Trebova in January 2006. This was my first real winter trip to the Czech Republic and I wasn’t really sure what to expect in terms of weather. After a few days of overcast and not particularly cold weather the skies cleared and the temperatures plummeted to below -20°C. The last three days were excellent for photography with snow and sunshine.

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go to Czech Republic photo galleries