railography photo galleries : China : Shenyang Bureau : Changchun Area : 88-023-02 : (39 of 46)

Working Hard

It was 1988 before we ventured back to China, this time with RT&P. Again the Pacific photo count was disappointing. The weather was generally poor, some workings had been lost to QJs or diesels and we still didn't know train times or workings. We did manage to get RM 1113 charging out of Mengjiatun, south of Changchun, in glorious early morning light with the overnight passenger from Tonghua.

Two years later, after the RMs had all but disappeared, we travelled back from Tonghua on this train. It was a bitterly cold night and the coach heating was out of order. We awoke somewhere north of Siping to find the temperature inside the compartment was 15 below zero. I was disappointed to find we were going quite quickly. That could only mean one thing, a diesel on the front. QJs just didn't go that fast and no RMs had been reported around Changchun for months. A glimpse out through the compartment door revealed a crisp white trail of exhaust trailing back into the distance. Something didn't make sense, unless .... It had to be an RM, there was no other explanation. It was an RM, as we discovered when we got to Changchun, RM 1091. The very last report of an RM in traffic was four months later, in June 1990. We had been very lucky.