EIJING TO LUOYANG [792km,11-12 hrs]
map0: Beijing Travellers heading west towards Luoyang, Xi'an, and Urumqi will depart from the brand-new, enormous West Railway Station.
9: On its way out of Beijing the line crosses the Lugu Bridge, the scene of the first battle of the Sino-Japanese war on 7 July 1937. It all started with a Japanese 'military exercise' in which they 'lost' a soldier. They asked permission to cross this bridge in order to find him and the Chinese, having watched the Japanese advance through Chinese territory for a number of years, refused it. The motive for a battle was there, and it led to a war which lasted eight years.
266: Shijiazhuang The capital of Hebei province. Clocking in at 192,000 square km, Hebei constitutes only 2% of China's total landmass but is still considerably bigger than the UK. Beijing would be a part of Hebei if it were not for the fact that it is an independent municipality; likewise Tianjin, which was the province's capital until 1967.
Hebei has had a rough time this century: from 1937-45 it was almost entirely occupied by the Japanese, who were notoriously brutal to the civilian population. Having been liberated at the end of the war, the KMT stomped in and so the whole region saw another four years of fighting in the civil war. It is one of the most densely populated Chinese provinces, with a higher population per square metre than either the UK or even New York State. Still, you are unlikely to be able to tell this from the train, as it all looks fairly similar to the rest of this part of the journey - flat and rather nondescript, with occasional rolling hills.
490: Anyang Despite its being one of China's former capital cities, there is little to see in Anyang. There are, however, numerous steam locomotives at the station.
611: Qi Li Ying The town lies at the centre of a large cotton growing region, and this district was the first to be reorganised into a farming commune in April 1958 during the disastrous Great Leap Forward (see p45). By November of that year virtually 100% of the province's rural population was communalised.
652 Approximately 20km north of Zhengzhou the railway crosses the Yellow River. It was near here that the dykes of the Yellow River were deliberately breached by the Nationalists, in an attempt to halt the advance of the Japanese Army in 1938. The countryside was devastated; estimates put the number of deaths at up to one million, and many millions more lost their homes. The river had lived up to its nickname: China's Sorrow.
575: Zhengzhou Zhengzhou is the point where trains heading west join the Lung Hai line. The numbering of the kilometre markers therefore alters; you are now 575km from the coastal city of Lianyungang, where the Lung Hai line starts.
Zhengzhou's strategic location at the crossroads of the two major trunk lines in China makes it the natural capital of Henan province. The Jing Guang line (which runs south to Guangzhou) reached here in 1903, and the Lung Hai Line, running originally only from Luoyang to Kaifeng, arrived in 1906. Zhengzhou has another claim to be included in the railway history books, too, for it was here that the first workers' strike occurred in China, when railway workers downed tools in February 1923. The local warlord, who relied on the railway for troop movements, dealt with the situation by shooting a number of workers. The reaction was not uncommon of the mood of the time. In Explaining China, John Earl Baker records that: 'The military treated the railway staff as coolies. If anything unfavourable happened they kicked the station master. When they wished a train to start they pointed a gun at the engine driver. Every few days they shot one just for moral effect.'
646(L) Note the two large stone horses, only a couple of metres from the track. Each is half buried and appears to be in excellent condition.
692: Luoyang This city is the setting for one of China's most impressive cave complexes. See p310 for further information.
LUOYANG TO XI'AN [387km, 7-8 hrs]
mapThe first 250km of the journey are through Henan province before the line enters Shaanxi. Henan is one of China's smaller provinces, measuring only 166,800 square km. The Yellow River divides it into two, about 80% being to its south, hence the province's name, which means 'south of the river'. It was the home of one of the first Chinese dynasties, the Shang (c1600-1200BC) and it has been estimated that this culture moved its capital to Anyang in 1385BC. Later Luoyang became the centre of dynastic activity. It exchanged the role of capital periodically with Xi'an but never regained its lost status following the Mongol invasion in the 13th century. Henan is one of the oldest silk manufacturing areas in China and it may even be that silk was invented here.
c780: Mianchi The Ingrid Bergman film called The Inn of the Sixth Happiness told the true story of missionary Gladys Aylward who led 100 Chinese orphans across the mountains of southern Shanxi, to safety in Xi'an, at the start of the Anti-Japanese War. The area just to the north of here is where they crossed the Yellow River, and it was from Mianchi station that they caught the first train towards Xi'an.
821: Sanmenxia The big bland blocks of flats give the city a rather Russian air. Sanmenxia was the cornerstone of the Staircase Plan in 1955, a vast undertaking designed to control the Yellow River once and for all. Forty-four major dams were to be built along the river's course, of which the largest was to be here, creating a reservoir which would hold 70 million cubic metres of water. It was due for completion in 1962 but after Russian assistance was withdrawn in 1960 it was abandoned.
834: Sanmenxia Xi (West) A pagoda and two small pavilions can be seen (L) as the train pulls away.
914 The surroundings get progressively more rocky along this part of the journey and here the train starts passing through the hills instead of around them. There are a number of cave dwellings to be seen on either side.
966: Hua Xi'an The River Wei joins the Yellow River here, and the line passes into Shaanxi province.
This is probably the least interesting part of the whole journey. The scenery itself is pleasant enough but after a very short while it becomes monotonous and after this trip you may agree with Edgar Snow, who wrote that 'the farms of Shensi (Shaanxi) may be described as slanting... There are few genuine mountains, only endless broken hills, hills as interminable as a sentence by James Joyce, and even more tiresome'. (Red Star over China).
1040: Xin Feng Zhen There are a number of old steam locomotives in use here. East of this station the landscape becomes more hilly, with each hill often carved into huge terraces by the local farmers; presumably this is exactly the kind of landscape Snow was writing about.
1079: Xi'an The discovery of the Terracotta Army here 20 years ago has transformed this ancient capital. Peter Fleming, travelling in 1935, describes his initial view of the city from the train: 'It was very obvious that the Communist threat was being taken very seriously. Barbed wire entanglements surrounded not only the isolated station but the entire circumference of the city walls. The great gates had a strong guard on them and were kept ajar, so that not more than one person could enter or leave the city without a pass of some kind' (News from Tartary). While the barbed wire has gone now, the view cannot have changed much and the city walls are still the dominating feature here; note the large northern gate. For more information see p317.
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