Heritage route
Jiayang Steam Train
Shixi → Bagou · China
Jiayang Steam Train in pictures
Photographs by their authors, hosted on Wikimedia Commons · tap through for the licence
- Distance
- 20 km
- Fastest time
- 1 h 15 min
- Average speed
- 16 km/h
- Top speed
- 20 km/h
- Operator
- Jiayang Group
- Train
- C2-class 762 mm steam locomotive, wooden open-window coaches
- Countries
- China
- In service since
- 1959
- Runs
- 4× daily each way
Figures are published values, not live data · corrections log
One of the world’s last everyday steam railways: C2 engines built for 1950s coal pits still haul villagers past rapeseed terraces for pocket change.
Built in 1958–59 to bring coal down from the Bagou pits, this 762 mm line never stopped running its C2 steam engines, and villagers still ride the wooden coaches to market for a few yuan. The train reverses up a zig-zag at Mifengyan and rounds horseshoe curves that blaze yellow with rapeseed every March. At the end sits Bagou, a remarkably preserved Mao-era mining town.
How this line was checked
- Line drawn from OpenStreetMap relation 4264534 — the same nodes OpenStreetMap holds for this railway, thinned to within under 25 m of them
- Checked against OpenStreetMap: the whole line lies on real track, a median 4 m from it
- Wikipedia has an article for this line
Along the way
- Shixi valley departure under steam
- Mifengyan zig-zag reversal
- Caiziba’s rapeseed horseshoe curve
- Bagou’s preserved mining town
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