ASIA THE CHINESE RAILWAY SYSTEM By H. STRINGER CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THE WASON COLLECTION THIS BOOK IS THE GIFT OF Mrs. James McHugh Cornell University Library TF 101.S91 The Chinese railway system / 3 1924 023 644 143 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023644143 THE CHINESE RAILWAY SYSTEM THE CHINESE RAILWAY SYSTEM By H. STRINGER, b.a., cantab., a.m.lc.e. Resident Engineer, Peking-Mukden Railway. SHANGHAI KELLY AND WALSH, LIMITED. HONGKONG-SINGAPORE-YOKOHAMA-HANKOW. 1922. .. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. Railway History 1 II. Growth of the Railway Administration 27 III. The Government Railway System . 37 IV. Railways in Detail—Year 1918 . 74 V. The Economics of the Chinese Railways 107 VI. Pioneer Railway Location . 143 VII. The Case for Machinery on Railway Construction in China . 161 VIII. The Use of Reinforced Concrete on the Chinese Railways 177 IX. Construction Memoranda Peculiar to China 186 — ;; PREFACE This book is printed by order of the Board of Communications of the Chinese Government. I am greatly indebted to Mr. Tang Wen Kao, Director of the Peking-Mukden Railway and to Mr. L. J. Newmarch, Acting Engineer-in-Chief of the same line for making the necessary arrangements with the Board. The chapter on Pioneer Railway Location may perhaps be criticised as an irrelevancy. It is introduced to direct attention to a question of vast importance to a country which has practically all its railway future still before it, and also because location along pioneer lines is believed to be suited to existing financial conditions. The Bibliography of the subject is extremely limited. I wish to express indebtedness to the following : Railways and Collieries in North China, C. W. Kinder, C.M.G. Construction of the Lu Han Railway, T. J. Bourne, C.B.E. Railway Construction in North China, E. H. Rigby and W. 0. Leitch. The above are publications of the Institution of Civil Engineers. Railway Enterprise in China, P. H. Kent, M.A. China Year Book; Far Eastern Review. I also wish to express my thanks to the Editor of "Engineering" for permission to reproduce Chapters 5 and 7, which were published originally in that paper, practically in their present form. Tangshan, April 1922. THE CHINESE RAILWAY SYSTEM. CHAPTER I RAILWAY HISTORY China's history in this respect began with Sir M. Macdonald Stephenson's attempt to obtain a concession for a railway connecting Soochow with the port of Shanghai, a project now incorporated in the Shanghai- Nanking Railway. This was in 1868 and came to nothing owing to the opposition of Li Hung Chang, then the local Viceroy. Following this abortive attempt nothing was done till 1876 when the 10 mile railway connecting Shanghai with Woosung at the mouth of the Yangtse was constructed under the supervision of Mr. G. J. Morrison. This railway was of 2' 6" gauge, and was used for passenger traffic only. Following on complication with the Central Government owing to the suicide of a native on the railway, it was purchased by China at cost price in 1877, after running for a year. The Government decided not to operate the railway, tore it up and shipped all the materials to Formosa where it was intended to construct a railway, presumably for strategic purposes, connecting the southern and northern portions of the Island. This island was thus the next scene of railway activity. Here also matters were for a time under the direction of Mr. Morrison, and later Mr. Matheson, both in a consulting capacity only. Military labour was very largely employed here, and owing to inexperience no very rapid progress was made. By 1889, 11 miles had been built and at the time of the Japanese occupation in 1895 about 30 were in 2 THE CHINESE RAILWAY SYSTEM operation. The gauge of this railway was 3' 6" and the rails 36 lb. On the mainland nothing important occurred as regards industrial development until 1878 when workable coal was discovered at Tangshan in the province of Chihli about 80 miles east of the port of Tientsin. This was due to Messrs. R. R. Burnett and J. M. Molesworth working under the patronage of Li Hung Chang, then Viceroy of the Metropolitan province, who was desirous of finding an independent source of coal supply for China's mercantile marine, and the Navy then in the making under British advice. In the initial stages of the development of this colliery the coal was transported over a mule tramway seven miles long to the Lutai canal, west of Tangshan, which was connected with the sea. However )in 1881 Mr. C. W. Kinder, who had in the meantime become engineer and manager to the concern, managed to overcome local and other powerful prejudice to the extent of allowing the use of a locomotive secretly built out of materials from the scrap heap of the mine. This locomotive replaced the mules and was the beginning of the railway system of the country, for it amply demonstrated to those in authority at the time the economy of rail transport. This great advance made, it was a short step to eliminate the canal altogether with the result that by 1888 the mule tramway had been converted into a railway of 40 miles giving the mines direct access to the sea at the port of Tangku, on the Peiho, about 40 miles below Tientsin, which was also reached by the railway in 1888 (October). Following this the line pro- gressed slowly, owing to financial difficulties and changes of court policy. Eventually the extension westward con- tinued until Peking was reached in 1898. Strategic reasons connected with the great military base at Shanhaikwan on the Great Wall decided the extension East of the Tangshan mine district.^ This line was completed to Shanhaikwan ' This district extends from Tang-shan to Ku-yeh which waa connected by rail with Tang-shan in 1890. RAILWAY HISTORY 1896 3 in 1893 and had been extended a further 40 miles east of this town by 1896 for military reasons based on the need for rapid access (more particularly in the winter when transport by sea was impossible) to the Manchurian port of Newchwang. Up to this the railway had been built with Chinese capital, and was in 1894 the sole property of the Govern- ment, == but the indemnities resulting from the disastrous war with Japan of 1894-5 crippled China financially, and at the same time inspired her with a desire to strengthen her military position in North China. The result of this was the first foreign railway loan contracted with the British for the extension of the above railway eastward to the port of Newchwang. This with the extension towards Mukden to Hsinminfu was completed in the autumn of 1903 and now comprises with the older portions of the line what is known as the Peking-Mukden Railway; for since this date, with the exception of the short extension of 37 miles into Mukden, expansion has stopped, largely as the result of Japanese opposition. This completes a brief history of the Peking-Mukden Railway, China's first real railway, and it will now be necessary to revert to the year 1896 when Russia and France first came into the field of competition for the development of the country. The Russian Far Eastern policy of this time was inspired by the desire for an ice-free port on the Pacific, a project not possible of attainment without Chinese co-operation. The Treaty of Shimonoseki which terminated the China-Japanese War in 1895 gave Russia an unequalled chance of securing this. By this treaty China ceded to Japan the Liaotung peninsula in southern Manchuria in addition to paying an indemnity. This district contained a port which, it was thought, would on development, meet with all Russian requirements, and its passing to a rising power like Japan inspired such ' The China Railway Company which built the line from Ku-yeh to Tientsin was acquired in 1894. 4 THE CHINESE RAILWAY SYSTEM opposition on the part of Russia and France that it was retroceded to China six months later. Further in order to increase Chinese indebtedness, a Russo-French loan of £15,800,000 was raised to pay off the indemnity in part. As a quid pro quo for these good offices China signed the Cassini Convention in March 1896 which ratified the Chinese Eastern Railway agreement made with Li Hung Chang in the previous November. By the terms of this and a later agreement of 1898 Russia was allowed to construct that portion of the Siberian Railway which traverses the Northern 'part of the Chinese province of Manchuria, together with a branch from Harbin to Port Arthur, which was leased in 1898 as a naval base. Further, Russia acquired all development rights within a railway zone the extent of which was never specified, an agreement practically placing all development in central and northern Manchuria in Russian hands. By the terms of this agree- ment the management and control of Russia over the railway to be built was absolute, China having no voice whatever, but after the lapse of 36 years the line might be purchased at cost price and after 80 years it became the absolute property of China without payment. In 1895 the Russo-Chinese Bank was chartered to finance and carry through the Russian railway schemes with a capital of £11,200,000 of Russo-French money, and a fixed deposit of 5 million taels of Chinese Government money.