The National Railway Museum (NRM) is celebrating the launch of a groundbreaking new photography exhibition documenting the end of steam on China’s railways.
Michael Rhodes’ ‘China: The Last Days of Steam’ exhibition (through Sun 31 Aug) consists of 56 spellbinding images of China’s railways, some of which were taken on the Jitong line, the last steam hauled mainline in the world.
China was the last place in the world to build steam locomotives for ordinary service. Although steam was once a common sight all over China, rapid modernisation meant the final vestiges of this technology was restricted to the country’s industrial and narrow gauge lines.
The Jitong line in Inner Mongolia was worked by steam for just 10 years. Completely independent of the state network, the 560 miles long (900 km) line was constructed with the help of the World Bank and used 120 relatively new steam locomotives which may otherwise have been sent for scrap.
In his quest to document the last days of steam, Michael Rhodes has visited every area in China, a country over 38 times the size of the United Kingdom. His spellbinding pictures provide a fascinating insight into the culture of remote Chinese provinces and capture a society going through a period of rapid change.
The Chinese railway network is now the third largest in the world. Having grown by almost one fifth in the past 30 years, it is essential to the country’s rapid development and impacts on millions of lives. The NRM’s exhibition shows in glorious detail how people and railways co-exist in China, as Chinese railways are unfenced and day to day life takes place around the tracks. -- www.nrm.org.uk
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