The Briefing:
Mrs Kang: "In this railway station you can see lots of steam engines....."

Bang on cue an unidentified China Railways QJ 2-10-2 appeared noisily & smokily from stage right drowning out any further briefing for several minutes as the long mixed freight rattled through the station!

It's interesting to see that all the Chinese, railwaymen and interpreters alike, stepped back as the train stormed through while all we RT&P participants held our ground and enjoyed the experience!

In fact we enjoyed 20 steam workings in little over 2 hours so Mrs Kang was right.

Tags:   Hwen He Shenyang Manchuria China railway railroad rail train Transportation steam engine Locomotive QJ 2-10-2 freight Gas & Steam Asia trains railways RT&P October 1983 briefing video movie

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Trams, bendy buses, trucks, bikes, hand-drawn and horse-drawn carts abound in this video of downtown Dalian but not one private car is seen back in 1983. Almost to a man, the men wore grey or green Mao jackets and hats and while the women were starting to branch out into coloured clothing it was the small children who wore the most colourful clothes. They will now be in their late thirties!

The square was quite empty until our RT&P group turned up to get some photos and soon quite a crowd of onlookers gathered to watch our antics. We escaped by taking a tram ride.

The trams of Dalian date back to 1909 when the area was occupied by the Russians who named it Port Arthur (doesn't sound very Russian!) and the European-style stone buildings in this area date back to this era. Dalian was the first city in China
to have trams.

Apparently today Dalian is twinned with Glasgow and has changed out of recognition.

Tags:   Manchuria Liaoning China Asia trams buses horse carts rail transport public city street cityscape Transportation people RT&P October 1983 Port Arthur Dalian

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Here are a selection of the 20 steam workings we saw in the 2 hours linesiding at Hwen He station south of Shenyang during our RT&P tour visit to China. Each train is worked by a different class of locomotive.

The first is SL Pacific 635 departing south with a 12 coach passenger train followed by QJ 2-10-2 1778 approaching from Sujiatun to head north with a freight. JS 2-8-2 5237 is then seen with a short southbound freight train and finally an unidentified JF 2-8-2 crosses over the main line with a freight for the Fushun direction.

Tags:   Hwen He Shenyang China steam engine Locomotive railway railroad rail freight station RT&P QJ 2-10-2 JS 4-6-2 JF 2-8-2 Transportation train Gas & Steam trains railways Asia October 1983

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Long before Wuhan becoming world famous for its coronavirus activity our Railway Travel & Photography tour group visited the city as part of our 3 week railway trip.

However this 6 minute video contains no railway scenes. As Miss Ye says right at the beginning "Now we are going to Wuhan Iron & Steel Company". The bus journey there was more than an hour.

So sit back in our tour bus and enjoy the virtual journey as the movie gives a flavour of this big city on the Yangse before all the major changes of the last 25 years in China.

Starting in the Hankou district & one of the main shopping streets, Jianghan (?) Avenue in the former British Concession, there are low-rise buildings, trolley buses, bendy buses, bicycles, very few private cars, lots of pedestrians and some interesting driving habits.

Tags:   Wuhan Hubei China Asia bus ride travel city cityscape RT&P traffic roads trolley October 1983 Railway Travel & Photography

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When I went to China with a Railway Travel & Photography group in 1983 Beijing was still known as Peking and that's where our flight from Islamabad took us.

This short video starts with views around Tiananmen Square followed by a visit to the Temple of Heaven then street scenes and city views taken from my room in the Peking Hotel - always in the rain! Independent travel was not allowed in 1983 and despite the name RT&P we saw no R on our first day! We were all shepherd to the obligatory cultural show in the evening & the video finishes with some of the some unique acts on offer. Ooooh!

The name Peking had been used by foreigners since 1735. Beijing became standard for all foreign publications issued by the People's Republic on 1 January 1979 but was not adopted globally until around 1989.

The modern city is so different from the Peking we saw back then that using the new name now makes a lot of sense!

Tags:   Peking China Beijing RT&P Cityscape citystreet rain caital Tiananmen Square Temple Heaven cultural show Han Dynasty Hotel music dance travel October 1983

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