Loose_Grip/Pete's favorite photos

Another view of a Ruston Proctor steam shovel in the quarry at Aberthaw cement works in 1915.

SY 1583 lifts the morning empties to Shenbutong copper mine on the Baiyin mine railway.

Loco 6042 at a photo stop in the cutting near Fassifern. This trip was its transfer movement following it being withdrawn from traffic. This marked the end of mainline steam operations in Australia. March 1973.

SY 1583 slogs up the hill with the morning empties to Shenbutong Mine on the Baiyin Mining Railway. This line is now dieselised for the freight, but still steam on the passenger service in winter.

Today I read the sad news from China that diesels had started work in the section of the Sandaoling Coal Railway between the CNR exchange yard at Liushuquan to Nanzhan. December 2009 saw this JS class locomotive with the morning empties and the Tian Shan range as backdrop.

When I first visited theJalainur opencast mine in 1992 the coal was brought right out of the pit and up to the washery in the background. By 2006 it only came to the level that the train is on and then transferred to an underground conveyor to take it up to the washery. This empty coal train is just leaving the transfer station and is heading back into the workings.

The trouble with the passenger trains on the Pingdingshan Coal Railway is that the windows do not open and are covered by a protective mesh on the outside. This does not make for easy photography which is a great pity as there is much to see on the line running westwards to Baofeng and on to the mines at Hanzhuangzhan. Everywhere you look on this journey you can see collieries, or limekilns, or coke ovens, or brickworks, or the whole lot at once. Small mines abound and in this view through the grime smeared pane there are four headgears to be seen.

Pingdingshan was a city of level crossings when I first visited. This example at the western end of the marshalling yard at Shenxi was replaced by an underpass by May 2006. OK for donkey carts but no good for minibuses. The coal railway is so busy here that the crossings caused significant delays to the ever increasing road traffic.

A pair of QJ class locomotives with a short westbound freight a few kilometres before Lindong on the Jitong Railway. This sort of open vista is typical of this section of the line.