tarboat's photos with the keyword: lishu

Late afternoon at Xifeng on the Lishu system at Jixi as SY 0951 is prepared for its next duty. The wooden hoppers on the left were shortly to be taken up to Qikeng Colliery for loading.

The crew are oiling the motion of SY 0477 as it stands in the yard at Xifeng on the Lishu system near Jixi. It will shortly couple up to the empty wooden hoppers on the right and head off for the Qikeng mine.

On the now closed branch to Qikeng Colliery, SY 0477 climbs hard in the dusk with a load of wooden bodied hopper wagons.

Another industrial line that has now seen the end of steam operations is the Lishu section of the Jixi Coal Railway. In happier times a train is seen being loaded at the Taiping Mine. It is standing on what was, until a couple of years earlier, the branch up to Sijing Cokeworks and Qikeng Colliery. The men standing in the wagons are levelling the load with shovels.

SY 0951 crosses the river bridge on the approaches to Lishu after loading the wagons at the nearby Taiping Mine on the surviving stub of the branch that once ran to Qikeng Mine.

A cold and lonely railwayman stands outside his nice warm hut holding the single line token for the approaching coal empties from Lishu to the mine at Pinggang. This was the junction and reversing point for traffic from the Qikeng mine and Sijing cokeworks, but that line had by this time been reduced to a stub for trains loading coal from the adjacent small mine. The chimneys in the background mark the cokeworks which continues to produce metallurgical coke in open-topped ovens. It was very cold this morning and the man from the hut had earlier invited us in to enjoy its warmth whilst we waited for the train. This is typical of the kindness shown by so many of the people I have met on and around the Chinese railways.

A small coal mine near Jixi. The winding house is top right and the top of the sheaves can just be seen above the steep slant into the mine. This mine was closed in early 2008 but was still in full production when this shot was made.

We waited all afternoon whilst the injectors were repaired on SY 0477 as it stood in the yard at Xifeng on the Lishu system near Jixi. Eventually as the light faded and the temperature plummeted it set off for Qikeng mine with a train that included three wooden-bodied hopper wagons. A quick dash across the snowy maize stubble and a silhouette shot turned out to be the best option.