城镇体系 乘坐蒸汽机车来到被时间遗忘的中国城镇(多图)

乘坐蒸汽机车来到被时间遗忘的中国城镇(多图)  

Rail service in rural Sichuan is a life line for local people and a big pull for tourists who want a last glimpse of the age of steam
It isn't the quickest of muter trains
taking 75 minutes to cover just 12 miles. Nor is it the quietest: speech is barely audible over the rattles and blasts of steam. It is certainly not the most fortable. Passengers jolt along in unlit cars and on windy days their clothes are specked with ash.
But the journey from Shixi to Huangcunjing may well be the most memorable ride they will ever experience. The narrow-gauge railway
running through a lush valley in Sichuan
is one of the last regular passenger steam train services in the world.
但是这段从石溪到黄村井的旅程可能会给人们留下最难忘的记忆。这条经过四川省茂盛山谷的窄轨铁路是世界上仅存的最后几条客运蒸汽机车之一。
"Steam lootives are about the nearest thing man has ever created to a living creature
" said David Longman
who has photographed working steam lootives all over the world
Now their numbers are in such swift decline that updating his website "is like running an obituaries page"
he said. "It's been a steady decline since the turn of the century. Virtually everything has gone."
China is one of the few countries where they still run for practical–mostly industrial–purposes rather than as tourist attractions
but even here the services are fast disappearing.
Shixi lies three hours' drive from Chengdu
the provincial capital of Sichuan. In recent years
tourist carriages have beenadded to the regular trains and extra sightseeing services scheduled. But forresidents
this is still their lifeline.
Until a couple of years ago
there was noroad to the last stops on the line. The area's new concrete road still does not reach most of the stations and is too narrow for much traffic so even now
people walk or ride motorbikes straight down the railway line.
For those who pay the five yuan (50p) fare
on busy days the few seats soon run out and passengers must cling to a rail suspended from the ceiling as the train bumps over the track. Women lugvege tables in woven baskets on their backs as they clamber on. There is noglass in the windows: when it rains
you get wet or pull up the metal shutters and sit in darkness.
But on fine days you admire the bamboo groves
rice terraces and fields of flowers. Residents rush out as the train passes
armed with tongs to pick up dropped embers for their stoves.
A brief flirtation with diesel engines inthe early 1990s was soon abandoned
probably because it was not the service continues at its old pace
so slow that
were Mo Farah to raceit
he could celebrate his victory with a leisurely cup of tea before it had caught up.
China now boasts 6
800 miles of high-speed track
with trains running 18 times faster than those on the Shixi line. But this railway too seemed like a step into the future when it was pleted in 1959. It was built as part of the Great Leap Forward
Mao'sinsanely ambitious modernisation drive in industry and agriculture
which led to a devastating famine that killed tens of millions.
Thousands of workers toiled on this shortstretch of track. "We didn't have equipment. It was all manpower: there were people everywhere
" said a man in his 70s who worked on the project as ateenager. "We started work before dawn and by the time we finished it would be dark."
The train was used to carry freight from the mine at Huangcunjing
which opened in the 1930s as a Sino-British joint venture. Previously
workers had pushed the coal to a nearby river by wheel barrow. Soon after it opened
carriages were added for the miners and their families who lived a short walk away
at Bagou. Since then
the train has carried an estimated 11.6 million people and 18m tonnes of coal.
Liang Shufang
82
moved to Bagou when she married a miner in 1950. Others soon followed her
as workers gained more status under Communist rule. "At the beginning
girls didn't respect miners and didn't want to marry them. Then miners got better lives and better pay … Beinga worker was a very powerful thing
" she said.
The arrival of the railway pleted Bagou's transformation into a booming industrial town
with more than 7
000 residents. Miners held mass sports events in the main square and performances on its grand stage. Later
during the Cultural Revolution
the platform hosted vicious struggle sessions as factions battled.
Chairman Mao's portrait still hangs over the square and slogans from the era adorn the walls of nearby buildings. This is the town that time fot.
The pit closed in 1988
when the coal seam was exhausted. The schools
the hospital and the grand workers'theatre soon followed. Plants poke through the tiled roofs of abandoned homes. Butterflies the size of a hand flutter past
flashing emerald.
Perhaps 1
000 residents remain
living offtheir savings
government benefits and the food they grow: plantains
rice
soybeans and pomelos. "After they built the railway
these streets were full of people
" recalled Zhao Bingrun
65
as he stood at the door of his store
beneath fading characters reading: "Chairman Mao is the reddest sun in the heart of revolutionary people everywhere in the world."
His shop is one of the few still open on what used to be the busy main street and he would sell it if he could find abuyer. Further down
a hen scratches in the dirt; a cat lazes on a windowsill."Without the tourists
this place would be pletely empty
" Zhao said
Daytrippers arrive on sight seeing trains
which cost 10 times the regular fare and have ensured the standard services can keep running.
Most travellers e from Sichuan
but some from Japan
Russia
the UK and even Afghanistan: rail enthusiasts eager to witness the last puffs of the age of steam.