China's Railroad Network

Abstract

A THE close of the Japanese war the Chinese railway network, exclusive of Formosa, covered more than 27,000 kilometers. More than 23,000 kilometers were serviceable, though roadbeds, rolling stock, and maintenance facilities had deteriorated seriously. At the beginning of 1948, however, probably less than 8000 kilometers were operational, owing to destruction during the civil war, largely but not entirely by the Communists, whose basic strategy it was to disrupt Nationalist communications. To some extent, also, less important railways had been cannibalized by the Nationalists to obtain rails and ties for the reconstruction of key lines, such as the Tientsin-Pukou and Lunghai railways. At the beginning of I95I there were about 22,000 kilometers of operating railroads in all of Communist China, the result of several years of intensive reconstruction, first in the Communist-held territories in the northeast and north and later throughout China. The accompanying map of railway distribution (Fig. I) has been drawn from numerous sources, chiefly publications of the Peking government, but also press clippings and a monograph published in I948 by H. J. von Lochow,' a man of considerable railway experience who is now affiliated with the railway administration in Western Germany. The Peking Ministry of Railways has divided administration of the railway system into three major areas: the Northeast (Manchuria), the North (north of the Yangtze and south of the Great Wall), and the South. Administration in Manchuria is directed from a central and semiautonomous bureau in Mukden; regional bureaus are located at Tsitsihar, Kirin, and Chinchou. In the North there are bureaus at Tientsin, Chinan, Taiyuan, and Chengchou. In the South the main bureau centers are Shanghai and Hengyang; secondary centers are Hangchou, Liuchou, and Kunming. The Manchurian system was less severely damaged than most of the other railways of China, partly because the fighting there between Japanese and Russians and between Chinese Communists and Nationalists was more highly localized than elsewhere. Certainly the lines of Chinese conflict were more clearly defined. In any case, Manchuria's II,50o kilometers of standard-gauge railways became operational long before the remaining lines had begun to operate regularly. As is shown on the map, the Manchurian railways are basically the same as those in existence in I945.2 The Harbin-Dairen line, reduced by the Japanese to single-track shortly before the close of the war, is reportedly