Whether this anniversary was the date of the opening of the line or merely of the start of construction is uncertain. Our guide, Mr. Fu Jie of Liaoning Steam Locomotive Photographic Association, had excellent relations with the railway authorities in Xuchang. We had the use of a railway car and driver, the latter being armed with a mobile phone, with which he contacted station masters to find out the position of trains. Motive power is steam, the railway having three QJs. Coal is delivered to Yu Xian station by lorries and dumped on the ground.
Bulldozers heap the coal into large piles and load it into railway wagons as necessary.
This piece of line should rightly be named after the remarkable young Frenchman who first discovered it. The Jingpeng Pass, which he called it himself, is a good enough name in itself, but any enthusiast who travels around China for four months or more at a time, investigating hitherto unreported lines, deserves due recognition when he comes across a location such as this, and especially so when he produces such an excellent map of it. In future, I suggest it should be called Julien Pass. Here's a copy of his map Previous recent reports, such as that by Duncan Cotterill, have said everything that needs to be said about the line, its scenic possibilities and its photographic potential, so little further needs to be said here. Any discussion as to whether it is better or worse than Tianzhu or Zhongwei is pointless.