page_title: History of rail transport in China
section_title: Early efforts
hierarchical_section_title: History of rail transport in China / Qing dynasty / Early efforts
caption_attribution_description: English: Opening Day Ceremony of the Woosung Road, 1876. [Present day site: Tanggu Rd &amp; Henan Rd, Zhabei District, Shanghai.]
context_page_description: The history of rail transport in China began in the late nineteenth century during the Qing Dynasty. Since then, it has become one of the largest rail networks in the world.
context_section_description: In 1865, a British merchant built a 600-meter long narrow gauge railroad outside the Xuanwu Gate in Beijing to demonstrate the technology to the imperial court.  The court found it "exceedingly special and strange in the utmost" and promptly had the railway dismantled.
  The first railroad to operate commercially in China opened in Shanghai in July 1876.  The railway, known as the Woosung Road, ran from the American Concession in the present-day Zhabei District to Woosung in the present-day Baoshan District and was built by the British trading firm, Jardine, Matheson and Co.  Construction took place without approval from the Qing government, which had paid 285,000 taels of silver for the railroad and had it dismantled in October 1877.  The rails and rolling stock were later shipped to Taiwan. In late 1884, Jardine, Matheson arranged a loan of 500 million taels of silver to the Chinese government in late 1884 "for the purpose of building railways".
  The first railway to endure was the Kaiping Tramway and Imperial Railways of North China. Initially, a 10 kilometre (6.2 mi) line from Tangshan to Xugezhuang built in 1881 to transport coal from the coal mine in Tangshan, this line was extended to Tianjin in 1888 and Shanhaiguan and Suizhong in 1894. This railway became known as the "Guanneiwai Railway" (literally, inner and outer Shanhaiguan railway).  The railway was backed by the powerful Viceroy of Zhili, Li Hongzhang, who overcame objections from conservative ministers.  To secure the support of the Empress Dowager for railway construction,  Li Hongzhang imported a small train set from Germany and built a 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) narrow gauge railway from her residence in Zhongnanhai to her dining hall in Beihai in 1888.  The Empress, concerned that the locomotive's noise would disturb the geomancy or fengshui of the imperial city, required the train be pulled by eunuchs instead of steam engine.
  The next effort was made by Taiwan Governor Liu Mingchuan. From 1887 to 1893, 107 kilometres (66 mi) of railway tracks were laid from Keelung to Taipei to Hsinchu. However, this railway was later demolished for modernization when Taiwan was under Japanese rule.
caption: The opening of the short-lived Woosung Road, the first railway in China, between Shanghai and Wusong in 1876.
exif: {}