The Old Railway Left in the City: Desolate and Quiet Tracks, Recording the City's Glory and Hardship
This is a railway with a chequered fate, filled with dramatic joys and sorrows just like this city. It was first built in 1905 during the Guangxu reign of the Qing Dynasty. Before liberation, it served as an important material transport corridor in East China. Nine years after the founding of New China, in 1958, the entire line was rebuilt and officially put into use in 1985. This is the Wan-Gan Railway connecting Shandong, Jiangsu to Anhui, Jiangxi and Fujian. There is also a noteworthy section that passes through a city's urban area. On its quiet tracks are recorded the local glory and hardship!
This is a railway with a chequered fate, filled with dramatic joys and sorrows just like this city. For the past and present of this century-old railway, please refer to relevant materials; I will not elaborate here.
Ningguo is a very small station on the Wan-Gan Railway, yet the section passing through the urban area of Ningguo has the most stories to tell. It does not have the prosperity of big cities nor the heritage of historical towns, but it possesses the sentiments and stories of "abundant resources, peaceful people, outstanding talents and blessed land." These stories include both glory and hardship. If you ask who can record the glory and hardship of Ningguo, it is this 26-kilometer old section of the Wan-Gan Railway passing through the urban area.
This unremarkable small city has achieved remarkable glory. From the birthplace of Conch Cement to the first county-level capital market in Anhui, these achievements are impressive. It is truly not easy for a small mountain county with poor transportation to accomplish this! Among all cities along the Wan-Gan Railway, apart from Wuhu, Ningguo is probably the most glorious.
The city is expanding and the economy is developing. However, this old Wan-Gan Railway cutting through the urban area of Ningguo splits the city, and the east-west development has become a constraint on the scale of Ningguo's urban growth. Around the 26-kilometer railway in the urban area, there are beautiful mountainous landscapes, modern rural vistas, and city buildings and rural villas amidst bamboo shadows, all strongly proving this!
China's railway development is the fastest in the world, with a complete high-speed rail network. Yet this old Wan-Gan Railway, affected by many objective factors such as geological conditions, has not been able to undergo renovation from the end of the last century to the present. The original locomotive depot and maintenance workshops have largely been abandoned, and the quiet railway tracks make one feel that this is truly a place full of stories.
The rusted tracks show that it has been a long time since any train passed through. Ningguo was one of the first counties in southern Anhui to have a railway, but it remains at the level of township-level railway development from the last century. Among neighboring counties, except for Lin'an in Zhejiang, most have similar or even lower economic levels than Ningguo, yet they all have high-speed rail. By July 1 of this year, the entire prefecture-level city of Xuancheng, except for Ningguo, will be connected by high-speed rail. This awkward situation is heartbreaking!
Divided by this old railway, Ningguo's integrated urban-rural development should have been better, but it has not turned out as hoped. It has the capacity to achieve the urban-rural development level of counties in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai, but due to this persistent old railway, it has been stalled for decades. Thinking about this brings a sense of bitterness!
These time-worn old railways have a strong sense of the past. Walking along them is endlessly evocative. Perhaps because I love photography, I find that these quiet tracks form an irresistible scenery with nature. There is a strong artistic atmosphere, a beauty of combining old industry with nature. I really like this feeling.
Taking a walk along this old railway is quite pleasant, but it has a significant impact on the city's development, especially in passenger transport, which is very disheartening. Not to mention high-speed rail, even the passenger trains on this old line are decreasing. According to news, after July 1, only three regular express trains will stop at Ningguo Station. Ningguo, with a GDP of 34.8 billion yuan, fiscal revenue of 4.8 billion yuan, and industrial output exceeding 50 billion yuan, has 70% fewer stops than Jixi County Station, which has a GDP of only 7 billion yuan and fiscal revenue less than 1.5 billion yuan. Such a stark contrast between brilliant economic development and awkward railway transport is truly heartbreaking, isn't it?
That day I was sightseeing and taking photos along this old railway. I saw a local farmer's aunt passing by. I followed her and chatted. She told me that she had built her own villa more than ten years ago. Her house is on the west side of the railway, while her farmland and vegetable plots are on the east side. She has to cross the railway pedestrian path frequently every day for farm work. During the chat, she said that in the year she got married, all passenger trains on this line stopped at Ningguo Station. Now her grandson is in high school, but the number of stopping trains has decreased. Every time her family needs to travel, they have to drive to Jixi County Station or Xuancheng Station. A railway has recorded three generations of life and the hard fate of Ningguo's railway, while also recording the brilliant urban and rural economic development along the line!
The bitter stories are over, and good things keep coming. According to my understanding, the relocation project of the Ningguo urban section of the Wan-Gan Railway has been approved by the China Railway Corporation. Recognizing Ningguo's active economic development, a 350 km/h high-speed railway connecting Xuancheng to Jixi County will be built, and a major high-speed rail artery from Jiangsu, Shandong, Anhui, Jiangxi to Fujian will be born like a myth. What an exciting piece of news! From an old railway that constrained urban development to a new trunk line promoting local economic growth. Without the country's rapid railway technology and massive infrastructure investment, could such good news have come? Could such earth-shaking changes have happened? Certainly not!
Visiting this old railway line, I gained not only poetic scenery but also learned the city's stories of glory and hardship. With both hardship and glory, a city's story becomes wonderful. Brilliant achievements make one realize their strength, and bitter stories make one cherish the opportunities they have and are about to gain. I believe that ten years later, Ningguo will be an even more beautiful and developed city. Let us look forward to it! At the same time, I wish China's railways to reach a new level and China's economy to take another leap. That's the end of the story. If you like Shan Ye Jun, feel free to follow!
