This far grander locomotive was photographed at Hou Chou Fou on the Tientsin Pukow Railway. The bungalows built for the British engineers can be seen in the background.
Not that cost was easy to assess.
It is impossible to give any reliable information as to the cost of the railways already constructed in Japan, owing to the system adopted by the Government of not allowing foreign engineers to interfere in, or have any control over, money matters. On each engineer’s district a large staff of Japanese officials was appointed, who made all payments and arranged all contracts. Whenever an engineer required materials or labour, he had to indent on these officials, who furnished them without giving information as to cost. This system is open to many and grave objections.
Potter was only able to complete a fraction of the work he had hoped – and – expected to do. He did, however, manage to see one length of line completed and to witness the opening ceremony carried out by the Mikado. It presented an example of Japanese ingenuity. The stations ‘were all beautifully decorated with evergreens, flowers and flags’ and ‘A huge and ugly set of sheer legs at Koha was covered with tarpaulins, fastened together and painted so as to represent their favourite mountain, Fusiyama [sic].’
There were many areas where Japanese and British worked together amicably. The Japanese soon showed that there were certain things with which they needed very little outside help, including tunnelling. But even here there were occasions when expertise was required. The 4436-foot Yanagaseyama tunnel posed ventilation problems which Holtham solved by using a turbine and compressor. The drawings were by Japanese draughtsmen working under the supervision of B.F. Wright and machine parts were cast and forged at Koha. Wright’s comments on the work sum up much of the experience of the British engineers in Japan:
It is not the author’s intention to claim anything original or novel in the design of the turbine or compressor, but to record the fact that the whole work has been made and erected by, and is now in entire charge of, men who eleven years ago had not seen a railway or machinery used for making them.
By the 1880s there was clearly a mood of growing confidence in Japan. They were prepared to tackle the Usui Pass that linked Yokogawa to Karuizawa on the Tokyo to Naortsu line. In five miles the line had to climb from Yokogawa to the Maruizawa summit, climbing a total height of 1830 feet. Various notions were considered, including loops of the Darjeeling type, but eventually the engineers settled for the Abt system, using rack and pinion pioneered in Germany. Three British engineers were involved: Francis Trevithick, C.A.W. Pownall and John McDonald. What made the line so special is that none of these engineers had tried the system before – Britain’s first Abt system railway up Snowdon opened in 1896, three years after the Usui Pass. Japan was no longer blindly following British lead: she was taking the lead instead.
An unidentified British built Mogul, quietly rusting away in China
China was slower than Japan to take to the railway age, and no country could have had a more bizarre beginning. Gabriel James Morrison described the events of those days, beginning with a hand-written note of 1879:
The time may however come when railways will be introduced into China and I doubt not that some antiquarian may then find it interesting to make a search in the library of the Institution of Civil Engineers and to proclaim the fact that once upon a time there was a railway in China which existed over a year and on which over 40,000 train miles were run and nearly 200,000 tickets were issued.
The story began as far back as 1863 when foreign merchants in Shanghai started agitating for a railway. Then a very specific proposal was brought forward for a line to connect Shanghai to the Yangtse at Woosung, and a company was set up that bought a strip of land for ‘a roadway’. In 1874, two of the company set out for England to look for a contractor and came back with the news that Alexander Matheson would undertake the work and a new organization, the Woosung Road Company Ltd., now appeared. An engineer looked over the land, but still nothing was done. The proposed ‘roadway’ went through paddy fields and, to protect their investment, the shareholders in China ordered an embankment to be built that was capable of taking not a roadway but a railway. Mr Hill, who was put in charge of the work, was attacked by the local people and severely injured. The English investors were understandably worried, but they were assured that the Chinese authorities had given guarantees that the embankment was officially authorized and anyone interfering with the work would be punished. A narrow gauge locomotive was ordered from Rapier of Suffolk and John Dixon of London came out to lay the 2ft. 6 inch gauge track. In February 1876 a ballast train set off pulled by the engine Pioneer and China had its first steam train.
Early work on this railway was permitted because the local magistrate favoured Western-style development; his replacement, Feng, took precisely the opposite view. All kinds of obstacles were placed in the way of the builders, but on 1 July 1876, 4½ miles of track were opened to a temporary station at Shanghai. One hundred and fifty passengers were pulled by the loco Celestial Empire, but it was not a happy occasion and the station-master at Kangwa had to be evacuated on the return train. There were disputes over fencing off the line and the Chinese argued that if this was indeed a roadway anyone could use it. The inevitable happened and a man was run over and killed. Even more arguments followed before it was decided that the line was illegal, but the Company could run it anyway until the end of the year. The tracks were advanced to Woosung and on 1 January 1877 it passed to the Chinese who pulled it all up. The railway adventure was over. Morrison wrote bitterly,
There are apologists who will say that the Country belonged to the Chinese and they had a right to do what they liked. Those who argue in this way may have some idea of the comparatively mild opposition offered in civilised countries by a certain class, to so called innovations, but they can have no experience of dealing with a set of shrewd, cunning, conceited, and, unfortunately, powerful men, who wallow in their ignorance, and glory in the fact that they have not advanced as such for what geologists might call aeons of ages.
Other Chinese officials could take a radically different view. While the Viceroy of Nankin was ordering the demolition of the first railway, the Viceroy of the Northern Provinces, Li Hung Chang, was busy looking for ways to supply coal to the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company. The first proposal was for a 27-mile railway from the collieries to the nearest navigable river, but local authorities demanded an eighteenth-century solution: canal and tramway. Claude William Kinder was to be the engineer for the 7-mile tramway, along which it was agreed no locomotives should pass. Even with that proviso he had an extremely difficult time.
To give an idea of the annoyances practised, the following may prove interesting. While surveying, a pole was planted on the summit of a hill where the remains of a rude fortification still exist; this was reported to the throne, and several official despatches were required before the authorities were satisfied that no serious rebellion was contemplated, or the Tongsan Earth-dragon likely to be disturbed. Again, when it was proposed, some years later, to use certain iron ores to the N.E., the whole scheme was stopped as being detrimental to the manes of the imperial dead situated about 120 miles in a totally different direction, and so great was the uproar, that the colliery itself, then in full operation, was very nearly closed. The mere sight of a few boring-rods, steam-pipes, or anything with a hole in it, drove the natives frantic with fear of rebels, and for years after they persisted in the belief that, when the time was ripe, the make-belief gas- and water-pipes would become cannon or other terrible weapons of warfare. Pamphlets were circulated accusing the engineers of attempts to unearth the treasure guarded by the dragon, and calling for the immediate destruction of the works. Strikes were common, and caused much delay, to obviate which men from other provinces were imported; but, with the exception of those from Shantung and Canton, few have remained. In spite of the constant assertion that labour was abundant, it was often impossible to secure sufficient
hands, especially in the summer months when they were most needed.
Japan’s first railway from Tokyo to Yokahama: the little British tank engine was obviously not familiar to the Japanese artist.
As on the Shanghai railway, there was a good deal of subterfuge. The line passed over very easy ground and the tramway was duly opened in 1881. But during the winter of 1880-1, secret work was going forward. An odd assortment of objects was taken to the company workshops: a boiler from an old portable engine, wheels from a scrap yard and other chunks of iron. On 9 June 1881, the engine emerged in all its glory, and was duly christened Rocket of China. It was the 100th anniversary of the birth of George Stephenson. There was the predictable outcry, but when the officials were given a run at 20 m.p.h. on a train headed by a Chinese locomotive built in Chinese workshops they were quite won over. The stables built for the mules were demolished, and two more engines were ordered from Robert Stephenson of Newcastle.
Richard Trevithick, son of the famous locomotive pioneer, moved to Japan to help set up their railway system: this is one of the fine engines he designed for them.
It was a gamble that paid off, but no one was prepared to risk another, so nothing more happened for a number of years until agreement was given for the line to be extended. Kinder was again involved, but this time work was put out to tender, and as a result it became more of an international affair: rails from Krupps of Essen, locomotives from America and a largely Chinese team. Kinder’s assistant, Kwang King Yang, had been trained in America. The new encouragement for rail construction was largely politically inspired, to meet what was seen as the growing power of Japan, already well set on the road to industrial power. More extensions were ordered, chiefly for military uses, but this time going all the way to Tientsin, a distance of fifty miles. The fact that this was very much an officially approved line did little to reduce local antagonisms. On the whole, however, work went well. Kinder, who built a number of lines in China did, however, find a few minor irritations.
The Chinese are excellent at all kinds of earthworks, provided sufficient care is taken to keep them in proper line and level, of which little details they are apt to be somewhat careless. The centre line was marked with pegs, 100 feet apart, duly numbered in English and Chinese, but the European figures excited official wrath, and were removed, and what was worse, in many cases the pegs themselves were taken away. In the most difficult places soldiers were employed, and their work was excellent, as they are accustomed to the construction of the mud forts so generally used in China.
Construction costs varied enormously, depending mainly on conditions. Payment was by piece rate: in the worst places, like the Petang area where men worked up to their knees in mud, they were paid 5½d. a cubic yard; in good spots it could be as low as 2d.
The earth was carried up by one man with two baskets or by two men with one large basket, the cost depending largely on the class of labour employed, i.e., soldiers, canal diggers, or mere villagers and loafers. The best coolies usually do as much as 6 cubic yards a day on short leads, taking it in turns to dig and carry.
China had its own difficulties for engineers. Surveys had to be conducted in a semi-clandestine manner, without using the usual chains. Drawing attention to oneself was ‘a dangerous affair in China’, and no engineer if he was wise ever went anywhere even remotely near a grave. Compromises were made all the time and, as is so often the case with compromises, rarely produced the right result. Kinder discovered that
The Chinese, as a rule, invariably desire to have the railway as far from their towns, &c, as possible; but when the line is open, like people elsewhere, they lament that their demand was agreed to and acted upon.
The Europeans needed to add tact and patience to their professional skills.
Most of the problems could be traced back to the instability of a country where the old dynastic forces were weakening and there was a constant battle between the progressives and the reactionaries, between national government and provincial government, and all around were the other powers – Europe, America, Russia and increasingly Japan – looking for opportunities to cash in, hunting out trading concessions. In these circumstances the British saw railway construction as a way of infiltrating the closed world of Chinese affairs. In 1898, the British bankers Jardine Matheson joined forces with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation to create the British and Chinese Corporation. British interests were to lend nearly £19 million for Chinese railway building between 1894 and 1912, more than the other main financiers, France, Belgium, Germany and Japan, combined. They were not, however, any longer very active in actual construction – certainly not as active as they wished to be.
One line at least had heavy British involvement. In 1887 the Chinese authorities ordered Liu Ming Ch’uan, the governor of Formosa, to move the island’s capital from the coast to the centre of the island. Liu agreed, with the premise that he would need a railway to join his new city to the port. Imperial approval was given with the proviso that foreign interference was kept to a minimum. As a result engineers, mainly British, were brought in, but were liable to be overruled by Chinese ranging from army officers to the governor himself. It was a recipe for chaos and chaos duly ensued.
The first few miles were laid out by a German engineer, but in 1888 Henry Cripps Matheson arrived from England to take over the role of consulting engineer. Most of the workforce were soldiers with no experience of railway work. Matheson would have a line pegged out only to find the next day that his soldier-navvies had taken the pegs away for firewood. Complaints had no effect: he was a foreigner. The first few miles lay through paddy fields and his attempts to take a sensible line were constantly thwarted by the officers who kept agreeing with local owners that the line should go round the edge rather than through their fields. The result was a railway that resembled an English country lane, and for much the same reason. More seriously, Matheson’s engineering judgement was challenged. At Kotongka there was a difficult hilly section, but the governor refused to allow either a tunnel or a diversion. He insisted on a 60-foot-deep cutting, and ordered the military to get on with it. They, in turn, insisted on saving costs by making the cutting as narrow as possible. The result was that as fast as it was cut, the clay slid back and refilled it. The soldiers got sick and local labour was recruited, but after two years no real progress had been made.
At last the cutting was abandoned, and the tunnel approved. To save face, the authorities demanded that the actual work be done by the military; Matheson and his men were limited to setting out the line and marking depths of shafts along the way. It was a fiasco. The officers took no account of drainage problems, so that at the first major downpour the cuttings filled with landslips. They worked inwards from either end, but one entrance turned out to be 14 feet higher than the other. At this point, Matheson and the British engineers simply gave up on the whole project and went home. The only surprise is that they stayed so long. Similar problems were found by other engineers. Thomas Johnstone Bourne was resident engineer on a railway in the Lu-Pao district. Like Matheson he had problems with pegs and had to create a new position, official Peg Watchman. He was at least spared military intervention: his survey team consisted of the engineer, a European assistant, three Chinese students and a number of coolies. When work began, the contractor looked after the great army of workers, who lived in huts made of straw mats stretched over bamboo hoops. Equipment was basic: each man had one shovel and a pair of baskets on a long pole. They worked well, but other difficulties arose. The Chinese had recently established a steelworks near Hankow and insisted on supplying the rails from there. Unfortunately they appear not to have grasped the need for standardization, and the engineer was constantly being presented with a batch of rails all of different heights which it was quite impossible to fit together. In the event 30 miles of track were laid using rails imported from Britain.
A recently refurbished British built 4-4-0 in Pakistan: typically for the sub continent several
passengers are riding on the outside of the coaches
In pointing up Chinese mistakes, it is as well to remember that one is reading an account written from one point of view. China was trying to leap into the modern world – moving in one bound from a feudal to an industrial society. There was national pride at stake, and that pride was easily injured by European arrogance. Chang Chih-Kung, the Chinese railway director, entered into negotiations with J.O.P. Bland of the British and Chinese Corporation over finance for the Peking to Hankow Railway. The talks soon foundered, and Chang put the Chinese case:
First he [Bland] wanted to place the construction on a contract basis, aiming at monopolising the construction rights; then he wanted the chief engineer to sign for all expenditures, aiming at interfering with China’s authority in appointment and purchase. His demands were so improper that they were really beyond the realm of reason.
The problems of working in China were immense, but as the nineteenth century gave way to the twentieth the need for railway building in much of the rest of the world was dwindling, and there was no shortage of entrepreneurs looking for work. Among them was one of the most colourful characters in railway history, George Pauling. He opened offices in Hong Kong and Shanghai, but his early attempts to land contracts fell foul of politics: attempts to run lines into Manchuria were blocked by objections from Russia and Japan. As a result, Pauling gave up on China and went off to build a railway in Borneo instead. His adventures there sound as though they were written for Boy’s Own Paper.
A British built 0-6-0 working hard as it makes its way through a mountain pass in Pakistan
Railway Empire Page 21