In the Geographical Journal of March 1940 (Volume 45 No.3) there is an article about the Yunnan-Burma Road, work on which was taking place during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), and in the final stages of Britain’s long rule over Burma. Brief mention is made of the Yunnan-Burma Railway which was then under construction, a British project to connect China’s Yunnan province with the then recently established rail network in Burma, which ultimately failed. [7]

So, although it initially appears as though this would be the natural location for the Garratts after leaving East Africa in 1939, our investigation suggests that it is actually very unlikely to have been their destination.

If correct, this means that the British probably sold the Garratts to their erstwhile competitors in Indo-China – the French.

2. The Yunnan to Vietnam Railway

The Faux Namti (Wujiazhai) Bridge over the Sicha River, in the Nanxi Valley region (right). More than 800 Chinese coolies died here. [12]

The Yunnan–Haiphong railway is an 855 km (531mile) railway built by France between 1904–1910, connecting Haiphong, Vietnam with Kunming, Yunnan province, China. The section within China from Kunming to Hekou is known as the Kunming–Hekou railway, and is 466 km long. The section within Vietnam is 389 km (242 mile) long, and is known as the Hanoi–Lào Cai railway. The railway was built as a metre-gauge line due to the mountainous terrain along the route. Currently it is the only metre-gauge main line in China.

In the 19th century, the French colonial administration worked to develop regular trading networks and an efficient transport infrastructure between Indo-china and south-west China. The primary motivation for such an effort was to facilitate export of European goods to China. A railway would also give France access to Yunnan’s natural resources, mineral resources and opium, and open up the Chinese market for Indochinese products such as rice, dry fish, wood and coal.[13]

Prior to the construction of the railway, the standard travel time from Haiphong (the closest sea port to most of Yunnan) to Kunming was reckoned by the Western authorities to be 28 days: 16 days by steamer and then a small boat up the Red River to Manhao (425 miles), and then 12 days overland (194 miles).[14]

The right to build the railway was obtained following China’s defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–95). At a cost of 95 million francs (€362 million), the railway was among the most ambitious colonial projects undertaken by France, and was put into use on 1 April 1910.[13][15]

In the context of French technology and manufacturing over a century ago, the construction of a several-hundred-km long railroad through the red-earth mountain plateau of Yunnan called for political will allied with vision, courage and hard work; without these, one of the most magnificent projects in the history of railroad construction would not have been possible.

This railroad represents the highest level of engineering technology in the early 20th century. For 80 percent of its length it runs between perilous and precipitous mountains. Within a linear” distance of 200km. Between Hekou at 76m above sea level to Mengzi at 2,000m above sea level, there is an altitude disparity of over 1,900m: the section between Baogu and Baizhai involves a climb of 1,200 m within just 44 km.

In order to complete the project at the least time and cost, the Hekou to Kunming project was divided into 12 separate sections which were progressed simultaneously. The French Yunnan-Vietnam Railway Construction Company recruited more than 60,000 Chinese labourers from all over China and there were over 3,000 French, American, British, Italian and Canadian engineers involved in the construction. Along this 465-km-long railway, 107 permanent railway bridges of various types were built and 155 tunnels excavated; 1.66 million cubic metres of earth and stones were dug out and over 3,000 temporary bridges and haulage routes were built. The difficulties encountered were beyond the imagination of the decision-makers in Paris.

The climate was sweltering, particularly around the Nanxi River valley area, where summer temperatures could exceed 40 centigrade; it was humid and oppressive, and infections from tropical diseases and plague were always possible. Statistics show that during those six years, 12,000 people died and are buried alongside the 465km of railway. 10,000 of these died in the Nanxi River valley, most of them Chinese labourers who gave up their lives in order to earn a living. There were also several hundred Frenchmen and other foreigners, drawn from afar by this railroad, who never made it back to their native soil.

One of many bridges along the route is the 67 metre-long steel railway bridge over the Sicha River in the Nanxi valley. To Chinese, this handsome and delicate structure is known as “Wishbone Bridge.” Since its completion in 1909, the “Wishbone Bridge” has never had an adverse impact on railroad traffic. Hardly a bolt has had to be changed. [27]

Under pressure from Japan, France closed the line on 16 July 1940 to cut supplies to China during the Second Sino-Japanese War. During the Japanese occupation Japanese National Railways Class 9600 2-8-0 locomotives were shipped to aid their invasion, and after the completion of the “death railway” it was possible for a time to send through traffic to Burma and hence to the Indian metre gauge network. This is now not possible, as sections of the railway were destroyed during the conflicts since World War II. [16]

During the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979, the railway bridge across the Nanxi River at the two countries’ border was destroyed, and the trade between China and Vietnam came to a halt for several years. [17]

Twice-a-week, cross-border passenger services operated as late as 2000; the second-class passengers had to transfer from a Chinese train to a Vietnamese train at the border station, while the first-class car passengers could remain on board as their car was transferred to the train across the border. However, landslides caused frequent delays. [18]

Eventually, in 2005 the passenger service on the Chinese section of the railway (the Kunming–Hekou railway) was terminated,[9] [10] and most of the passenger coaches were donated to Myanmar. [19]

In 2008, a passenger service on a small part (37 km long) of the Chinese section of the railway was resumed, but on a very limited scale. As of 2012, two daily trains ran from Kunming North railway station on the metre-gauge tracks to Shizui (石咀) Station on the western outskirts of Kunming, and to Wangjiaying (王家营) east of the city. [19]

As of 2016, this service still continued, with 2 daily trains to Wangjiaying and one to Shizui. In December 2017, in order to leave room for the construction of the Kunming No.4 Metro line, the commuter train service between Shizui and Wangjiaying was terminated again, and parts of the metre-gauge railway in the urban area was demolished. Freight services continued to operate throughout the Kunming–Hekou railway. [20] Some rolling stock continues to be maintained in working condition. According to a 2015 news report, over the seven preceding years, 63 metre-gauge flatcars had been refurbished at the Kunming North Station’s workshop, for use in trans-border container shipping. [21] In 2016, 100 mothballed freight railcars were selected to be refurbished at the Kaiyuan workshop and to be put into use again. [22]

Among important cargo types moved internationally on this line are chemical fertilizers. [21] Since 2015, direct trains have been run from the phosphate fertilizer manufacturers in Kaiyuan to consumers in Vietnam. [23][24] In the opposite direction, sulphur and zinc ore concentrate are imported to China from Vietnam. [24]

The overall role of the Kunming–Hekou meter-gauge line in the Sino-Vietnamese trade significantly declined in the 21st century, as compared to the railway’s heyday in the first half of the 20th century. According to one article dated 2015 and describing the trade as it operated prior to the opening of the standard-gauge railway to Hekou in 2014, the most common route for cargo shipped from Kunming to Vietnam would be the rather circuitous one: via the Nanning–Kunming railway (opened 1997), the sea port of Fangchenggang, and then by ship to Haiphong. [25] However, since 2015, the amount of trans-border shipments on the meter-gauge line has been on the increase again. [23][24] According to a 2017 report, the first quarter of 2017 saw 166,200 tons of freight shipped by rail on the trans-border line, which represented a 66.2% increase from the same period of the previous year, and 12-year record. [24] This consisted of 74,100 tons of fertilizers exported from China to Vietnam and 92,100 tons of sulphur and zinc ore concentrate imported to China from Vietnam. [24]

On the Vietnamese side, the Hanoi–Haiphong and Hanoi–Lào Cai railways continue to be important for domestic and trans-border cargo transportation. Passenger trains continue to run both from Hanoi to Haiphong and from Hanoi to the border town of Lào Cai. [20]

3. The Disposition of the Beyer-Garratt Locomotives from East Africa.

Whatever the intention of the Kenya Uganda Railway (KUR) in sending their locos to Indo-China, it seems that they will have ended up on the French-owned line from Vietnam to Yunnan. There is some supporting evidence for this …..

Huochemi on the National Preservation Forum [28] comments that:

“although Charles Small in “Far Wheels” has a chapter on the KUR/EAR, he does not deal with these Garratts. The roster info is truncated as Small notes that this info was given in the Railway Magazine. He does not mention the date but it must have been prior to 1959, the date of his book. There is a distant shot of a Garratt in service on the Yunnan Railway in “Chemins de Fer de la France d’Outre-Mer” (p131).

After Pearl Harbour, there was good reason for Britain to help out with motive power for the (essentially French) Yunnan Railway but in 1939 it does not seem so likely and indeed, according to Chang Kia-Ngau, Britain was still minded to take note of what the Japanese thought of potential unfriendly actions such as providing anything that might be construed as military aid to the Chinese.

It could of course have simply been a meeting of minds i.e. France wanted some more motive power and the KUR was happy to sell. My first thought was that the locos may have been intended for the Burma-Yunnan Railway, in which British had a greater interest, and discussions were underway from 1938 on this. Only a portion of that line was built and it may be that the Garratts’ use on the Yunnan Railway line was intended to be temporary (the only route in was via Vietnam and the Yunnan Railway), but in the event they remained there permanently.”

M636C on the Vietnam thread on the Classic Trains Forum [29] comments:

“There was … a former French line to Kunming … which remained metre-gauge. This line had 4-8-2+2-8-4 Beyer-Garratts purchased second hand from the East African Railways.”

Tkautzor on Les Forums de Passions Metrique et Etroite provides some very helpful comments in French (translation below):

“Selon Frédéric Hulot dans “Les Chemins de Fer de la France d’Outre-Mer” les six Garratts du KUR ont été achetés par le CIY en 1939 et déchargés en octobre de la même année, mais n’ont vu que peu de service avant que la ligne coupée en juillet 1940. Alors qu’elles étaient capables de soulever des charges de 500 tonnes sur les pentes les plus raides de la ligne, ils n’étaient pas populaires auprès des équipages car elles ne pouvaient pas être tournées sur les plaques tournantes de la ligne en raison de leurs longueurs.”

(According to Frédéric Hulot in “The Railways of France Overseas” the six Garratts of KUR were bought by the CIY in 1939 and unloaded in October of the same year, but saw little service before the line was closed in July 1940. While they were able to pull loads of 500 tonnes on the steeper slopes of the line, they were not popular with crews as they could not be turned on the turntables on the line because of their lengths.)

My thanks for the comments made by members of different railway forums which appear to have answered the question raised by this blog!☺ As huochemi says on 25th June 2018:

“Just to be clear, we know what happened to the Garratts. All six are shown on the 1948 roster for the Yunnan Railway, and five for the “1960s” (60 年代) (from Yunnan Province History – Railway History 云南省志 – 铁道志 published by the Yunnan People’s Publishing House in 1994). My interest is how they came to be sold by the KUR to Yunnan. Incidentally, looking at your updated note, I cannot see anything in the ALCO Works List for 2-8-8-2s for Burma/China around 1941, and I wonder if it ever got as far as a firm order.” [28]

References