The Chinese Eastern Railway - A Glimpse of History

by Mr Peter Crush (page 3 of 3)

THE CHINESE EASTERN RAILWAY’S INITIAL SUCCESS WAS NOT TO LAST LONG:

Barely had the railway been completed when the Russians suffered a staggering defeat at the hands of the Japanese in the Russo-Japanese war of 1895. Tension between the two nations had been escalating over several years as the Russians moved aggressively to dominate Manchuria. The Japanese viewed the Russians as a threat to their own security and also to their commercial interests in Manchuria. The tension came to breaking point when Russia failed to honour an agreement between Japan and the other western powers to pull out the massive number of troops that she had sent to Manchuria.  Russian influence in Korea had also been steadily increasing and this Japan viewed as a direct threat to her own security since Korea could be used as a bridge for attacking Japan.

Japan’s defeat of both the Russian army and navy staggered the western world that had previously always considered their nations as stronger and superior to any oriental nation. The retreating Russians sued for peace with Japan and American President Theodore Roosevelt acted as a mediator at a peace conference in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The resulting “Treaty of Portsmouth” transferred to Japan Russia’s lease of the Liaotung Peninsula and control of the southern branch of the CER from Port Arthur as far north as Kwang Cheng Tzu (寬城子) near to Changchun (長春 )

The war destroyed much of the CER’s southern branch line because much of the fighting was centred on strategic positions along the railway. The retreating Russian army also ripped up large sections of the track, blew up bridges and took as much rolling stock as possible with them to prevent the advancing Japanese troops from making use of the railway.  When the Japanese took control of the southern line they found it virtually useless and had to rebuild it from scratch. Initially it was re-gauged to 3ft. 6in. track and made use of rolling stock borrowed from Japan, but later it was rebuilt to standard gauge. This  major section of the former southern branch of the CER, between Changchun and Port Arthur, was thus, in 1906 incorporated as a new company, “The South Manchuria Railway Company” (SMR), and massive Japanese investment was poured into redevelopment of the line. The SMR built a large new city centre at Mukden and foreign travellers who were familiar with the port of “Dalny” had to get accustomed to its new name, “Dairen”(Dalian  大連), which was a transliteration of the Japanese name.  Dairen became the headquarters of the newly created SMR, but that is another story.

To return now to the CER, or at least what remained of it; the total length was now reduced to 1033 miles and this consisted of the eastern portion of the Siberian line from Manchouli to Pogranichnaia and the very much shortened southern branch from Harbin, which now ran only as far as Changchun.

The CER continued to run its operations but the passenger and freight traffic was never high enough to make the railway profitable. Without Russian government & military support the line would have sunk into insolvency. Passengers travelling along the Siberian line to Japan or Peking (Beijing) would, in most instances, leave the trans-Siberian line trains at Harbin and take the CER wide-gauge express to Changchun where they could cross the platform and board a standard-gauge SMR express heading south via Mukden to Dairen. From there they could embark on connecting steamship services to Japan or China coast ports such as Shanghai.

Between the years 1914 and 1917 the CER ordered approximately 900 “Decapod” type locomotives from the United States from both Baldwin and Alco locomotive works, and many of these were assembled in the CER’s Harbin workshops. Some of these locomotives were later reconfigured to standard gauge following the re-gauging of the line by the Japanese. Besides American-built engines there were also a number of 2-8-0 freight locomotives supplied by Fives Lille of France as well as Russian-built engines of the same wheel configuration which were designated “Tze” and “Sha” locomotives. Russian-built 4-6-0 type locomotives of the “Gue” class were also supplied 

Following the Russian revolution in 1917 there was a period of some years when the railway continued to be run by the anti-Bolsheviks although services became very disorganized and unreliable. Although the new Chinese Nationalist Government wished to regain control of all foreign dominated railways, an offer made in 1919 by the new Russian government to hand over the CER, was ignored by the Chinese because they had not yet decided to establish diplomatic relations with the Russian communist government.

By 1924, however, the Chinese government agreed to recognize the Russian government and this was accompanied by a new agreement between the two countries for joint administration of the CER. Russia, in turn, recognized Chinese sovereignty over the line and agreed that the railway would be redeemed by China as soon as China could raise capital to buy out the shareholders.

The latter did not materialize and Russia retained control over the railway which, according to foreign reports of the time, offered a very unreliable service. During this period passengers on the CER had every likelihood of being robbed on their trains by bandits, even if they managed to complete a journey on the CER without derailment on the poorly maintained track. This situation continued until 1932, by which time the Japanese military had occupied all of Manchuria and created their puppet state of Manchukuo (滿州國).

In 1935 the Russians gave in to Japanese domination of Manchuria and ceded to Japan all rights of the CER, which was now designated the “North Manchuria Railway”. For this “illegal sale”, concerning which China was not even consulted, the Japanese agreed to pay the Russians ¥140,000,000, one third in advance upon the signing of the transfer agreement, with the balance to be paid in instalments from the revenue of the railway.

Soon afterwards the puppet Manchkuo government entrusted control and direction of the ex-Chinese Eastern Railway and all other Manchurian railways to the South Manchuria Railway Company. This completed Japan’s rule over this Chinese territory until Japan surrendered the entirety back to China in 1945 following their defeat in the 2^nd. World War.

Note
Every effort has been made to ensure that the pictures and illustrations in this article have been taken from sources in which any copyright that existed has now expired. In a few cases it has proved impossible to trace the owners of copyright and the author apologizes if it can be shown that copyright still exists. This article appears for academic interest only and no commercial advantage has been derived from its inclusion in the Hong Kong Railway Society's pages.