The Sunning Railway

by Mr Peter Crush

The Sunning (Xinning) [新寧] Railway was a privately built railway line which existed in Guangdong Province between 1906 and 1939. It was a standard gauge line built on American principles and mainly used rolling stock purchased from the United States, although three tank locomotives were known to have come from Henschell of Germany. The railway was unusual in that it was planned, financed and constructed solely by private Chinese interests at a time when most railway development in China was dominated by the powerful European nations.

I am keeping the text short in this article because recently an excellent and well- informed paper "Chinese Emigration, the Sunning Railway and the Development of Toisan" by Lucie Cheng, Liu Yuzun and Zheng Dehua has been posted on the web. This article contains much background history about the line based on the authors' researches at the Bureau of Archives of Taishan County. Their web pages can be seen at:

 http://www.interline.com.au/~jgk/taishan/railroad.html  

I have only one criticism about this write up and this is that from the railway enthusiast's perspective it is short on technical detail about the railway and does not include even one historical photograph.

The railway was the brainchild of Chin Yee Hee  [Chen Yixi) [陳宜禧] ([sometimes spelt Cheun Gee Yee and various combinations], a native of the Toishan (Taishan) [台山] district of the South-Western region of Guangdong Province. Chin had been a railway construction foreman in the United States, based around Seattle, for nearly 40 years. In 1905 Chin returned to China, raised capital from fellow Toishan natives living in the United States and also in Hong Kong and set about building his railway.

 The line was built in stages over a period of some 15 years, commencing with the first section of 15 miles from Kungyik (Gongyi) [公益] to Toishan (Taishan), which opened in January 1908. The line reached Towshan (Doushan) [斗山] in 1909 which saw the official opening of the then 54-mile railway. In 1913 it was extended a further 26 miles to Pakkai (Beijie) on the Si Kiang River, just north of Kongmoon (Jiangmen)[江門] city and finally a 21-mile branch line was constructed from Toishan to Paksha (Baisha) [白沙] in 1920.  The railway lasted until the war years when the advance of the Japanese invaders caused the Chinese Government to pull up the line in 1939. It was never rebuilt, which is rather strange given that China has ever since the war been expanding its railway network.

The first American locomotives acquired for this line were two Baldwin “Mogul” type 2-6-0 tender locomotives which were supplied in 1907.

Later seven more of this same type of Baldwin locomotive were imported as well as four 0-4-0 Saddle tanks also from Baldwin, the first in 1908.

The line was single tracked and utilized 60 lb. steel rails imported from Belgium and Germany. The cost of construction was stated as being between Mexican $30,000 and 34,000 per mile. Gradients were low but there were many sharp curves often in order to avoid tombstones and graveyards and other disturbances to villagers’ “Fengshui”. Some of the curves were in fact so sharp that many of the European type of buffers on the sides of the rolling stock were soon broken off. It can be observed that the locomotives supplied by Baldwin in 1908 had switched to American-type central couplers, yet by the 1930’s the European side-buffers were again fitted to the newly ordered locomotives.

In 1928 two “Mogul” locomotives of a more powerful type were supplied by Baldwin with a further two of this type being ordered in1933 and arriving in 1934. Baldwin Magazine reported in 1934 that the total number of locomotives in use on the railway stood at fifteen and that all were from America. This is, however, at odds with a China Year Book report and other sources to the effect that out of seventeen locomotives, three were German Henschell locomotives that had been in use since the building of the line in 1909.

During the construction of the railway all the equipment had to be shipped to the railway’s depot and workshops that had been built at Kungyik. All the parts, including the disassembled Baldwin locomotives, were first shipped to Hong Kong where they were off-loaded onto junks for the onward river trip to Kungyik. Upon arriving at the workshops the locomotives were re-assembled.

The railway’s headquarters were located at Toishan (Taishan) in the Sunning (Xinning) District. Toishan, previously a sleepy village, was in fact often referred to as “Sunning City” after the building of the railway. The line brought considerable prosperity to Toishan and a fine railway headquarters was built there from which their president, ChinYee Hee, directed operations when he was not at his other Sunning Railway office which had been established at 151, Connaught Road, Hong Kong.

All the rolling stock, apart from the three German locomotives, came from USA. Chin imported American steel passenger coaches from Harlan and Hollingsworth Company of Delaware. There were 49 such passenger coaches with 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd. Class compartments by the early 1930’s as well as about 100 freight cars of various types. Some of the boxcars and flat cars were built by the Middletown Car Works, Pa in 1907 and others were supplied by Fitzhugh Luther Co of Chicago.

From the company’s workshops and station at Kungyik the railway followed the Southern bank of the Tam River [???] for about 5 miles to a point where the line crossed the river by a train ferry. The ferry option was used because of the initial prohibitive cost of building a bridge. The ferry consisted of a 350 ft. long steel pontoon that was 50 ft. in width and capable of holding one locomotive and up to 3 coaches. Steam winches on board the ferry propelled the ferry by pulling on two parallel lengths of wire rope anchored to the each side of river shore. The crossing was a tricky and slow process and usually took at least half an hour. Later in the 1934 a steel bridge was constructed at Kungyik to replace the ferry crossing.

In March 1931 the company decided to experiment with motor rail cars. China Motors of Shanghai constructed some petrol-powered cars using American Dodge motor chassis as the base. A two-car unit comprising a motorized car and one trailer was used for four return trips each day on the branch line between Toishan and Paksha (Baisha). A “Y” shaped turning track was used at each end for turning the around the cars, which did not have reverse transmission gear. An additional single car unit was also used on the Toishan to Kungyik section over a distance of about 20 miles. This car operated on a non-fixed schedule basis, leaving the station when it had sufficient passengers.

The railway operated with reasonable financial success until the mid 1930’s when it began to run into financial difficulties. A decline in the district’s fortunes and also the advent of motor vehicle transport took a heavy toll on the railway’s revenues. The railway met its demise finally in 1939 when the Chinese Government, in order to attempt to frustrate the invading Japanese, dismantled the line.

Note 1.

The old English transliterations for the some of the main station names and their modern (“pinyin”) equivalents are

Toishan  “Taishan”, Kungyik or Kungyifu “Gongyi”, Pakkai “Bei Jie”, Kongmoon “Jiangmen”, Sunwui “Xinhui”, Tatseh “Daze”, Szetsin “Siqian”, Ngau Wan “Niuwan”, Takianghu “DajiangXu”, Sunwingshi “Xinrongshi”, Ngshaphu “Wushixu” Chunglow “Chunglou”. On the Paksha  “Baisha” branch line known stations were “Kengjiu”, “Nanchangshi”, “Paobu”, Samhop “Sanhe”, “Lidong” and “Changjiang”.  In 1934 the then Superintendent of Motive Power, Mr. Chiu Yu, reported that there were 35 stations on the main line and 11 stations on the Paksha branch.

Note 2.
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.