ONE MAN’S MISFORTUNE…
HOW A DISLOCATED KNEECAP HELPED SET UP ED HURST’S FAVOURITE PHOTOGRAPH.
It was 2005 and the magnificence of real, main line steam was going through one of its last big death throes.
Given the unfortunate fact that much more efficient diesel and electric traction has existed for decades, it’s remarkable how long steam has taken to die. For we Brits, it was all over nearly 50 years ago – but much remained across the world. There were even occasional rearguard actions in which significant new, steam-operated lines opened, such as the JiTong Railway in China, taking large-scale steam haulage unexpectedly and quite amazingly into the 21st century.
What a magical period this was for those of us lucky enough to make it out there!
But the eventual outcome was inevitable and by 2005 the die was cast. After that year, a small number of locomotives would trudge on for a few more years in scattered mines and industrial complexes, but this was to be the very last winter in which a main line would witness towering plumes of steam as a succession of heavy loads were dragged hundreds of miles against their will.
175 years after the Liverpool & Manchester Railway initiated the world into an era of main line steam, it was finally about to end.
As the many photographs taken in those years attest, this was no faltering demise, but a glorious finale befitting the grandeur of what, to so many of us, is man’s greatest invention. And the Jing Peng Pass was surely the scenic pinnacle of the line.
I was lucky enough to visit it three times before steam finished.
Each trip involved a logistical ordeal that less obsessive people would regard as ridiculous. Obtaining a tourist visa to travel to this far-flung part of the communist state required some forethought. Our little group had to organise local guides to take care of us and the subsequent flights to Beijing were the easy part.
There would then follow days-long journeys across rural China to get to Inner Mongolia. The train journeys were an adventure, but hardly a comfortable one. Beds stacked three deep, even in ‘soft class’. The average height of the locals is somewhat less than my 6ft-plus frame, which meant that the beds did nothing to prevent my feet from dangling into the aisles – where they were clattered into with military precision all night long as a soldier patrolled up and down the carriage for no discernible purpose. That only served as a distraction from the acrid smoke that emanated from the coal-fired stoves heating each carriage. The on-train food and sanitary arrangements are probably best not described in too much detail. Even this was not the end of the journey; the final stretch was completed over endless miles of bumpy, frozen roads in minibuses with as little suspension as tread on their tyres. Oh, and ice on the inside of the windows.
When, finally, the hotels of Reshui were reached – a place that is at the heart of the pass – their limited comforts were most welcome, especially when one discovered that, at night, a succession of steam-hauled coal trains could be heard battling up the grade. The orange glow of open firehole doors high up the mountains above, accompanied by the ‘QJs’ echoing air horns and steam whistles, will never leave my memory.
But the hardships were only beginning. Whole days outside at temperatures routinely at -30°C, plus wind chill, are not to be taken lightly. Tears froze our eyes shut. The crunch of frozen nostril hairs breaking as I blew my nose. The videographer with part of his face missing after holding his camcorder for too long. The ache of frozen toes and fingers giving way to an ominous numbness – that would only completely pass months later. You either prepared for these conditions very seriously – or regretted not doing it. Remote and basic it certainly was – but this was working steam on a grand scale and worth almost every difficulty. The sight of ‘QJs’ doing battle with the often-snowy landscape made me chuckle out loud in disbelief.
It was hard to believe that I was really standing there – but even harder to accept that it’s now all gone.
IMPROBABLE CHANCES
And now to the greatest challenge of all – the picture known to all
Jing Peng aficionados as ‘Tunnel 4’
(the romance of the line was not matched by the poetry of the People’s Republic’s naming conventions!).
As the opening picture demonstrates, it’s a scene of majestic proportions. It looks for all the world as though you should be able to scramble up a hillside, wait for a train and click the shutter. But it’s defeated many a photographer.
The problems are many and varied. Firstly, the vantage point is up a mountain that, in snowy conditions, requires quite a lot of precarious scrambling and sliding. Secondly, in the winter, it’s only properly lit from this side of the line for about 20-30 minutes a day (in between the time the sun comes up over the hillside and the time its clockwise movement across the sky ruins the lighting).
With the only steam-hauled trains being freights that ran to no timetable, and information hard to come by each day, it took luck to get one at the right moment. But that wasn’t the main issue…
The prevailing winds – which are strong – are from the west and destroyed
most attempts. Even if you got a train at the right time, even if you had a covering of snow and good sunshine, even if you had decided to commit to climbing the mountain to get this single picture (and declined the easy pickings of numerous images by chasing the train from the road), you were very likely to have the image wrecked by steam blowing down and covering the train on the sunny side.
I had attempted the picture before and failed each time. For an example of the all-too-frequently obtained ruined Tunnel 4 pictures, see Ian Bowskill’s shot above.
On this particular morning, I was going to make what I knew was my last attempt.
LAST SHOT
The line was rapidly being dieselised and it was clear that, by the next winter, steam would have gone. In truth, I should already have left the pass and chalked this image up as one that got away. But our tour leader – Ian Bowskill (also chairman of the Battle of Britain Locomotive Society) – had just had a very Jing Peng sort of mishap.
The previous evening, as I packed for our morning departure from the Reshui hotel, I heard a bang followed by agonised yells coming from an adjacent bathroom. I burst in to find Ian in a state of some indisposition on the floor and one of his kneecaps on the side of his leg.
The bathroom fittings left something to be desired. The bath was not sealed against the tiled wall – which meant that, when having a shower, water ran down the walls, behind the bath and all over the floor, making it as slippery as an ice rink. The bath was also inadequately attached, which caused it to tip over when exiting. This combination of circumstances caused poor Ian to lose his balance, then slip over very awkwardly.
Imagine how it must feel to have such an injury in rural Inner Mongolia – a long way from home, a long way from sophisticated help. Although a local doctor did eventually turn up, Ian had already put his kneecap back himself. The painkillers provided turned out to be an opiate unknown to western science which, shall we say, left Ian unconcerned about his knee (or much else). Even after he felt able to leave his bed days later, we had discovered the interesting fact that no crutches could be found in these parts for someone of Ian’s height.
Amazingly, one was made for him in a local carpenter’s workshop, but had to be cut to size in the hotel using a pruning saw (which I had brought with me on the trip)!
So, we had no choice but to remain at the pass for a couple of days longer while Ian recovered to the point that he could undertake the journey home. It was a terrible turn of events for him.
The only good that came from it was that the rest of our little group managed a few more pictures, including one more attempt at Tunnel 4 on the day we finally did leave. As you can see, it was successful.
BITTERSWEET
In Ian’s absence, I was given the role of advising on the pictures we should go for – and decided that the gamble for this picture was worth it, one last time.
We watched the train approach across the valley, passing numerous photogenic vantage points, while our position was in cloud. I felt that I had made a mistake and that the group would miss out on our last sunny steam shots ever on the line, until, amazingly, the cloud melted away before the train reached us. And – biggest miracle of all – as it burst out of the tunnel, the steam held up. We had the picture!
But as we whooped with joy and shook one another’s hands, we knew that poor Ian was lying in bed at the bottom of the valley. I suppose he can console himself with the fact that, had he been fit enough to climb to the position, we would already have left, never to return – so it was a picture he was never going to get. Frankly though, in his position, that would have been little comfort.
As that winter passed, so did proper main line steam operating anywhere in the world. I decided then that I would never return to photograph steam in China, preferring to remember it like this to chasing the smaller, yet still beautiful, remnants.
It truly was the end of something that had started in 1830. I am lucky to have experienced it; each winter, I long to be able to do so again.
I frequently look at the Tunnel 4 shot I should never have got and, with mixed feelings, thank Ian’s poor knee.