The rapid development of a railway network in Jiangxi province has not only lifted the southeastern province’s economic status, but also created closer business links with Hong Kong. Li Bingcun and Shadow Li report from Jiangxi.

As the sun beat down mercilessly on Xinfeng railway station on a scorching afternoon, passengers cooled off under swirling ceiling fans in the lounge, waiting for the trains to pull up.

On the platform of the station in Xinfeng county, Jiangxi province, Huang Changfei — the station’s general Party branch secretary — was making final preparations for the trains’ arrival, with intermittent railway freight carriages passing by nonstop.

It has been more than two decades since Huang, 56, went to Xinfeng — a county in Jiangxi’s southernmost city of Ganzhou, which borders Guangdong province to the west — to work on the Beijing-Kowloon railway. As one of the nation’s key traffic arteries, the dual-track railway opened in 1996, linking the capital’s Beijing West railway station with the Shenzhen railway station in Guangdong. It then connects to Hong Kong’s East Rail Line, which terminates at the Hung Hom station in Kowloon.

Huang had previously served with a Chinese Air Force unit in Changchun, the capital city of northeastern Jilin province. In 1997, he went to Ganzhou with a dual purpose — to stay with his wife, and to work on the Beijing-Kowloon railway, helping to realign the tracks for trains to change directions. He initially worked at the nearby Datangbu station, which is also along the railway, before being transferred to the Xinfeng station in 2010.

“I was demobilized and became a railway worker in 1997, the same year Hong Kong returned to the motherland,” Huang recalled.

To celebrate Hong Kong’s reunification with the motherland, railways were decorated with colorful flags and banners. Many people watched the handover ceremony live on television on July 1, 1997, to share the joy with their compatriots, he said. “Seeing our motherland take back one of its ‘strayed children’, every Chinese was overjoyed. It also meant our motherland had grown stronger.”

To commemorate the handover, the Beijing-Kowloon railway was set to go into service on Sept 1, 1996. An advanced group of workers was sent to Xinfeng to prepare for the opening of the station — the county’s first rail service. About 15 trains passed through the station every day in the early stages of its operation, with vast green fields and lush mountains in its surroundings.

A railway of prosperity

Jiang Meifei, head of the Xinfeng station, began working here in August 1996 as a station attendant. Growing up near the tracks, Jiang was born to a family with four generations working in the railway industry. Passing on the family tradition, he too became a railway worker.

Jiang recalled that when he was still a child in his hometown of Yingtan in northeastern Jiangxi, he often saw trains loaded with fresh food passing through the city. “I could see vegetables and livestock being shipped south to Hong Kong in covered wagons,” he said, referring to the three “express trains” that were used to deliver fresh food from Shanghai, Zhengzhou and Wuhan to Hong Kong via Shenzhen every day from 1962 to 2010.

But with the advent of more diverse transportation modes, the “express trains” were subsequently taken out of service. Nevertheless, rail transportation still plays a major role in Jiangxi’s shipment of goods to Hong Kong today, according to Huang.

Besides the Beijing-Kowloon railway, another railway — the Beijing-Guangzhou railway — also connects Hong Kong via the Beijing-Guangzhou and Guangzhou-Shenzhen rail networks on the mainland, as well as Hong Kong’s East Rail Line. Cross-border railway is one of the most popular modes of transport for passengers and freight between Hong Kong and the mainland.

The Beijing-Kowloon railway, which focuses on cargo transportation, has taken off much pressure of the Beijing-Guangzhou railway on the cross-border route, boosting the transportation capability between Hong Kong and other cities in the Pearl River Delta, as well as central and northern China.

The Beijing-Kowloon railway, which winds through many impoverished regions in Jiangxi, mostly old revolutionary bases, has fueled their transformation. These regions previously had no rail services. Huang said the railway has injected great vitality into Xinfeng county and cities in the province in the past 25 years.

Located near many popular “red tourism” sites, such as the Jinggang Mountains, the Ji’an and Ganzhou stations along the railway had handled staggering increases in the number of railway passengers, up 130 and 93 times respectively between 1996 and 2015, according to media reports.

Exports of agricultural goods, such as Jiangxi’s famous navel oranges, have boomed, while “red tourism”, that features tours of significant historical sites in the modern Chinese history, has gained popularity on the mainland.

Compared with 1996, when the Beijing-Kowloon railway went into service, Jiangxi’s GDP had soared from 141 billion yuan (US$21.8 billion) to 2.57 trillion yuan last year — an eighteen fold increase — according to official statistics.

Huang Changfei, general Party branch secretary of the Beijing-Kowloon railway’s Xinfeng railway station, has been working for the railway since 1997. (SHADOW LI / CHINA DAILY)

A station linking the future

Huang may soon call it a day at the Xinfeng station as he is due to retire in four years’ time. But for Huang Xinshun, it’s just the starting point. The 26-year-old, a graduate of the Southwest Jiaotong University in Chengdu, Sichuan province, is now a station attendant at Ganzhou, his hometown, with the hope of looking after his parents. 

Huang Xinshun went to Xinfeng county last year after having worked in other places for several years. At first, he was depressed by the huge economic disparity between Chengdu and Ganzhou. “For one thing, Chengdu has a full-fledged transport system, including a metro, intercity trains and high-speed railway. But for Ganzhou, high-speed railways are scarce,” he said.

However, he gradually changed his mind as he realized that working in a less developed city like Ganzhou could offer him more room to use his expertise, especially in the application of new technologies. “Putting what I have learned at college into good practice and improving railway services at the old revolutionary bases is my big wish,” he said.

Developments are ongoing. Under the nation’s plan of building a high-speed railway directly linking Beijing and Hong Kong, Xinfeng began constructing a high-speed railway station in 2017. The station is due to start operating this year.

Within a 25-year span, Xinfeng has transformed itself from a small county devoid of railway services into a promising land. The enormous changes couldn’t have been possible without the hard work of those who soldiered on day and night along the tracks.

With fresh and younger talent being brought in, the railway industry in Xinfeng is set to develop more rapidly and contribute more to the region’s economic development.

William Xu contributed to this story.

Contact the writers at bingcun@chinadailyhk.com