The romance of steam is not quite so rose-tinted when you're working in half a gale at minus 15 degrees Centigrade and your 'career' is to shovel grit, char and ash all day long. Neither eye prote... (more)

In China, the most favoured method of coaling locomotives was by steam crane. Usually playing photographic 'second fiddle' to the mighty QJs. Here crane No.5187 is given top billing over a QJ comi... (more)

On the plains of Inner Mongolia, the gatekeeper at the west end of Baomutu siding raises the manual crossing gates after the passage of a westbound freight train. Gatekeepers on the Jitong Railway... (more)

Two shopworkers adjust the running gear of a QJ-class locomotives at Daban, just two months prior to the end of steam. In the background lurks one of the many DF4-class diesels that replaced the Q... (more)

QJ 7007 sits under the stars in the Daban engine depot. The engine was steaming very lightly.

QJ 6911 leaves Daban with eight cars of the eastbound local passenger train at 6:26 AM.

QJ 7002 pilots an unidentified classmate away from Daban towards the Jingpeng pass. Once in a while, I need to remind myself that this was not a fevered figment of my imagination, merely breathtak... (more)

Rolling into the setting sun.

I had just disembarked from my train at Daban and I was making my way across the tracks towards the MPD. Looking back towards the station, this was my first sight of a double-headed freight with i... (more)

The train gets underway.

God sure was in his heaven on this perfect Sunday evening. He showered all before him in shimmering gold and poor fools like me wanted to take it all home!

In the gloom of Daban's repair hall, this image needed an ultra wideangle lens (21mm equivalent) and an exposure of F2.8 at 1/8th second. More than that, it needed a mate's steady shoulder (thanks... (more)

Golden dusk at Daban. This was my breathtaking first view of a 'real' steam depot in the 21st century. It could scarcely have been more perfect (or surreal)!

The pool in the foreground is starting to freeze as QJ 6992 sits in the fading sun awaiting duties. This is the running shed side of Daban MPD yard and the depot's newly-delivered breakdown crane ... (more)

Shattered dreams! If ever there was such a place as the mythical 'elephant's graveyard', then surely this is the equivalent for the noble 'iron horse'. Slowly sinking into the mire is this woebego... (more)