Woosung Road
Encyclopedia
The Woosung Road or RailwayAlso Woo Sung Railway. Chinese
: s , t , p
Wúsōng Tiělù.It is sometimes also called the Songhu Railway, although that name more properly refers to the 1890s railway which ran principally along the same route. was a 19th-century narrow-gauge passenger railway in Shanghai
, China, between the outskirts of the American Concession in the modern town's Zhabei District
and Wusong
in Baoshan District. Surreptitiously conceived and constructed, it ran for less than a year before it was purchased and dismantled by the Qing viceroy
Shen Pao-chen. The line would not be rebuilt for twenty years. This fate was a commonly-invoked symbol of the Qing dynasty
's backwardness and insularity, despite the road's admitted illegality and numerous legitimate objections voiced by the Chinese during its construction and operation.
Its routestill primarily rural as late as the turn of the centurynow forms part of the Shanghai Metro
's elevated Line 3.
and the concessions to foreign traders following the 1842 Treaty of Nanking
ending the First Opium War
, European and American diplomats and merchants began to advocate for the development of railroads within China. The British firm Jardine, Matheson, & Company in particular started to champion rail connections from the interior to Canton
, Shanghai
, and Tianjin
as early as 1845. MacDonald Stephenson, the engineer responsible for the East Indian Railway, attempted to interest the imperial government in rail links from Hong Kong
and Shanghai
to Calcutta
through Hankow and Yunnan
in 1859 and again in 1864. These proposals were rejected even by the foreign-led Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce, which thought it might impact established shipping. A request of 20 July 1863 by 27 firms for a Shanghai-to-Suzhou line was similarly rejected by the governor of Jiangsu
Li Hongzhang
and in 1865 by the Shanghai taotai Ying Pao-shih, who composed an influential treatise, "The 7 Nos",, p
Qi Bu Ke, w
Chih-pu-k'o. on the occasion.
However, in 1864, American Chinese began to be employed by the Central Pacific Railroad
and by March 1865 the company was recruiting thousands of workers directly from Guangdong
Province. The well-liked inspector general Robert Hart
and the British minister Sir Thomas Wade
made strenuous cases for the adoption of western technology in 1865, cases that were picked up first by Shanghainese merchants and then by the Imperial bureaucracy itself in a heated debate from 1866–1867, which ultimately decided to continue opposition to foreign-controlled rail.
Objections raised then and subsequently included that lines would facilitate foreign interference withand invasions ofthe interior, that railways' straight lines promoted bad feng shui
, that their presence would antagonize the official and peasant classes, and that their competition would destroy the livelihood of porters and ferrymen along the canals, leading them to banditry. Whereas canals assisted irrigation along their routes and could not be stolen, railways would inevitably occupy and pollute arable land and invite theft. Even supporters of railways insisted that it was essential to keep any lines Chinese-controlled and to oppose foreign ones.
port, as the mouth of the Suzhou Creek continued to silt up, obstructing deep-bottomed foreign vessels. Jardine, Matheson, & Co. initially established the Woosung Road Company as a front
with a 200-share issue in 1865. Distributing shares to local businessmen did not succeed in winning official approval and land purchases were far more expensive than expected. The company stopped work in 1867.
The surreptitious construction by the Danish
Great Northern Telegraph Company
of a riverine line connecting the Hong Kong–Wusong telegraph lines to Shanghai in 1870 and its eventual protection by local authorities against theft and disruption in the summer of 1872 suggested a course forward.
In the winter of 1872–1873, the American vice-consul O.B. Bradford began purchasing and leasing a 15 yard (14 m) –wide strip of land within the American Concession, although it was common knowledgeboth among the Shanghailander
s and the local Shanghainesethe ultimate intention would be conversion to rail. As the construction of a Chinese railway was a clear violation of Article VIII of the 1868 Burlingame Treaty
, American interests in the enterprise were sold to the Jardine's Woosung Road, which extended the Danish telegraph from Wusong south to Shanghai along its right-of-way on 12 August 1873. The revived company was led by Jardine's British Shanghai chief F.B. Johnson, the Americans Augustus Hayes of Olyphant & Co. and Frank Forbes of Russell & Co., the British E. Iveson of Iveson & Co., and the Danish G.H.N. Dreyer of the Great Northern. Concurrently with this revival, the Woosung Tramway Company was established separately to manage purchases and planning for the railway. A third company, the Woosung Railway Company, Limited, was incorporated in London
on July 28, 1874, to raise capital for imported British rails and rolling stock, which arrived on December 18, 1875.
Even before realizing a railway was intended, the regional viceroy
Shen Pao-chen noticed that public land at Wusong had been fraudulently sold to the "road"A local named Li K'un-yung had leased land belonging to his widowed sister-in-law to the company, with two local dibao
assisting him and adding public land to the lot. The dibao received 2,950 and 1,200 lashes with a bamboo rod, respectively; Li received only 500 but the experience killed him. The British consul protested returning the land for months, but was forced to yield owing to the fraud and the land's proximity to numerous official buildings including the Wusong battery and the Baoshan magistrate's office. (Confus, 664–665.) and demanded its repurchase and a ban on any road crossing the Wenzaobang
to enter Wusong proper. His subsequent discovery that its conversion to rail had been previously mooted and was known to Feng Chun-kuang, the Shanghai taotai, only increased his annoyance.
The British engineer Gabriel J. Morrison hammered in the first spike on 20 January 1876. The Pioneer ran its first trials on about a mile of track on February 14. Within a week, the Shanghai taotai Feng Chün-kuang had written a protest to the British consul Walter H. Medhurst. After consultation, they agreed that the Chinese would permit construction to continue so long as the British ceased to employ the locomotive and that both would seek further instruction from their superiors. Upon being notified of the railway, Shen Pao-chen ordered the taotai to suspend all work: this failed, but workmen, dibao
s, and landowners came under such pressure that the company considered the agreement vitiated and restored the locomotive on March 20. Wade ordered the British naval commander to Shanghai and provided for protection against any local interference against the workmen.
The British secretary W.F. Mayers met with the Shanghai taotai six times in mid-April concerning a Chinese purchase of the railway; both concurred in principle but differed on how long Jardine's would continue its management role. Mayers demanded eight years, Feng would only permit three. Adamant objection from Wu Yuan-ping, the new governor of Jiangsu, ended these negotiations.
Pioneer. On June 12, the 0-6-0 Celestial Empire set the line's record, reaching 25 mph.
On June 30, 1876, the line was completed as far as Jiangwan. After two days of complimentary and publicity runs for Shanghailander
s and local businessmen, this section was opened to passenger traffic on July 3. Over the next month, receipts averaged $40–60 a day. Business was brisk enough to necessitate adding an extra round trip to the original six on July 22.
On August 3, a local man was killed and Chinese troops from the Wusong garrison were stationed along the railway. The train driver David Banks was charged with manslaughter, but tried in a Western tribunal and acquitted on the grounds that the train had sounded and the suspicion the victim had been a suicide. Given the existing tensions, Thomas Wade used the Margary Affair
and the ensuing negotiations over the Chefoo Convention
to include advisors from the more conciliatory Li Hongzhang
, since promoted to the prestigious viceroyalty of Zhili
, into the negotiations in Shanghai and Nanjing. These lasted throughout October, but on the 24th, the Qing government signed with Wade "The Articles of Purchasing the Wusong Railway", which committed them to provide the railway's owners Tls.
285,000, payable in three installments over the course of the next year, at which point they would acquire complete ownership and management of the line. Jardine's agreed to sell in the interest of establishing a native rail network it could supply and help capitalize. At then-current exchange rates, this was equivalent to a £95,000 return on a £20,000 investment. Although Wade had originally only asked for Tls.
200,000, Shen initially offered to pay Tls.
300,000 within 24 hours simply to take immediate possession of the line before another incident.
Meanwhile, the company continued work on the line. On December 1, 1876, the extension to Wusong was completed and opened, with six cars running six round trips daily. By February, demand was great enough to increase the number of cars to nine, necessitating the use of dual locomotives on each run. At this point, the train had 130 seats and would sometimes carry 250 on festivals. In its year of service, the Woosung Road carried 187,876 passengers, the majority of whom preferred the relatively expensive first- and second-class service. The company posted profits of £27 per mile per week, comparable with British routes. Local Shanghainese entrepreneurs even established a pony-drawn bus servicewith both its bus and uniforms modeled on the railroad'sfrom the Little East Gate of the old town.
to discuss construction of an extension for the line. A local petition was circulated among the Shanghainese requesting its continued operation.
However, as the foreigners made clear among themselves and to the Chinese, they intended to convert the railway to a freight line, competing with the China Merchants' Steam Navigation Company and forcing the issue of opening Wusong as a continuation of their concessions at Shanghai. Although the line's initial five freight cars were converted to passenger use in May 1876, twelve 5 ton–capacity replacements were delivered from Britain shortly later. The foreign diplomats also made no secret of their intention to expand concessions regarding Shanghai into its adjoining territory. During his negotiations over the line, the British secretary Mayers openly claimed that "Woosung is really but a part of the port of Shanghai under the Treaty of Tientsin".
Moreover, the importance of the line to the foreigners had already allowed Li Hongzheng to interfere with and even usurp Shen's authority within Jiangsu as a corollary to his authority over treaty negotiations. The line's purchases and operation increased property values, but divided farms and obstructed existing streams and canals with low bridges.
The Chinese authorities took possession of the line in October, 1877, after which Shen had the railway disassembled. He answered the local pro-railroad petition with another which opposed it. At the same time, he also blocked French attempts to open a new road to Zikawei
and British ones to extend Markham Road and Cemetery Road. Shanghailander
s complained of the closure incessantly, including in the North-China Herald' s obituary of Shen. The annoyance was compounded when the initial planto ship the rails and rolling stock to Qing Taiwan to help develop the coal mines therefailed to materialize on account of mishandling during shipment and lack of funds. Instead the equipment was dumped along the shore and left to rust.
's elevated Line 3 between its Baoshan Road and Zhanghuabang stations. The Shanghai Railway Museum includes original Chinese-language memorials concerning the railway and a full-scale mock-up of the Pioneer.
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
: s , t , p
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
Wúsōng Tiělù.It is sometimes also called the Songhu Railway, although that name more properly refers to the 1890s railway which ran principally along the same route. was a 19th-century narrow-gauge passenger railway in Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
, China, between the outskirts of the American Concession in the modern town's Zhabei District
Zhabei District
Zhabei District of Shanghai has a land area of 29.26 km² and a resident population of 810,211 as of 2003. It is one of the downtown districts of Shanghai though the commercial potential has been continuously undervalued...
and Wusong
Wusong
Wusong,Chinese: s , t , p Wúsōng. formerly Woosung, was a port town located fourteen miles downriver from Shanghai.The Battle of Woosung occurred on 16 June 1842 between British and Chinese forces during the First Opium War. It was the site of China's first telegraph wires and first railroad, both...
in Baoshan District. Surreptitiously conceived and constructed, it ran for less than a year before it was purchased and dismantled by the Qing viceroy
Viceroy of Liangjiang
The Viceroy of Liangjiang , fully referred to as the Governor General of the two Yangtze Provinces and surrounding areas; Overseeing Military Affairs, Food Production; Manager of Waterways; Director of Civil Affairs , was one of eight regional viceroys in China proper during the Qing Dynasty of China...
Shen Pao-chen. The line would not be rebuilt for twenty years. This fate was a commonly-invoked symbol of the Qing dynasty
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
's backwardness and insularity, despite the road's admitted illegality and numerous legitimate objections voiced by the Chinese during its construction and operation.
Its routestill primarily rural as late as the turn of the centurynow forms part of the Shanghai Metro
Shanghai Metro
The Shanghai Metro is the urban rapid transit system of China's largest city, Shanghai. The system incorporates both subway and light rail lines. It opened in 1995, making Shanghai the third city in Mainland China, after Beijing and Tianjin, to have a rapid transit system...
's elevated Line 3.
Background
Following the success of the first British railroadsHistory of rail transport in Great Britain
The railway system of Great Britain, the principal territory of the United Kingdom, is the oldest in the world. The system was originally built as a patchwork of local rail links operated by small private railway companies. These isolated links developed during the railway boom of the 1840s into a...
and the concessions to foreign traders following the 1842 Treaty of Nanking
Treaty of Nanking
The Treaty of Nanking was signed on 29 August 1842 to mark the end of the First Opium War between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the Qing Dynasty of China...
ending the First Opium War
First Opium War
The First Anglo-Chinese War , known popularly as the First Opium War or simply the Opium War, was fought between the United Kingdom and the Qing Dynasty of China over their conflicting viewpoints on diplomatic relations, trade, and the administration of justice...
, European and American diplomats and merchants began to advocate for the development of railroads within China. The British firm Jardine, Matheson, & Company in particular started to champion rail connections from the interior to Canton
Guangzhou
Guangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...
, Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
, and Tianjin
Tianjin
' is a metropolis in northern China and one of the five national central cities of the People's Republic of China. It is governed as a direct-controlled municipality, one of four such designations, and is, thus, under direct administration of the central government...
as early as 1845. MacDonald Stephenson, the engineer responsible for the East Indian Railway, attempted to interest the imperial government in rail links from Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
and Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
to Calcutta
Kolkata
Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...
through Hankow and Yunnan
Kunming
' is the capital and largest city of Yunnan Province in Southwest China. It was known as Yunnan-Fou until the 1920s. A prefecture-level city, it is the political, economic, communications and cultural centre of Yunnan, and is the seat of the provincial government...
in 1859 and again in 1864. These proposals were rejected even by the foreign-led Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce, which thought it might impact established shipping. A request of 20 July 1863 by 27 firms for a Shanghai-to-Suzhou line was similarly rejected by the governor of Jiangsu
Jiangsu
' is a province of the People's Republic of China, located along the east coast of the country. The name comes from jiang, short for the city of Jiangning , and su, for the city of Suzhou. The abbreviation for this province is "苏" , the second character of its name...
Li Hongzhang
Li Hongzhang
Li Hongzhang or Li Hung-chang , Marquis Suyi of the First Class , GCVO, was a leading statesman of the late Qing Empire...
and in 1865 by the Shanghai taotai Ying Pao-shih, who composed an influential treatise, "The 7 Nos",, p
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
Qi Bu Ke, w
Wade-Giles
Wade–Giles , sometimes abbreviated Wade, is a romanization system for the Mandarin Chinese language. It developed from a system produced by Thomas Wade during the mid-19th century , and was given completed form with Herbert Giles' Chinese–English dictionary of 1892.Wade–Giles was the most...
Chih-pu-k'o. on the occasion.
However, in 1864, American Chinese began to be employed by the Central Pacific Railroad
Central Pacific Railroad
The Central Pacific Railroad is the former name of the railroad network built between California and Utah, USA that formed part of the "First Transcontinental Railroad" in North America. It is now part of the Union Pacific Railroad. Many 19th century national proposals to build a transcontinental...
and by March 1865 the company was recruiting thousands of workers directly from Guangdong
Guangdong
Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province...
Province. The well-liked inspector general Robert Hart
Robert Hart
Robert Hart, Bob Hart, or Bobby Hart may refer to:* Bob Hart , a.k.a. Al Trace, American musician* Bob Hart , American bass player* Bobby Hart , American songwriter...
and the British minister Sir Thomas Wade
Thomas Francis Wade
Sir Thomas Francis Wade, GCMG, KCB , was a British diplomat and Sinologist who produced a syllabary in 1859 that was later amended, extended and converted into the Wade-Giles romanization for Mandarin Chinese by Herbert Giles in 1892...
made strenuous cases for the adoption of western technology in 1865, cases that were picked up first by Shanghainese merchants and then by the Imperial bureaucracy itself in a heated debate from 1866–1867, which ultimately decided to continue opposition to foreign-controlled rail.
Objections raised then and subsequently included that lines would facilitate foreign interference withand invasions ofthe interior, that railways' straight lines promoted bad feng shui
Feng shui
Feng shui ' is a Chinese system of geomancy believed to use the laws of both Heaven and Earth to help one improve life by receiving positive qi. The original designation for the discipline is Kan Yu ....
, that their presence would antagonize the official and peasant classes, and that their competition would destroy the livelihood of porters and ferrymen along the canals, leading them to banditry. Whereas canals assisted irrigation along their routes and could not be stolen, railways would inevitably occupy and pollute arable land and invite theft. Even supporters of railways insisted that it was essential to keep any lines Chinese-controlled and to oppose foreign ones.
Construction
Nonetheless, officials at Shanghai were repeatedly troubled about constructing a railway between the city and a YangtzeYangtze River
The Yangtze, Yangzi or Cháng Jiāng is the longest river in Asia, and the third-longest in the world. It flows for from the glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau in Qinghai eastward across southwest, central and eastern China before emptying into the East China Sea at Shanghai. It is also one of the...
port, as the mouth of the Suzhou Creek continued to silt up, obstructing deep-bottomed foreign vessels. Jardine, Matheson, & Co. initially established the Woosung Road Company as a front
Front organization
A front organization is any entity set up by and controlled by another organization, such as intelligence agencies, organized crime groups, banned organizations, religious or political groups, advocacy groups, or corporations...
with a 200-share issue in 1865. Distributing shares to local businessmen did not succeed in winning official approval and land purchases were far more expensive than expected. The company stopped work in 1867.
The surreptitious construction by the Danish
Kingdom of Denmark
The Kingdom of Denmark or the Danish Realm , is a constitutional monarchy and sovereign state consisting of Denmark proper in northern Europe and two autonomous constituent countries, the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic and Greenland in North America. Denmark is the hegemonial part, where the...
Great Northern Telegraph Company
Great Northern Telegraph Company
The Great Northern Telegraph Company was a Danish telegraph company founded in June 1869...
of a riverine line connecting the Hong Kong–Wusong telegraph lines to Shanghai in 1870 and its eventual protection by local authorities against theft and disruption in the summer of 1872 suggested a course forward.
In the winter of 1872–1873, the American vice-consul O.B. Bradford began purchasing and leasing a 15 yard (14 m) –wide strip of land within the American Concession, although it was common knowledgeboth among the Shanghailander
Shanghailander
ShanghailandersSometimes "Shanghighlanders" in punning reference to the Scottish highlanders. were foreignprincipally European and Americansettlers in the extraterritorial areas of Shanghai, China, between the 1842 Treaty of Nanjing and the mid-20th century....
s and the local Shanghainesethe ultimate intention would be conversion to rail. As the construction of a Chinese railway was a clear violation of Article VIII of the 1868 Burlingame Treaty
Burlingame Treaty
The Burlingame Treaty, also known as the Burlingame-Seward Treaty of 1868, between the United States and China, amended the Treaty of Tientsin of 1858 and established formal friendly relations between the two countries, with the United States granting China most favored nation status...
, American interests in the enterprise were sold to the Jardine's Woosung Road, which extended the Danish telegraph from Wusong south to Shanghai along its right-of-way on 12 August 1873. The revived company was led by Jardine's British Shanghai chief F.B. Johnson, the Americans Augustus Hayes of Olyphant & Co. and Frank Forbes of Russell & Co., the British E. Iveson of Iveson & Co., and the Danish G.H.N. Dreyer of the Great Northern. Concurrently with this revival, the Woosung Tramway Company was established separately to manage purchases and planning for the railway. A third company, the Woosung Railway Company, Limited, was incorporated in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
on July 28, 1874, to raise capital for imported British rails and rolling stock, which arrived on December 18, 1875.
Even before realizing a railway was intended, the regional viceroy
Viceroy of Liangjiang
The Viceroy of Liangjiang , fully referred to as the Governor General of the two Yangtze Provinces and surrounding areas; Overseeing Military Affairs, Food Production; Manager of Waterways; Director of Civil Affairs , was one of eight regional viceroys in China proper during the Qing Dynasty of China...
Shen Pao-chen noticed that public land at Wusong had been fraudulently sold to the "road"A local named Li K'un-yung had leased land belonging to his widowed sister-in-law to the company, with two local dibao
Dibao
Dibao,Chinese: , p dìbǎo, w ti-pao, also Romanized tepao, lit "land guarantor". sometimes called headmen or constables, were local officials in Qing and early Republican China, typically selected from among the prominent landowners. Working in communities of around 100 households, they were charged...
assisting him and adding public land to the lot. The dibao received 2,950 and 1,200 lashes with a bamboo rod, respectively; Li received only 500 but the experience killed him. The British consul protested returning the land for months, but was forced to yield owing to the fraud and the land's proximity to numerous official buildings including the Wusong battery and the Baoshan magistrate's office. (Confus, 664–665.) and demanded its repurchase and a ban on any road crossing the Wenzaobang
Wenzaobang
The Wenzaobang, p Wēnzǎobāng. or Wusong Creek is a creek in the Baoshan District of Shanghai, China....
to enter Wusong proper. His subsequent discovery that its conversion to rail had been previously mooted and was known to Feng Chun-kuang, the Shanghai taotai, only increased his annoyance.
The British engineer Gabriel J. Morrison hammered in the first spike on 20 January 1876. The Pioneer ran its first trials on about a mile of track on February 14. Within a week, the Shanghai taotai Feng Chün-kuang had written a protest to the British consul Walter H. Medhurst. After consultation, they agreed that the Chinese would permit construction to continue so long as the British ceased to employ the locomotive and that both would seek further instruction from their superiors. Upon being notified of the railway, Shen Pao-chen ordered the taotai to suspend all work: this failed, but workmen, dibao
Dibao
Dibao,Chinese: , p dìbǎo, w ti-pao, also Romanized tepao, lit "land guarantor". sometimes called headmen or constables, were local officials in Qing and early Republican China, typically selected from among the prominent landowners. Working in communities of around 100 households, they were charged...
s, and landowners came under such pressure that the company considered the agreement vitiated and restored the locomotive on March 20. Wade ordered the British naval commander to Shanghai and provided for protection against any local interference against the workmen.
The British secretary W.F. Mayers met with the Shanghai taotai six times in mid-April concerning a Chinese purchase of the railway; both concurred in principle but differed on how long Jardine's would continue its management role. Mayers demanded eight years, Feng would only permit three. Adamant objection from Wu Yuan-ping, the new governor of Jiangsu, ended these negotiations.
Operation
The first engine was the Ransomes & Rapier 0-4-00-4-0
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 0-4-0 represents one of the simplest possible types, that with two axles and four coupled wheels, all of which are driven...
Pioneer. On June 12, the 0-6-0 Celestial Empire set the line's record, reaching 25 mph.
On June 30, 1876, the line was completed as far as Jiangwan. After two days of complimentary and publicity runs for Shanghailander
Shanghailander
ShanghailandersSometimes "Shanghighlanders" in punning reference to the Scottish highlanders. were foreignprincipally European and Americansettlers in the extraterritorial areas of Shanghai, China, between the 1842 Treaty of Nanjing and the mid-20th century....
s and local businessmen, this section was opened to passenger traffic on July 3. Over the next month, receipts averaged $40–60 a day. Business was brisk enough to necessitate adding an extra round trip to the original six on July 22.
On August 3, a local man was killed and Chinese troops from the Wusong garrison were stationed along the railway. The train driver David Banks was charged with manslaughter, but tried in a Western tribunal and acquitted on the grounds that the train had sounded and the suspicion the victim had been a suicide. Given the existing tensions, Thomas Wade used the Margary Affair
Margary Affair
Margary Affair is the name of a crisis in Sino-British relations, which followed the murder of British official Augustus Raymond Margary in 1875....
and the ensuing negotiations over the Chefoo Convention
Chefoo Convention
The Chefoo Convention was an "unequal treaty" between the Qing and British Empires, which was signed by Sir Thomas Wade and Li Hongzhang in Chefoo on 21 August 1876...
to include advisors from the more conciliatory Li Hongzhang
Li Hongzhang
Li Hongzhang or Li Hung-chang , Marquis Suyi of the First Class , GCVO, was a leading statesman of the late Qing Empire...
, since promoted to the prestigious viceroyalty of Zhili
Viceroy of Zhili
The Viceroy of Zhili , fully referred to as the Governor General of Zhili and surrounding areas; Overseeing Military Affairs, Food Production; Manager of Waterways; Director of Civil Affairs , was one of eight regional viceroys in China proper during the Qing Dynasty of China...
, into the negotiations in Shanghai and Nanjing. These lasted throughout October, but on the 24th, the Qing government signed with Wade "The Articles of Purchasing the Wusong Railway", which committed them to provide the railway's owners Tls.
Tael
Tael can refer to any one of several weight measures of the Far East. Most commonly, it refers to the Chinese tael, a part of the Chinese system of weights and currency....
285,000, payable in three installments over the course of the next year, at which point they would acquire complete ownership and management of the line. Jardine's agreed to sell in the interest of establishing a native rail network it could supply and help capitalize. At then-current exchange rates, this was equivalent to a £95,000 return on a £20,000 investment. Although Wade had originally only asked for Tls.
Tael
Tael can refer to any one of several weight measures of the Far East. Most commonly, it refers to the Chinese tael, a part of the Chinese system of weights and currency....
200,000, Shen initially offered to pay Tls.
Tael
Tael can refer to any one of several weight measures of the Far East. Most commonly, it refers to the Chinese tael, a part of the Chinese system of weights and currency....
300,000 within 24 hours simply to take immediate possession of the line before another incident.
Meanwhile, the company continued work on the line. On December 1, 1876, the extension to Wusong was completed and opened, with six cars running six round trips daily. By February, demand was great enough to increase the number of cars to nine, necessitating the use of dual locomotives on each run. At this point, the train had 130 seats and would sometimes carry 250 on festivals. In its year of service, the Woosung Road carried 187,876 passengers, the majority of whom preferred the relatively expensive first- and second-class service. The company posted profits of £27 per mile per week, comparable with British routes. Local Shanghainese entrepreneurs even established a pony-drawn bus servicewith both its bus and uniforms modeled on the railroad'sfrom the Little East Gate of the old town.
Closure
The profit of the line made the British expectant of continued Chinese operation: in April, they engaged their foreign employees to another 18 months of service and, in September, ordered a fourth and larger locomotive. The railway's chief engineer, Morrison, even visited the officials at SuzhouSuzhou
Suzhou , previously transliterated as Su-chou, Suchow, and Soochow, is a major city located in the southeast of Jiangsu Province in Eastern China, located adjacent to Shanghai Municipality. The city is situated on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and on the shores of Taihu Lake and is a part...
to discuss construction of an extension for the line. A local petition was circulated among the Shanghainese requesting its continued operation.
However, as the foreigners made clear among themselves and to the Chinese, they intended to convert the railway to a freight line, competing with the China Merchants' Steam Navigation Company and forcing the issue of opening Wusong as a continuation of their concessions at Shanghai. Although the line's initial five freight cars were converted to passenger use in May 1876, twelve 5 ton–capacity replacements were delivered from Britain shortly later. The foreign diplomats also made no secret of their intention to expand concessions regarding Shanghai into its adjoining territory. During his negotiations over the line, the British secretary Mayers openly claimed that "Woosung is really but a part of the port of Shanghai under the Treaty of Tientsin".
Moreover, the importance of the line to the foreigners had already allowed Li Hongzheng to interfere with and even usurp Shen's authority within Jiangsu as a corollary to his authority over treaty negotiations. The line's purchases and operation increased property values, but divided farms and obstructed existing streams and canals with low bridges.
The Chinese authorities took possession of the line in October, 1877, after which Shen had the railway disassembled. He answered the local pro-railroad petition with another which opposed it. At the same time, he also blocked French attempts to open a new road to Zikawei
Xujiahui
Xujiahui , also spelt Zikawei or Siccawei is an historical and cultural area in Xuhui District of Shanghai, China. The area is a well known precinct for shopping and entertainment in Shanghai....
and British ones to extend Markham Road and Cemetery Road. Shanghailander
Shanghailander
ShanghailandersSometimes "Shanghighlanders" in punning reference to the Scottish highlanders. were foreignprincipally European and Americansettlers in the extraterritorial areas of Shanghai, China, between the 1842 Treaty of Nanjing and the mid-20th century....
s complained of the closure incessantly, including in the North-China Herald
Memorials
The Woosung Road's path now forms the stretch of the Shanghai MetroShanghai Metro
The Shanghai Metro is the urban rapid transit system of China's largest city, Shanghai. The system incorporates both subway and light rail lines. It opened in 1995, making Shanghai the third city in Mainland China, after Beijing and Tianjin, to have a rapid transit system...
's elevated Line 3 between its Baoshan Road and Zhanghuabang stations. The Shanghai Railway Museum includes original Chinese-language memorials concerning the railway and a full-scale mock-up of the Pioneer.
Named trains
- Pioneert , s , pPinyinPinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
Xiāndǎo Hào. (0-4-00-4-0Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 0-4-0 represents one of the simplest possible types, that with two axles and four coupled wheels, all of which are driven...
) - Celestial Empiret , s , pPinyinPinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
Tiāncháo Hào. (0-6-00-6-0Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 0-6-0 represents the wheel arrangement of no leading wheels, six powered and coupled driving wheels on three axles, and no trailing wheels...
) - Flowery Landt , s , pPinyinPinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
Huáguó Hào. (0-6-00-6-0Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 0-6-0 represents the wheel arrangement of no leading wheels, six powered and coupled driving wheels on three axles, and no trailing wheels...
) - Viceroyt , s , pPinyinPinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
Zǒngdū Hào. (0-6-00-6-0Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 0-6-0 represents the wheel arrangement of no leading wheels, six powered and coupled driving wheels on three axles, and no trailing wheels...
)
See also
- History of rail transport in ChinaHistory of rail transport in ChinaThe history of rail transport in China began with foreign assistance. Since then, it has made advances with domestic and foreign technology.-Qing Dynasty era:-Early efforts:...
- History of ShanghaiHistory of ShanghaiThe history of Shanghai, spanning over a thousand years, closely parallels the development of modern China. Originally a small agricultural village, Shanghai developed during the late Qing Dynasty as one of China's principal trading ports...
- Kaiping Tramway
- List of railways in China