China March 2005

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Steam in China - Wuhan Steelworks

by Martijn Niesen

While staying in Wuhan city, Hubei province, working at the Wuhan Iron and Steel (group) co I've made some observations. First some negative words, I didn't see any signs of steamloks on the south part off the plant for three weeks, or any signs of resent use off them. The staff said there wheren't any steamloks anymore and all replased by diesel. A place witch looked like a small former steam depot was dismanteled, no more waterkrane and was use as tank place off diesel engines. Now some good news, under the Wuhan no 2 yangtze river bride in wuchang there are 3 small depots one is used for about 15 diesel engines to stay over the night, one for repearing diesel engines. But the third is use for steamengines here there stood up to 4 SY engines at one time, two in steam, one was undergoing major repears, this was probely nr SY1519 but last nummer was not clearly good to read. Here standing in steam was SY 0364, cold was SY1063 but was resently used. The fourth engine was standing more near the river and left in the dark to Wuchang North Railway Station. All three depots were easy to get into, with staf that was friendly or just didn't care. From the bridge is a good sight in the depot. So some days there were no loks in the depot in sight so probely all are used then in shunting in the harbour industries. On one day I thought I saw one with a blue tender behind, but was not sure there were two or three engines at that moment. Hoping to help with your good work, staying in Wuhan

At the depot wating SY 0364 on 31-3-2005 in the building behind under major repair SY1519 while cold wating SY 1063

Nearby the diesel depot and left diesel at the Wuhan steelplant

Martijn Niesen

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