Kaiping Tramway and Imperial Railways of North China (original) (raw)

Often described as China's first railway, the first 1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) standard gauge railway to be built and survive in China was the Kaiping (開平) colliery tramway located at Tongshan in Hebei province. However, this was not the first railway in China. An earlier attempt to introduce railways had been made in 1876 when the short Shanghai to Wusong narrow gauge line known as the "Woosung Road Company" was built but then pulled up within less than two years because of Chinese government opposition.