Weiyuan Coal Mine Miniature Train · Huangni Section Narrow-Gauge Railway

The Weiyuan Coal Mine Miniature Train · Huangni Section Narrow-Gauge Railway

The Weiyuan Coal Mine Miniature Train · Huangni Section Narrow-Gauge Railway is a cultural relic protection unit of Sichuan Province.

The Weiyuan Coal Mine Miniature Train · Huangni Section Narrow-Gauge Railway is hailed as an "industrial landscape of the steam age" and a "living fossil in the deep mountains."

Huangjingou Town in Weiyuan County, Sichuan Province, produces high-quality coal. In 1910, the British brought coal mining technology to Huangjingou, marking the beginning of coal mining in this remote mountain town. In 1958, the former Weiyuan Coal Mine spent two years building a 7.2-kilometer-long narrow-gauge railway. In 1961, the mine purchased more than 10 small steam locomotives from Shijiazhuang Power Machinery, kicking off the era of miniature trains in the deep mountains.

Each carriage of the Weiyuan miniature train has a load capacity of 8 tons, and the accompanying rail gauge is 76 centimeters, with a speed of only 15 kilometers per hour. According to records, during the peak years of Weiyuan coal production in the 1960s and 1970s, Huangjingou Railway Station had up to 10 miniature trains. Each train consisted of over 20 freight cars, 5 passenger cars, and 4 flatbed freight cars, running 4 to 6 times a day. It served as the main mode of transportation for over 20,000 miners, their families, and local residents, as well as the lifeline for coal transport at the Weiyuan Coal Mine, operating for a total of 46 years. At that time, there was a saying: "Without Weiyuan’s coal, trains in Sichuan wouldn’t be able to cross the Qinling Mountains, and Chongqing’s steel mills wouldn’t be able to produce steel!" By the mid-1990s, when word spread that steam-powered miniature trains were still in operation at the Weiyuan Coal Mine in Sichuan, China, many foreign visitors came to see this relic from the Industrial Revolution over 200 years ago. As time passed, with coal resources depleting and production sharply declining—output fell to less than 10,000 tons per month, barely enough to sustain one trip per day—the miniature trains, which had long been out of production, became nearly impossible to maintain due to the unavailability of spare parts. Consequently, in June 2007, the Weiyuan narrow-gauge miniature train ceased operations.

The Weiyuan miniature train has witnessed the rise and fall of Sichuan’s coal mining industry over more than a century, encapsulating the glory created by generations of Weiyuan coal workers through their wisdom and hard work. It also stands as a testament to industrial progress. It is said to be one of only two surviving narrow-gauge steam miniature trains in the world, the other being the Jiayang Miniature Train in Jianwei County, Leshan. Dubbed vividly as a "living landscape of the original industrial revolution" and a "living museum of 19th-century industrial revolution," the Weiyuan miniature train has garnered ongoing attention from local authorities. In 2006, the Weiyuan County Government designated the Huangjingou miniature train and the Huang-Ni narrow-gauge railway as county-level cultural relic protection units. In July 2011, it was listed as part of the third batch of municipal-level cultural relic protection units in Neijiang City. Recently, it has also been included in the eighth batch of provincial-level cultural relic protection units in Sichuan Province. The Weiyuan County Government and Sichuan Coal Industry Group Weida Company (formerly Weiyuan Coal Mine) have reached a consensus to jointly protect the miniature train as a local tourism resource, preserving this unique spectacle for the world.

Protected area: within the station perimeter and extending 5 meters on both sides of the railway tracks in the Huangni section.

Construction control zone: extends 10 meters beyond the protected area.

Further reading:

· Eighth Batch of Sichuan Provincial Cultural Relic Protection Units