Chengdu, reaching Sichuan's capital by railway

After several hours, the watershed was reached - rivers would flow toward the Yangtze instead of previously the Yellow River basin. The first of its two locomotives was detached before the train started on a long overnight descent toward Chengdu. Arriving at 6.45 am it was sadly “goodbye” to fellow passengers before heading down Renmin Road to find the Tibet Hotel. Time for a shower, breakfast and rest before starting to discover the city.

Last year, 2017, I retraced that journey from Chengdu on train T8 back to Beijing. Green coaches, with a dining car serving up spicy Sichuan cuisine with cold drinks, it was daylight all the way to Baoji. The scenery breathtaking, enhanced by extensive fields of yellow maturing crops. A truly stunning journey that also revealed the ongoing work toward completion of the Chengdu -Xi’an high-speed railway. The illustrations of the Baocheng Line are from that journey that still retained some of the feelings of my earlier excursion now 24 years previously.