| Guangzhou–Hankou railway | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 The completed line in 1939 | |||||||||||||
| Yuehan railway | |||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 粵漢鐵路 | ||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 粤汉铁路 | ||||||||||||
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TheGuangzhou–Hankou orYuehan railway is aformer railroad inChina which once connectedGuangzhou on thePearl River in the south withWuchang on theYangtze River in the north. At the Yangtze, the railway carriages were ferried toHankou, which then connected to theBeijing–Hankou railway. It was constructed from 1900 to 1936 and, from theirformer romanizations, was known at the time as theCanton–Hankow railway.
The completion of theWuhan Yangtze River Bridge in 1957 finally linked the two lines into a single contiguous railway and its former track now forms the southern leg of theBeijing–Guangzhou railway.
In 1897, a concession for theBeijing–Hankou railway was awarded to a Belgian consortium backed by French financing. The British were then the dominant foreign power in China, and the Belgian concession would keep the important route out of British hands. To prevent the French from controlling the entire route between Beijing and Guangzhou, the Chinese government actively sought American involvement in the Guangzhou–Hankou railway. A concession for the southern railway was awarded to theAmerican China Development Company in 1898.[1]
Construction on the project began in 1900, with the southern terminus on the east bank of the Pearl River. The 49-kilometer (30 mi)branch line to Sanshui ("Samshui") viaFoshan ("Fatshan") was constructed westward from the west bank of the Pearl from 1902 to 1904.[2]
A diplomatic crisis erupted when it was discovered that a Belgian consortium had purchased a controlling interest in the American China Development Company. This subverted the original intention of awarding different railway lines to different foreign powers. The American financierJ. P. Morgan bought a large stake in the company in November 1904, but the concession was cancelled on November 19, 1904. Morgan demandedUS$18 million in compensation but settled forUS$6.75 million, representingtreble damages for theUS$1 million already spent on the construction of the railway, plusUS$3.75 million to redeem the concession.[1]
The railway was completed in 1936.[3]
English newspapers announce that the last rail has been laid of the railway link between Hankow and Canton.
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