QJ 6017 leads the Hohot-Dongsheng Express in this 1999 photo charter organized by Nils Huxtable.

John was with Nils Huxtable for this trip to China in the winter of '99 chasing QJs in active service. Here 6017 leads the Hohot-Dongsheng Express.

John was with Nils Huxtable for this trip to China in '99, chasing doubleheaded QJs in active service before they became international stars.

Shafts of light through smoke-stained windows pick out SY 0532 in the MPD adjacent to Chengde steelworks. She was shunting in nearby Shuangtashan yard earlier in the day and has come on to shed fo... (more)

Dreamscape Pt.3. Boldly going forward, I walked to the rear of the simmering pair . . . wide awake was I, better by far than any dream!

Venturing closer . . . afraid to blink in case I woke up. It looked like a double-headed oil train, sounded like a double-headed oil train, SMELLED like a double-headed oil train. Yep - it must be... (more)

Imagine, dear viewer - you've just got off an overnight train from Beijing and you arrive at the crack of dawn in a strange and bustling foreign city (Chengde). You board a coach that climbs out o... (more)

I had last seen a sight like this over thirty five years before (at Healey Mills freight Yard near Wakefield in Yorkshire). Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd ever witness such a glorious ... (more)

Evening shadows lengthen in more ways than one at Dahuichang on the southwest of urban Beijing. The 'C2' 0-8-0 had just brought yet another load of limestone down from the quarry to the stone crus... (more)

I was really glad that I'd packed my ultra-wideangle lens, because there would have been no chance of this image otherwise. In a scene of Dickensian murk, the tiny MPD at Dahuichang housed these t... (more)