The Greatest Steam Show on Earth - Coal Trains

Necessarily coal is taken from the deepest part of the mine at Jalainur, in areas where foreigners are strongly discouraged from going for understandable safety reasons; this is a general view of the south end of the pit where most loading occurs:

 The orange cranes / excavators are electrically powered.

Operationally, the steam locomotives are at the south end which means their tenders are attached to the tipper wagons - six in each set although only five are actually filled which takes about half an hour per train. The bottom end of the system is mainly single track, with additional sidings / loops, the next set of empties waits for the fulls to leave up the zig-zags, this is the train above backing out.

And again from the same location, after its first of several reversals:

By and large priority is given to getting the next set of empties in so as to maximise loading opportunities, here empties are running in below while the previous set of fulls is continuing its climb:

In fact, that climb is not so great as loaded coal trains barely breach the coal seam, they eventually end up at the two road transfer shed at Dongfanghong at the north end of the pit. 

From here the coal travels on a conveyor underground to the washery. As can be seen from the left of the picture above, coaling and watering facilities are available here. This means that these trains and their locomotives are rarely seen at higher levels, just occasionally they venture out for operational reasons, this is one set caught at the upper level at Dongfanghong in the late afternoon:

One steam locomotive is allocated to the washery for shunting, other locomotives visit from time to collect 'clean' coal which is then taken to the servicing points at Nanzhan and Dongfanghong. This is the connection with CNR and SYs allocated to the deep mine system can be seen here too.

This is the best chance to see smokebox first workings away from the depths of the pit, this train is returning empty after delivering locomotive coal to Dongfanghong:

• Introduction to Jalainur

• Spoil trains

• Tipping the spoil

• Unsung heroes - the steam cranes

• Shed and works

• The people thing