Founder of the TrainsChaser Team

Wang Wei is an independent photographer and railway cultural scholar who has been independently engaged in railway photography and historical research for 24 years. His work and personal features have appeared in media outlets such as the BBC, CNN, the Daily Mail, The Guardian, Trains magazine, and Chinese National Geography. He has published monographs including My Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway and Chasing Trains, and has used activist documentary photography as a citizen to submit "Applications for the Recognition of Immovable Cultural Relics," successfully advocating for 30 railway heritage sites to be included in cultural relic protection. His exhibitions, My Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway: Wang Wei's Field Investigation Image Archive Exhibition and Looking Back Is Moving Forward: Wang Wei's Heritage Railway Investigation and Preservation, have received awards at the Lishui and Pingyao International Photography Festivals in China. By 2026, Wang Wei has traveled over 200,000 kilometers and visited heritage railways in more than 30 countries worldwide; within China, he has surveyed over 150,000 kilometers of railway heritage, collected data on 40,000 kilometers of old railways, field-investigated more than 3,000 stations, and identified over 500 possessing cultural heritage value.