Time Travel: Old Buildings Along the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway Hang Up Century-Old "Portraits"
Two old photographs hanging on the historical building display the appearance of the old building from a century ago. Photo / Reporter Cui Yifei
June 11, 2018, Legal Evening News
Legal Evening News / Law Vision News (Reporter Cui Yifei) — "Nankou is hailed as the 'heart' of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway, and its historical status is no less than that of the famous zig-zag railway." On the occasion of International Archives Day, two old photographs of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway were hung on the historical buildings in Nankou, thereby displaying the historical origin of the old houses to the public.
On the 13th National Cultural and Natural Heritage Day, the Changping District Archives Bureau set its themed event at the former office site of Zhan Tianyou located in Nankou, showcasing the nearly 110-year legendary history of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway through a large number of photographic archives and document archives. Reporters noticed that on an old house in Nankou, two old photographs were hung side by side, with the long side of each photo measuring around 3 meters, looking very striking.
The photo captions indicate that the building in the left picture is the "Nankou General Machine Administration," and the picture on the right is the "Nankou Engineering Department Office." Both photographs were taken in 1909 by Mr. Tan Jintang, who was the first generation of Chinese railway documentary photographers hired by Zhan Tianyou back then to photograph the completion of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway.
Railway cultural scholar Wang Wei introduced that in the Nankou Engineering Department Office shown in the old photographs, Zhan Tianyou once worked here, and most of the strategies for constructing the section from Nankou to Badaling (the Guanguan section) were conceived here. This location later served as the Nankou Railway Club. In the 1990s, the courtyard gate and courtyard wall were rebuilt, but the rest remains largely unchanged from back then.
Reporters noted that the location where the two old photographs are hung is precisely the historical building depicted in the images. Fortunately, both old buildings have survived to this day.
