Century-Old Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway Expected to Receive Coordinated Protection from Beijing and Hebei
Last year, the Qinghe Station of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway obtained cultural relic recognition from cultural relic departments, with a banner hanging on the building reading "Protect Cultural Heritage, Guard Our Spiritual Home".
May 30, 2018, Legal Evening News
Legal Evening News / Law Vision News (Reporter Cui Yifei) — At the end of last year, the Implementation Opinions of the Beijing Municipal People's Government on Further Strengthening Cultural Relic Work was released, aiming to strengthen protection efforts. The summary meeting on Beijing's implementation of opinions to strengthen cultural relic work and the first national movable cultural relic census was held on May 30. Reporters from Legal Evening News discovered that the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway, connecting Beijing and Hebei, is expected to receive coordinated protection from both regions. At the same time, Beijing will also roll out a series of cultural relic protection initiatives, including large-scale site protection.
The Opinions point out that the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei cultural relic coordinated protection mechanism will be improved, jointly promoting the research and protection of the Grand Canal and imperial mausoleums, as well as advancing the protection and utilization of the ruins and relics of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway.
Reporters from Legal Evening News / Law Vision News noted that due to administrative divisions, the century-old Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway is divided into the Beijing section and the Hebei section, making it a typical linear heritage spanning both Beijing and Hebei. Although the "Nankou Section to Badaling Section (Guanguan Section)" has been announced as a National Key Cultural Relic Protection Unit, as a linear cultural heritage, the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway still lacks overall protection.
Wang Wei, a railway cultural scholar who authored My Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway, introduced that the remnants of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway feature numerous historical buildings, ranging from National Key Cultural Relic Protection Units, municipal-level cultural relic protection units, district-level cultural relic protection units, to census registration items, covering all levels of cultural relics with uneven protection standards.
What worries Wang Wei the most is that many valuable old buildings along the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway have failed to obtain cultural relic recognition. In the Hebei section, some classic old station buildings do not even have cultural relic protection signs. Wang Wei believes that the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway requires a comprehensive cultural relic census, and he hopes that with the introduction of the new policies, the cultural relic departments of Beijing and Hebei can organize experts in the museum and cultural fields as well as railway departments to conduct a census and protection of all cultural relics along the entire Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway line.
