Beijing-Zhang Railway is the first railway independently designed and built by the Chinese, was designed and built by the famous Chinese railway engineering designer Zhan Tianyou himself, which once caused a sensation at home and abroad, the plan of the Beijing-Zhang railway was to build a railway from Zhangjiakou through Badaling, Juyongguan to Fengtai District in Beijing, due to the steep terrain along the railway at that time, coupled with the intervention of the great powers, so the construction process was difficult.
In fact, just a few years ago, Russia once wanted to build this railway, but the imperialist heart was clearly revealed, so this move to build a railway was not implemented, until after the Republic of China, yuan shikai, the Beiyang government, saw that the construction of the Guanwai Beijing-Feng railway was profitable and decided to use this part of the funds to build the Beijing-Zhang railway.
At the beginning, Yuan Shikai planned that the budget for the construction of the Beijing-Zhang Railway was 5 million taels, which accounted for almost one-tenth of the revenue of the national treasury at that time, but when Zhan Tianyou submitted the plan, he found that the budget greatly exceeded the forecast, as much as 7 million taels, then the original estimate of providing 800,000 taels in advance, and then paying 1 million taels per year for the Guanwai Railway, was basically impossible to complete, but in order to build this railway, Yuan Shikai later ordered that the cost of purchasing office vehicles should also be moved out.
In addition, in terms of budget, there is a Guan Inner and Outer Railway (Jingfeng Railway) to pay 1.3 million taels per year, it should be said that in order to build this railway, Yuan Shikai can be described as sparing no effort, after the rapid upward and downward effects, Zhan Tianyou quickly rushed from a bank in Tianjin, withdrew 1 million taels as the funds for the early start of the construction of the Beijing-Zhang Railway, and from the later arrival and use of funds, basically did not suffer too much difficulties, on the basis of the original 1.3 million taels, almost all have surpluses, In the second year alone, the funds for the construction of the railway were 1.55 million taels.
However, the biggest difficulty of this railway is still in the construction, we also said before that the badaling section of the terrain and geological problems of the restrictions, at that time all of them are limited to the difficulty of China's construction of railways, Zhan Tianyou after the actual investigation, the entire project is divided into three parts, the first part is Fengtai to Nankou this section, after completion soon opened to traffic, its operating funds also quickly flowed back to the second and third stages of railway construction.
The second section is the herringbone railway we are familiar with, and what is more difficult is that it is completely dependent on the manual excavation of the Badaling Tunnel, but under the way that Zhan Tianyou designed the north-south opening and the shaft opening, all four tunnels were soon completed, and the entire construction process of the Beijing-Zhang Railway took only four years, which greatly exceeded the expectations of the Western powers. After the founding of New China, the Beijing-Zhang Railway has also played an important role, and later after the electrification of the transformation, and later also built a high-speed rail line, and the original Beijing-Zhang Railway section, in 2009, the relevant departments are also ready to apply for the Beijing-Zhang Railway as a cultural relics protection unit.