At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, China's railway consciousness was quite weak, in 1840, after the end of the Opium War, many people under the influence of the West, had basic railway knowledge, with the rise of the foreign affairs movement, railway construction was also officially included in the Chinese modernization movement.
In the early days of the foreign affairs movement, under the banner of "self-improvement", the introduction of advanced Western production technology, the establishment of a number of modern military industries, in just a few years, China has the ability to cast iron, steel and machine production of various military products, but the railway design is not paved with a few simple rails on the line.
In 1876, the British capitalists saw that the Qing Dynasty was unable to lay the railway, so they obtained the construction right of the Wusong Railway on the grounds of developing trade, although the Wusong Railway promoted the transportation and economy of their respective cities, but the British capitalists made a lot of profits from it, and the Qing government had to redeem the Wusong Railway again, but lacked maintenance and operation experience, and after a year of operation, it was demolished.
However, after the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War and the Eight-Power Alliance, in order to seek more railway rights and interests, more than 10,000 kilometers of China's right of way were successively divided, and they built a large number of railways according to their respective needs, accounting for 41% of the operating volume, in order to be able to develop independently.
Zhan Tianyou, who returned from staying in the United States, was ordered to build a state-owned railway belonging to the Qing Empire, and Zhan Tianyou served as the chief engineer of the Beijing-Zhangjia Railway and the bureau of the Bureau, and he led engineering trainees Xu Wen and Zhang Honghu to measure Zhangjiakou from Fengtai, and the terrain from Beijing to Zhangjiakou was dangerous.
At that time, Britain and Russia also wanted to get involved, but after surveying the terrain, they felt that the threat was too great, so they gave up, which was also a difficult problem for Zhan Tianyou, the Beijing-Zhang Railway was from the south to the north, the slope was very large, and every meter of the railway was raised, it had to go through a slope of one hundred meters.
In order to solve this problem, Zhan Tianyou can only extend the rail to slow down the slope, and in order to save money, Zhan Tianyou pioneered the "humanoid railway", in order to ensure the power supply and smooth operation, Zhan Tianyou switched to two locomotives, one locomotive pulled in front and the other pushed in the back.
In 1908, when excavating the Badaling Tunnel (1091 meters long) and the Juyongguan Tunnel (367 meters long), the explosive but safe Lacroy explosives were used, which was also the first tunnel project in China.
From 1905 to 1909, it took four years to finally be completed, the Beijing-Zhang Railway connected to Beijing Fengtai District, through Badaling, Juyongguan, Shacheng, Xuanhua and other places, a total length of 200 kilometers, which is also the first by the Chinese independently built, the construction of the Beijing-Zhang Railway has a cross-era significance for China.
2009 marks the centenary of the Beijing-Zhang Railway, and today the Beijing-Zhang Railway has also been selected as a list of Industrial Heritage Protection in China.