A documentary series soon to be aired on CCTV tells stories about China's legendary green trains.
Television producer Ren Chongrong recalls the day she crawled through a window to board a train that was headed from Beijing to her hometown Chongqing in 1994.
It was during a winter vacation for Ren, then a student at China Journalism College, which was based in Beijing. After being literally pushed into the crowded carriage by two classmates, she found that the train started moving before the other two youngsters could get on board.
It was a "green-skinned" train, which was slow and crowded, and the journey was unforgettable, she said.
"As I failed to purchase a seat ticket, I sat with the luggage on the train's floor for more than 30 hours," said Ren, 45, now working with state broadcaster China Central Television.
But the tough journey also offered Ren some spectacular natural views.
Along the route which stretches nearly 2,000 kilometers, she saw plains, hilly terrain, mountains, and village houses. And that is etched in her memory and is an inspiration for the upcoming "The Slow Train Home", a six-episode documentary series to air on CCTV's documentary channel from October 22 to 27, a 25-minute episode will be telecasted every night.
A scene from the first episode of the CCTV documentary "The Slow Train Home". /China Daily Photo
The documentary was filmed by six teams comprising of 34 members who trekked a total of 3,000 kilometers to cross more than 40 villages in the provinces of Guizhou, Sichuan, Heilongjiang, and Shanxi, and northwestern China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
Green trains, named after their external color, were a major mode of transport from the 1950s to 1990s in China.
Trademarks characteristics of these coal-powered trains include the slow pace and shabby interiors without air conditioning or sleeper beds.
Now, with the expansion of high-speed train networks, these old-fashioned carriers have mostly been phased out, with some still in operation to connect remote mountainous areas with nearby towns and cities.
"But I believe the green slow trains have become an integral part of the collective memory of a generation, and a few still act as an important means to transport villagers in poverty-stricken areas," said Ren.
She adds that the slow trains, which are much cheaper and have more stations, remain effective especially in rural areas.
A poster of CCTV documentary "The Slow Train Home". /China Daily Photo
In the first episode of the series, travel writer Qi Dong alongside old-fashioned train enthusiast Ma Hao take a ride on the Chengdu-Kunming railway, a major line of around 1,000 kilometers between the two cities - the respective capitals of southwest China's Sichuan and Yunnan Provinces.
In the course of their trip the duo encounter a series of unlikely passengers: A local herder who is traveling with 58 sheep, an ethnic Yi bride wearing gold jewelry on her way to meet her future husband in a remote village and a teenager going to pick up her younger brother from his primary school at the next station.
A ticket costs the herder 7.5 yuan (1.09 US dollars), and he didn't need to pay for the sheep that he had brought along on the train to be sold at a market.
As for the siblings, they spend an hour climbing a mountain to get home.
"It's a train of stories about poverty and hard life, but it's also a train full of hopes," says Qi in the documentary.
The second episode is interwoven with a Uygur poet's journey to the place where his grandfather was born and raised in the southern part of Xinjiang. And it features the No. 7556, an Urumqi-Kashgar train, which covers China's longest "green-skinned" train route.
The entire distance is nearly 1,600 kilometers but a ticket costs less than 80 yuan.
The documentary's third episode focuses on a steam-engine train in Sichuan Province, which is among the last few of its kind in the world.
Steam train "Jiayang" in southwest China's Sichuan Province. /China Daily Photo
The fourth episode of the series follows an art teacher on the Qiqihar-Heihe train in search of endangered red-crowned cranes and the ethnic Oroqen hunters in northeastern China.
As for the fifth episode, it features a die-hard fan of renowned writer Shen Congwen on the Sichuan-Chongqing train who is exploring the mountainous town of Chadong, which inspired Shen's 1934 classic novel Border Town.
Finally, in the sixth episode, a music teacher and a Ph.D. student trace the roots of Jiangzhou Drum music, an art form with a history of over 1,400 years.
Speaking about the series, Ren said, "We hope the documentary will remind audiences of how wonderful life could be if you slow down the pace."