A retired railway worker turned collector

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03:30

Liu Zhenqi, who was born in 1949, spent his career as a railway mechanic, and during this time, he collected old-fashioned items like hardboard paper tickets, kerosene signal lamps, enamel cups, compartment keys and lunch boxes; items which all gradually became history once China's reform and opening up began.

"I have lived through the successive periods of steam, diesel, electric locomotive prevalence and today's high-speed train. It's the epitome of my whole career on the railway. The old items embody my treasured memories, and mark the sea changes in China's railway."

At the age of 18, Liu went to the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region as part of the Down to the Countryside Movement. Three years later, he was transferred to Hohhot Railway Administration. In the 38 years that followed, he had been dedicated to China's railway system and witnessed its rapid development.

In 1978, 815 million railway trips were made domestically and this number grew to 3.084 billion in 2017, which is nearly a fourfold increase.

At the beginning of the reform and opening-up period, there was a flow of people to south China for better paid jobs, and with that came overload problems, especially during the Spring Festival travel seasons, when most of the migrant workers intended to go home. There used to be 500 passengers crammed into a carriage designed for 100. There was no room even to turn around, an unimaginable situation for today's youth.

Liu recalls, "During the Spring Festival seasons, railway staff in north China would be transferred southward as required by the Ministry of Railways, because of the surging passenger flow. We were sent to the busiest stations. There were long queues for the tickets. The additional trains were all fully booked, which did alleviate the problem to some extent."

Today, China's high-speed trains have improved a great deal in both speed and departure frequency, and the carriages are much more comfortable.

"The carriages are now equipped with devices to prevent overloading of more than 20 percent. The train will not be functional until the number of passengers gets regulated."

The maintenance overhaul for trains has also become so much easier compared with in the '70s and '80s.

"We didn't have much surveillance. It was standard procedure to check every train upon its arrival with hammers. So to fix a locomotive would take 30 mechanics a whole week. Now, thanks to real-time monitoring technology, the maintenance job can be done in every two years with four to five workers at a time."

Hardboard paper tickets had been used since the founding of new China. Printed on it was the valid date, which ranged from two to nine days. People had to queue up at the ticket counters, sometimes for all night, but still might not get one.

"Ticket selling was very tedious back in those days. They needed to print the valid date, paste the seat number and the note onto every ticket, so that the passengers could get through with them. It was inefficient and mistakes were unavoidable."

Electronic tickets appeared in 1997, when an ID card became necessary to make a trip, and then the hardboard paper ticket officially became history in 2001. Now, China's railway system is completely informatized and automated. Passengers can get information and buy tickets online anywhere. No one could've foreseen that transformation coming when we were using kerosene lamps.

The dooming development of the railways has eliminated many of the old features of train travel, including platform tickets upon which photos of the old stations were printed. Platform tickets issued by the China Railway are now purely souvenirs.

"I collect these items because of my nostalgia as a veteran railway worker. I can recall old memories when I see them. Take the platform tickets, for example, you can actually see the pictures of different train models on them. They make me feel a sense of belonging."

Liu has collected at least 10,000 old tickets, a kerosene signal lamp, and various railway gadgets such as enamel cups, lunch boxes, railway emblems, arm and shoulder badges.

Since retiring in 2009, Liu has had more free time, and an idea came to him when he was looking at his collections: He wanted to show them to the public. And so he made donations to many institutions, including the China Railway Museum and Longhai Railway History Museum, to share the history of China's railways.

"Of the 40 years of reform and opening up, I am a witness and beneficiary at the same time. Through the exhibition, I hope people can feel a bond with China's economic growth and its railway progress. It's a demonstration of the accomplishments during the past 40 years. As for the young people, they may see things from the past that they have never heard of, and those things will let them value their current life more, thanks to the reform and opening-up policy.”

Directors: Lei Rong, Cheng Shengnan

Editors: Cheng Shengnan, Mi Xue

Filmed by Dai Wei and Feng Le

Designer: Yin Yating

Text by Yao Xinyi

Copy editor: Henry Weimin Zheng

Producer: Wen Yaru

Chief editors: Chen Ran, Wang Dewei

Supervisor: Zhang Shilei