Chinese railroads during the war...

[m10bob]

Our "friends" of Wikipedia have offered this info ref the building of railroads prior to WW2 in China.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_o ... t_in_China



The thing that piqued my interest was a rail sign I saw at the beginning of an old thirties classic "Shanghai Express" which listed Peiping, Tientsin,Yen Chow, Chinkiang, Tsinan, Sutsien, Pukow, and Shanghai.
These are the spellings being used in the thirties.

[Skyros]

The actual layout was much more expansive then shown in that map. Of course large segments were destroyed during the late thirties and early forties to thwart Japanese expansion. The best map I have seen is the maps in the board game War of Resistance. They even include railroads that were proposed before the war and built afterwards and it is up to you as the player to apply your meager resources to repair or expand different railroads.

Here is the WWII era description from the article.

During the Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945, the Republican government dismantled a number of railways to slow the Japanese advance and added 1,900 km of railways, mostly in the interior of China after coastal regions were occupied.[2] Among the completed lines were the Longhai Railway (Lingbao-Tongguan and Xi'an-Baoji sections), Zhejiang-Jiangxi Railway (Hangzhou-Pingxiang section) and the Guangdong-Hankou Railway (Zhuzhou-Shaoguan section).[2] The Shanxi warlord Yan Xishan built the narrow gauge Datong-Puzhou Railway across Shanxi Province. The Japanese occupiers, using forced labor, built 5,700 km of railway in Manchuria and Rehe Province and 900 km of railway in China Proper.[2]

In 1941, construction began of the Yunnan Burma Railway, an attempt to link British occupied Burma with Kunming in Yunnan province. Ultimately, however, the project was aborted.

[m10bob]

ORIGINAL: Skyros

The actual layout was much more expansive then shown in that map. Of course large segments were destroyed during the late thirties and early forties to thwart Japanese expansion. The best map I have seen is the maps in the board game War of Resistance. They even include railroads that were proposed before the war and built afterwards and it is up to you as the player to apply your meager resources to repair or expand different railroads.

Here is the WWII era description from the article.

During the Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945, the Republican government dismantled a number of railways to slow the Japanese advance and added 1,900 km of railways, mostly in the interior of China after coastal regions were occupied.[2] Among the completed lines were the Longhai Railway (Lingbao-Tongguan and Xi'an-Baoji sections), Zhejiang-Jiangxi Railway (Hangzhou-Pingxiang section) and the Guangdong-Hankou Railway (Zhuzhou-Shaoguan section).[2] The Shanxi warlord Yan Xishan built the narrow gauge Datong-Puzhou Railway across Shanxi Province. The Japanese occupiers, using forced labor, built 5,700 km of railway in Manchuria and Rehe Province and 900 km of railway in China Proper.[2]

In 1941, construction began of the Yunnan Burma Railway, an attempt to link British occupied Burma with Kunming in Yunnan province. Ultimately, however, the project was aborted.

Thank you Skyros...I am kind of surprised(?) so many players choose to avoid the China theater entirely, especially since the war started there, wish several nations having a presence there, including France,Italy, Russia,The United States and Germany.
While some of them were only there as observers, or trainers, many of their weapons were certainly in use by BOTH sides of that theater.

[jiajia1]

The actual layout was much more expansive then shown in that map. Of course large segments were destroyed during the late thirties and early forties to thwart Japanese expansion. The best map I have seen is the maps in the board game War of Resistance. They even include railroads that were proposed before the war and built afterwards and it is up to you as the player to apply your meager resources to repair or expand different railroads.

Here is the WWII era description from the article.

During the Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945, the Republican government dismantled a number of railways to slow the Japanese advance and added 1,900 km of railways, mostly in the interior of China after coastal regions were occupied.[2] Among the completed lines were the Longhai Railway (Lingbao-Tongguan and Xi'an-Baoji sections), Zhejiang-Jiangxi Railway (Hangzhou-Pingxiang section) and the Guangdong-Hankou Railway (Zhuzhou-Shaoguan section).[2] The Shanxi warlord Yan Xishan built the narrow gauge Datong-Puzhou Railway across Shanxi Province. The Japanese occupiers, using forced labor, built 5,700 km of railway in Manchuria and Rehe Province and 900 km of railway in China Proper.[2]

In 1941, construction began of the Yunnan Burma Railway, an attempt to link British occupied Burma with Kunming in Yunnan province. Ultimately, however, the project was aborted.

Guangzhou-Wuchang railway was completely finished in Aug 1936 and transported over 2 million troops and 700k tons supply before the fall of Guangzhou. The first train from Wuchang (Hankow is on the north bank of Yangtze River) to Guangzhou on Sep 1936 took 44 hours.

After Qiantang River Bridge was finished on 26 Sep 1937, Zhejiang-Jiangxi railway also put into use of transportation to/from Shanghai. The bridge was blown up by Chinese themselves 3 months later after Japanese 10th army landed on Hangzhou Bay. The railway was torn down by japs after Doolittle Raid.

BTW, it was estimated over 90 percent of Japanese transportation in China was by railway. It was railways not cities the main targets of Chinese partisan but I guess it is hard to be reflected in the game design.