Indochina(Vietnam) to the Railway from Yunnan Kunming

At the end of the 19th century, like the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal, IndoChina railway is thought as one of the greatest engineering projects in human history. IndoChina railway links Kunming, P.R.C. with Hanoi, Vietnam. The most difficult part is the steel frame bridge,called as “the Y bridge”(same as the Chinese character “people”) by the local people. Its span is 64 meters, and height is 104 meter from the bridge to the water surface. In 1912, during the Revolution launched by Dr. Sun Yet-sen, a large number of military troops moved from Yunnan to Canton rapidly through the railway, and played an important role in the Revolution. From 1937 to1940, Japs invaded the Northern part of China. All the aiding materials were transported to Chongqing through the IndoChina railway. Meanwhile, the strategic retrieval of the Southwest Union University and the Chinese central industrial of Kunming were finished smoothly through the railway. Japs aircraft dropped 600 bombs but no one hit “the Y Bridge”. Today, this railway and the “Y Bridge” have been in operation for 96 years among the mountains. Along the railway located many French styled buildings standing there for more than a hundred years. Mr. Yin Xiaojun, a local culture protector, has collected pictures taken around 1900 by Mr. Auguste Francois, the Consul General of France at that time. Even, Mr. Yin did thorough field research, comparing the pictures to the scenes the pictures show. Mr. Liu Gang from Kunming Microthink provided help to create panoramas of the scenes. The picture of the “Y” bridge is one of the panorama works. If you are interested in IndoChina railway, and old pictures and panorama, please pay attention to coming release on website, http://www.microthink.cn/.

Asia / China

Lat: 23° 13' 34" N
Long: 103° 45' 18" E

→ maps.google.com [EXT]

Precision is: Unknown / Undeclared.