Beijing-Hankou Railway

The Beijing–Hankou or Jinghan Railway (simplified Chinese: 京汉铁路; traditional Chinese: 京漢鐵路; pinyin: Jīnghàn Tiělù), also Peking–Hankow Railway, was the former name of the railway in China from Beijing to Hankou, on the northern bank of the Yangtze River. The railway was built between 1897 and 1906 by a Belgian company backed by French financing. At Hankou, railway carriages were ferried across the Yangtze River to Wuchang on the southern bank, where they would connect to the Guangdong–Hankou Railway. The completion of the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge in 1957 linked the two railways into a single contiguous railway known as the Beijing–Guangzhou Railway.

From 1928 to 1945, when Beijing was known as Beiping, the Beijing–Hankou Railway was known as the Beiping-Hankou or Pinghan Railway. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese advance into central China was known as the Beiping–Hankou Railway Operation.

In 1896, the Imperial Chinese Railway Administration was established to oversee railway construction in China. Sheng Xuanhuai attempted to balance the foreign powers by awarding concessions to different countries. In 1897, a Belgian consortium agreed to lend GB£4.5 million for the construction of a railway between Beijing and Hankou. The connecting Guangdong–Hankou Railway was awarded to the American China Development Company in 1898.

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