The World's Most Beautiful Railways: Kunming to Weishe

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1 General Information
2 Cover
3 Information
4 Screenshots
5 Technical Specs
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[edit] General Information

Travel Documentary with no narration published by ARD in 1998 - No spoken language

[edit] Cover

[edit] Information

The 'Most Beautiful Railways' series (Germany's/Europe's/The World's) was a regular night-time feature and gap filler on Germany's ARD broadcasting station. The Kunming - Weishe line (308 km) is part of the Nanning - Kunming line (863 km) which connects Kunming in the rugged and often bare highlands of Southwest China with the ports on the South China Sea. The included images give some impression of the difficulty of the terrain the engineers had to negotiate with, passingthrough 70 tunnels and lots viaducts. Unfortunately the ones that depict this railway line do that only in a very generalized way. None of the interactive maps of this area show this railway line nor the railway junction Weishe. The whole line was opened piece by piece from 1995 onwards and is build for an operating speed of 100 kmh. During the recording of this video there was still a overall speed limit in place of 60 kmh due to the then recent opening of the track between Kunming - Weishe. The overhead line is 25 kV/50 Hz AC as is the norm within China. The engine (SS7-0042) from the so called Shaoshan series (CRRC Datong Electric Locomotive Co.) has 6 axles and is often used on curved routes throughout China. The narrow gauge railway that is visible in the beginning is the meter gauge line from Kunming to Hanoi (Vietnam).