"Last narrow gauge steam passenger service in the world" - piffle!

This appeared on the Narrow Gauge Discussion Group. Some great photos - pity about the captions. Maybe the last in China but since when does the world end at China's borders? Typical poorly researched journalism. http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-N...-takes-passengers-back-in-time/2331460398789/
Ray.

 

Is the Brockenbahn heritage? After all it's still doing the job for which it was built.

 

Ditto Putbus -Gohren, Bad Doberman -Kuhlungsborn ,Zittau and Dresden area ng. All more or less just carried on from DR operation.

 

Quite so. Not sure if it's still the fact but Freital-Cossmannsdorf on the 750mm gauge line to Kurort Kipsdorf came within the Dresden S-Bahn network. Then there is the school train on the other Dresden 750mm.

 

By this argument the RER, RHDR, VoR, Snowden, etc. are also not heritage...

 

The Isle of Man Railway also has a pretty good claim to being "non-preserved".

 

Could well be the last narrow gauge line where if you travel on the local rather than tourist service, there is still a possibility you will find yourself sharing a coach with livestock on its way to market. (I've never encountered that on the Harz or IOM!!)
The comment re it being a short motorcycle ride from Chengdu is a bit optimistic too. Count on circa 2 hours on the expressway by car, more if the traffic is bad.
Well worth the effort though. I was there about a month ago and had an excellent time, although it is now a very popular destination for Chinese tourists, particularly in the oil seed rape flower season which was in full swing when we were there, when thousands of visitors descend on the area. (I've never seen so many "selfie sticks"!)

Chris

 

Snowdon certainly isn't heritage. I class heritage as "primarily ride on it because it exists" as opposed to "primarily ride on it to get somewhere"

 

Not too many markets up the Brocken.

 

I think so on the basis of being part of the national transport system and fully staffed by paid employees. True there's not much livestock going to market but locals do use it to get to and from Tesco's adjacent to Douglas station. Does that count?
Ray.

 

To go back to the original post, it seems likely that the journalist picked up on the unqualified claim made on the sign (which is presumably repeated elsewhere) that it is the last steam operated narrow gauge railway in the world. This is also what the Chinese says, although they use a colloquialism. Inaccurate claims/"facts" are a problem for the Chinese railway historian, although this one is obviously bogus. I guess from the Chinese perspective, they may not know it is not correct, or they think it is harmless hyperbole. One can only be thankful that they do not use the word "iconic".

 

... or "Jewel in the Crown"......

 

Could it be a simple case of poor translation ? I recall that certain Chinese words can have more than 1 meaning (up to 28 definitions in one case) depending on how it is pronounced; I wonder if the Chinese translation should read "last in China" rather than "last in the World" ?

 

Mention of the line at Bad Doberan reminds me that on the street-running section it actually calls at a couple of bus stops. If that isn't public transport I don't know what is.

 

I agree that translations are often poor but in this case it is OK. The second and third characters are 全球 quanqiu which means "whole world".

 

It says that they've got over 100 years of journalistic excellence, so it must be right!

 

Quote : It's the last narrow-gauge steam passenger train service in operation anywhere on the planet.

Narrow gauge isn't hyphenated...

 

I think you're not considering the Chinese mentality, they are the supreme beings on the planet, so naturally for them they don't consider much of anything outside of China.