Little Train

This last little train takes you on an exciting journey to a remote and original China.

In a mountainous region best known for pandas and earthquakes there are no roads, no cars, no buses. But there is ... a train. We tell the story of the last working narrow gauge steam railway in China. Built seventy years ago to haul coal out of the valley, the 19 km line has evolved to be the main source of transport in the valley carrying children to school, workers to their jobs and pigs to market; all fighting for space in the train's small, unglazed carriages.

But now the railway is at a crucial point. The mine has shut down and the villagers are actively fighting to keep the line - and its aging steam locomotives - running. Already the villagers have to make replacement parts by hand. When the boiler goes they face catastrophe. Too large to fabricate themselves, they search far and wide for a company to make a new boiler for them. But even if they can find a new boiler, how can they get it to Jiayang Valley? At a time when attention is focused on China's great leaps in technology, on its maglev and bullet trains, Little Train takes viewers on a journey to the quiet backwaters that are still home to half of China’s population.