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詹天佑 Zhan Tianyou (1861-1919) -- Father of China's railways
By Zhang Ciyun |
July 17, 2011, Sunday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
ZHAN Tianyou, also known in the West as Jeme Tien Yow, was a distinguished railroad engineer. He was the chief engineer of the Imperial Peking-Kalgan (Beijing-Zhangjiakou) Railway, the first railway built in China without foreign assistance. As a result, Zhan has since been revered as the "Father of China's Railroad."
Zhan was born into a tea merchant's family in south China's Guangdong Province. But his father's tea business was later ruined by the intervention of Western powers and he had to labor in the farm fields to support his family. However, he still managed to send young Zhan to school when he was seven. But the boy was more interested in mechanical works than the Chinese classics.
Zhan was often seen studying and playing with small clockworks, gears and ship models. At the age of 12, he was selected by the Imperial government of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) as a member of the Chinese Educational Mission and sent to study in the United States.
After he finished his study in a primary school and then a secondary school with flying colors, Zhan entered Yale University to study civil engineering with a focus on railroad construction. He graduated with a bachelor's degree when he was only 20.
After returning to China, Zhan, like other young students who'd studied in the US, was found behaving in an unorthodox way. For instance, they often wore Western suits instead of the traditional Chinese robes and they had all cut their hair short instead of wearing a long pigtail like other Chinese men did at that time.
Therefore, the Imperial government decided that this group of overseas-returned students must be reeducated. They were assigned to jobs that didn't require the knowledge they had obtained from their schooling overseas. Zhan was first sent to a school to learn ship piloting and then he was asked to teach sailors English.
It was not until seven years later that Zhan was recommended by a former schoolmate to work with Claude W. Kinder, a British engineer, on construction of a new railroad in northern China.
Due to his outstanding performance and salient contribution to the project, Zhan was later assigned to several other rail projects in China in the following years.
In 1905, the Imperial government decided to build a strategic railroad between the capital Peking and Kalgan (today's Zhangjiakou), an important trade center about 206 kilometers to the north, without employing foreign assistance. So, the government appointed Zhan as the chief engineer of the project.
At first, many were skeptical that Chinese engineers had the ability to build a railroad in the mountainous areas with complicated environmental conditions. However, Zhan was determined to win honors for his motherland.
To overcome the gradient problems of steep slopes, Zhan invented a zigzag upward railway and employed two locomotives to drive a train in such areas with one pulling at one end and the other pushing at the opposite end. To speed up the construction of long tunnels, Zhan drilled vertical shafts in the middle and then tunneled simultaneously in different directions.
Thanks to Zhan and his colleagues' ingenuity and unremitting endeavor, the project was completed in 1909, two years ahead of the schedule and well under the budget.
In the following years, Zhan served as chief engineer or advisor to several other railway projects, including the Guangzhou-Shaoguan and Wuchang-Changsha railways.
Zhan was conferred a doctor's degree of law by the University of Hong Kong in 1916 and he was also the first Chinese engineer to become a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
Zhan was born into a tea merchant's family in south China's Guangdong Province. But his father's tea business was later ruined by the intervention of Western powers and he had to labor in the farm fields to support his family. However, he still managed to send young Zhan to school when he was seven. But the boy was more interested in mechanical works than the Chinese classics.
Zhan was often seen studying and playing with small clockworks, gears and ship models. At the age of 12, he was selected by the Imperial government of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) as a member of the Chinese Educational Mission and sent to study in the United States.
After he finished his study in a primary school and then a secondary school with flying colors, Zhan entered Yale University to study civil engineering with a focus on railroad construction. He graduated with a bachelor's degree when he was only 20.
After returning to China, Zhan, like other young students who'd studied in the US, was found behaving in an unorthodox way. For instance, they often wore Western suits instead of the traditional Chinese robes and they had all cut their hair short instead of wearing a long pigtail like other Chinese men did at that time.
Therefore, the Imperial government decided that this group of overseas-returned students must be reeducated. They were assigned to jobs that didn't require the knowledge they had obtained from their schooling overseas. Zhan was first sent to a school to learn ship piloting and then he was asked to teach sailors English.
It was not until seven years later that Zhan was recommended by a former schoolmate to work with Claude W. Kinder, a British engineer, on construction of a new railroad in northern China.
Due to his outstanding performance and salient contribution to the project, Zhan was later assigned to several other rail projects in China in the following years.
In 1905, the Imperial government decided to build a strategic railroad between the capital Peking and Kalgan (today's Zhangjiakou), an important trade center about 206 kilometers to the north, without employing foreign assistance. So, the government appointed Zhan as the chief engineer of the project.
At first, many were skeptical that Chinese engineers had the ability to build a railroad in the mountainous areas with complicated environmental conditions. However, Zhan was determined to win honors for his motherland.
To overcome the gradient problems of steep slopes, Zhan invented a zigzag upward railway and employed two locomotives to drive a train in such areas with one pulling at one end and the other pushing at the opposite end. To speed up the construction of long tunnels, Zhan drilled vertical shafts in the middle and then tunneled simultaneously in different directions.
Thanks to Zhan and his colleagues' ingenuity and unremitting endeavor, the project was completed in 1909, two years ahead of the schedule and well under the budget.
In the following years, Zhan served as chief engineer or advisor to several other railway projects, including the Guangzhou-Shaoguan and Wuchang-Changsha railways.
Zhan was conferred a doctor's degree of law by the University of Hong Kong in 1916 and he was also the first Chinese engineer to become a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
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