Beijing Zhangjiakou Railway
京张铁路
Beijing Zhangjiakou Railway is very famous in China, known to almost every household, because this railway was the first of its kind designed and built by us Chinese.
京张铁路在中国非常有名，几乎是家喻户晓。因为它是中国首条由中国人自行完成，投入营运的铁路。
The chief engineer is Zhan Tianyou, a Yale graduate majoring in civil and railway engineering. He was born in 1861 in Guangdong Province, and he was very intelligent and interested in machinery at an early age. Upon graduation from the Yale University in 1881, he returned to China and became the chief engineer in 1905 for the first railway in China. He succeeded in overcoming the gradient problem by switching back the line, and he initially used two locomotives instead of one, one pulling, another pushing the train over this area. The railway was 201.2 kilometers long ,completed in 1909, two years ahead of time. It added a brilliant page in the history of the Chinese railway construction.
担任这条铁路总工程师的詹天佑，毕业于美国耶鲁大学土木工程和铁路专业。詹天佑1861年出生于广东，自幼勤奋好学，对机械有着非常浓厚的兴趣。1881年詹天佑从耶鲁大学毕业后回国。1905年他被任为总工程师，负责修建中国第一条铁路。詹天佑成功采用列车折返攀斜的方式（“之”型铁路）解决了最困难的越岭问题，而且首次使用两部机车牵引，一部推，一部拉，使机车顺利行使。这条铁路全长约201.2千米，于1909年建成，比预定时间提前两年，在中国铁路建设史上增添了光辉的一页。