China - De-Icing the First Train of the Day, December 2018

The preparation of a steam locomotive at minus 20 degrees centigrade is not an easy task. Yet the loco crews at Sandaoling, in China’s Xinjiang Province, perform the duty every winter morning at Dongbolizhan Station. We see here, the crews freeing up the frozen valve gear with open flames and boiling water. A hot loco is used to get all the motion moving on a colder loco. Crews also have to loosen frozen coal in the tender and many other small jobs that European loco crews might not think about. The first t