Manzhouli Trainyard : on the Russian Border
Manzhouli is on a major rail line which runs across all of Russia before peeping into this strange Chinese city. The train yards there were vast expanses, all the more surreal because of their immediate juxtaposition with the endless hinterland. I wandered through these fields of wood and steel on a couple occasions, as did a handful of other pedestrians and cyclists -- the wandering figures reminded me somehow of beachcombers on a remote seashore.
On one trip through the yards, I got walled in by two passing trains. A young guy I had met at a restaurant was among the people stuck there. He invited me for a ride on his moped, which he had recently bought. When the trains cleared, we tore off across the first track. At each rail we had to find a place where the moped could cross, then we were forced to backtrack to find another ford across the iron streams, sometimes riding for a half mile in each direction. As we slammed across the trestles, I remember pieces of plastic flying loose from the bottom of his bike, but my friend just shrugged his shoulders and opened the throttle. I can't imagine that the moped survived many such trans-trainyard crossings.
For the Walk Through Tour
