Mountain rail still chugging along quarter century on, ticket price nearly unchanged

With the world's largest and fastest-expanding high-speed railway network, China has updated its railway timetable frequently over the past few years. But the timetable to a passenger train service connecting Yuci and Xiangyuan, two county-level regions 195 kilometers apart in the Tai-hang Mountains in North China's Shanxi province, has remained unchanged since its maiden run a quarter century ago.

Pulled by old fashioned diesel locomotives, the trains shuttling daily along the railway among mountains between the two regions only has three carriages - two for passengers and one for luggage, making it the shortest regular passenger train in China, and it is also one of the slowest, chugging along the line at an average speed of less than 30 km per hour, or one-tenth the bullet train's rate.

The line goes through six counties, home to about 3 million mostly rural residents, and plays an important role in the lives of locals. The train offers a shortcut to the provincial capital Taiyuan, 27 km north of Yuci. Locals call the train the "Taihang bus", and a one-way ticket between Yuci and Xiangyuan is just 10.5 yuan ($1.65), compared to 7.5 yuan 25 years ago.