My rail life #2: Bingling Temple and Liujiaxia branch railway!

Dear Steemians, welcome to my post!

Along the Yellow River, I arrived in the Liujiaxia Hydroelectric Station 30 miles away from Bapanxia. I decided to pay a visit to Liujiaxia Railway.

The longly locomotive on the Liujiaxia Railway line

Liujiaxia Reservoir and the Bingling Temple

The Liujiaxia Dam is a major hydroelectric dam on the upper Yellow River. It's one of the most important and greatest dam in China.

The Great Dam, built in 1968

I took a bus to Yongjing County. The passengers on bus told me that the Bingling Temple was very impressive. So I changed my plan to visit the Bingling Temple firstly.

But I have to rent a jet-boat to reach there.The guide told me that the temple were only accessible by boat since the Liujiaxia Dam was built in front of it.

Bingling means 'ten thousand Buddhas' in the Tibetan language. The Bingling Temple is one of the most important Buddhist temples in China. The grottos in the temple were made up dating from about AD420 to the Ming Dynasty. Altogether there are 183 caves, 694 stone statues, and 82 clay sculptures now.

Due to the construction of the Liujiaxia Dam that formed the Liujiaxia Reservoir, about 200 grottoes were flooded. But the Big Maitreya Buddha of the Tang Dynasty survived and it' now protected.

The Big Maitreya Buddha, Tang Dynasty

The Liujiaxia Railway and Gucheng Station

After the trip to the Bingling Temple, I turned back to Yongjing. I had to take my time to visit the Liujiaxia Railway. It took me about one hour to find the locootive depot. The railway line was dismantled from Gucheng to Xiaochuan, the end of the Liujiaxia Railway.

Xiaochuan Railway Station, dismantled

The I walked westward along the railway line. I founed the Gucheng Station at last. The officer told me that it was the end of the Liujiaxia Railway now. He also said that there were no longer steam locomotives. That was bad news for me.