China is not a country well-known for legacy suburban railways. Although lately several dozen new-build lines have appeared, and several mainline railways been adapted for metros, there is no commuter rail in the country operating today that predates the 21st century. However, for more than 100 years, electrified urban passenger railway service plodded along in the city of Fushun, seemingly misplaced in space and time. In 2020, a fascinating book was published about the railway and its history. I don't have a copy myself but people have written lots based on it and other sources, including on Baidu Encyclopedia.
Like all the early railways in China, the Fushun electric system originated in foreign domination. After losing the Sino-Japanese war in 1895, the Qing realised that its eastern provinces, historically called Manchuria and today Northeastern China, were vulnerable to further Japense incursion. To stave it off, the government signed a secret unequal treaty with the Russian government, securing a military alliance in exchange for broad extraterritorial rights in Manchuria and the rights to build the Chinese Eastern Railway and South Manchuria Railway systems. The railways comprised a main-line from Siberia straight through Chinese territory to Vladivostok, as well as a branch from Harbin to the Russian treaty ports at Port Arthur and Dal'ny via Mukden, near which sits Fushun. Certain territorial rights around the railway and the cities on it were included, so that these territories were not really under Chinese sovereignty. Especially after the Boxer Rebellion, Russia treated Manchuria as a protectorate and basically ignored Qing protestation.
The (treaty-agreed) railway system was completed by 1903. In that year, there emerged an episode in which a certain A.M. Bezobrazov, having obtained concessions for forestry in both Manchuria and North Korea, scammed the Russian imperial government into making him more or less the head of development in the Yalu basin. By 1904 he had a business empire spanning most of the important sectors of development. Although the concessions allowed for construction of roads, telegraphs, and other infrastructure, nobody said he could construct railways. This did not matter, because the Russians, assuming that they would imminently annex Manchuria and maybe Korea soon anyway, began laying rails towards the Fushun coalfield in 1903 without legal permission. Bezobrazov's company finished the enterprise in the spring of 1904 and installed a 1200VDC overhead contact power system that autumn, powered by a generating station burning the coal produced at the Fushun mine. This was the second electric railway of any kind in China, postdating a Siemens-built electric tramway in Beijing built in 1899 and destroyed in 1900 by the Boxers. As for mainline railways, major electrification would not appear for another half century.
This Russian period turned out to be short-lived, as in 1904 the Russo-Japanese War broke out. The Trans-Siberian Railway was not quite complete, and Russian troop movements to Manchuria were torturously slow. Over the course of two campaign seasons Japan secured Korea and captured the Liaodong Peninsula, then defeated Russia outside Mukden, the old Qing capital. In the process, it re-gauged the railways in the captured territory from Russian broad gauge to Japanese narrow gauge. As for Bezobrazov, his overleveraged businesses collapsed once it became clear that they would be seized by Japan, and he fled to Switzerland to escape his creditors.
Control of the China Eastern Railway system and the South Manchuria Railway became an international issue. None of the interested powers wanted to see Russia retain them, including the Americans, a consortium of whom rallied to gain control of communications and transportation in the Far East. This was vigorously opposed by the Japanese foreign ministry, who wanted Japanese dominance in the region. American interest in East Asian empire was not too strong to begin with, so in the end the new South Manchuria Railway was formed with 100% Japanese capitalisation. In 1907 control of the railway zone and associated complexes was transferred from the military to the new Mantetsu (short for Minami-manshu tetsudo, 南滿洲鐵道). The military's narrow gauge made the railway incompatible with the Chinese, Korean, and Russian systems, so in 1907 the SMR converted again to standard gauge, removing the break of gauge heading into China and into Korea. This made the Fushun division one of the first standard-gauge electric railways in Asia, following maybe the early Keikyu lines.
The Fushun colliery immediately took on enormous importance. There are no anthracite deposits and almost no iron ore in Japan, so all steelmaking depended on imports. Fushun had anthracite and plenty of bituminious coal, and there was furthermore significant mineral wealth elsewhere on the SMR zone. Strategic self-sufficiency thus depended on development of Fushun and the SMR zone, to the point where it later became politicised as Japan's "lifeline". Since Fushun was the largest urban leasehold on the SMR system, large-scale industrial development could occur on Japanese terms. Urban development of industry initially occured on the Qianjinzhai site, southwest of the centre of modern Fushun. In 1918, an urban master-plan for the town of Fushun was developed, providing the template on which a large industrial city was built. The scale of industrial development at Fushun was such that it was called one of the four great industrial centres of Manchuria, alongside Dairen (Dalian), Hsinking (Changchun), and Harbin.
In 1937 Fushun was transferred to Manchoukuo sovereignty along with the rest of the South Manchuria Railway zone, legally ending Japanese extraterritoriality. Of course, since the government was puppeted by its vice-ministers, who were all Japanese, and because Japanese controlled the South Manchuria Railway and Manchoukuo in general, the actual situation remained an imperialist one. The circumstances shifted in 1945, when the Red Army entered the region; presumably, the large-scale looting and theft of industrial plant which characterised their presence throughout the region may have occured in Fushun. In 1946 the Kuomintang took control; in 1948 the Communists ejected them in the Liaoshen campaign, after which railway restoration was made a key priority. Thereafter expansion of industry in Fushun continued, receiving large investment in the first 5-year plan. The railway had to expand its role to accomodate continued development.
The length of the electric railways steadily grew, reaching a length of 188.7km by 1940 and over 200km by 1945. Before liberation, the railway was upgraded with 40kg/m rails, higher-voltage 1500VDC electrification, track bed improvements etc. In the PRC era many improvements were made in all aspects: introduction of better ballast, concrete ties, replacement of poles and wire with higher-quality infrastructure, high-speed turnouts, better signalling, doubling of bridges, and so on. The length of the railway grew to over 300km and new rolling stock was introduced to meet demand.
Before 1945, the signalling system used was based on manual operation. Points were manually moved and a switch thrown to activate the signal by means of a linkage. (I can't really make sense of the original Chinese text here. It's too technical for me.) Later, in the 50s, a Japanese-type centralised relay signalling system was acquired, which was used for the upgrade of some blocks. Apparently some Soviet equipment was also acquired, such that in the 1960s the railway ran with an odd combination of different signalling solutions. In the 1970s an upgrade programme standardised the system along Chinese lines.
Over time, various coal, iron and steel, and oil enterprises were set up in the area. Accompanying these primary industries were all kinds of secondary manufacturing, including a locomotive works, rolling stock factories, electric motor plants, machinery production plants, and so on, which supported the emerging industrial economy. The initial equipment used on the Fushun railways were sourced from the West, but once this was set up the supply chain became split between local products and products from the Japanese home islands.
The "retro", "Japanese" face of the Fushun Electric Railway became a family of streamlined multiple-unit formations after the inauguration of the People's Republic of China. To some, they bear a familiar resemblance Meitetsu Mo 850 "Namazu" trains that once graced central Japan. The styling was actually used in a number of different Mantetsu cab cars and made its way back to the Home Islands later. The Fushun trains are retro and indeed they are Japanese, having been manufactured by Nippon Sharyo from 1935, but they did not start their life on the electric railway. Rather, they were heavy-oil burning self-propelled trainsets designed for long-distance limited express service. (An IP editor on the Japanese Wikipedia put together a stunningly detailed page on these trains back in 2024.) They were the basis of the front-end styling of the Fushun legacy trains, but are not the basis of every formation. Others are derived from various KeHa, JiHa, and KiHa self-propelled railcars of various heritage, including units formerly of Mantetsu, of the Central China Railway, the organisation responsible during the Japanese occupation of north China, which had previously been transferred from the Japanese national railways.
The ジテ１ series, like the better-known Asia Express hauled by Pashina locomotives, was built in imitation of the world's advanced developments in railway technology. In 1934 the Union Pacific and the CB&Q had introduced the M-10000 and Pioneer Zephyr respectively, modern diesel trainsets, and the Deutsche Reichsbahn's Fliegender Hamburger stunned the world in 1932. Manchuria was not quite as modern as America or Germany in that day, but there was interest in keeping up with foreign advancements. The cars were sleek and featured Jacobs bogies between the trailers, but the trains were underpowered relative to Western counterparts and heavy because ordinary steel was used instead of stainless steel or light metals. Nevertheless, they could achieve an average speed of over 100km/h on non-stop runs between Mukden and Hsinking, and performed admirably in suburban service in the vicinity of Dairen. In ordinary operation a JiTe1 was paired with a HaRoFu1, a HaFu1, and a HaFuSe1, which were passenger trailers.
At some point, due to the circumstances of the Pacific War, oil shortages forced the discontinuation of diesel and fuel-oil hauled service on the Manchurian railways, as navy and army demand took precedence. Supposedly, around this time, a JiTe was fitted with electric equipment and used on the Fushun railways. Their appearance in their current form in Fushun did not occur until sometime in the 60s, until which time the typical equipment was M+M+M+M formations of various trams and converted KeHa, JiHa, KiHa self-propelled railcars. It's unclear to me when the JiTe sets entered service, but by the 1960s they underwent significant modification under which they received conventional bogies, electric equipment, commuter seating, etc. Apparently, car bodies were lengthened and new trailer coaches inserted.
Passenger demand kept on picking up in the 60s and 70s, so a number of new coaches and locomotives of Chinese production were acquired in the late 70s. They give the visual impression of an elektrichka.
Over the course of its lifetime, the Fushun railways had several interesting-looking stations, in particular the steam mainline stations at which people would arrive in the city. These were not on th electric railway but could be found nearby. In the early days, Qianjinzhai was the centre of gravity of industry, so the main station was situated there. The initial complex was modest and had just 5 tracks. It remained the primary hub until 1923, when the new Fushun station was built to accompany the new town. The Qianjinzhai station was subsequently relocated. Fushun station was then rebuilt in 1934 in masonry with a modernist style.
The second Fushun Station ended public suburban service in 2009, and thereafter became secondary to Fushun North station. Boardings and alightings were discontinued in 2017 at Fushun Station, and ticket sales ceased in 2020. It was designated as a national historic site in 2012 and by 2023 renovations to the building had restored it as a public space. As for its replacement, Fushun North has been renamed Fushun Station. It is situated on the new Shenyang-Baishan PDL, which opened in September 2025 and is capable of 350km/h running. Curiously, one of the goals of the new line is to stimulate tourism to Changbaishan, better known as Mount Paektu. The railway has been elevated in the vicinity of the old Fushun station.
The stations on the electric railway are not as grand and give the impression of a commuter railway. They tend to feature extensive freight facilities; this is after all a mine railway. Freight trains carrying oil, coal, or other goods meander by on passing tracks outboard of the stopping tracks at wide island platforms. At other stations abundant sidings give proof to the importance of primary industry to the railway.
The northeast of China today is known as a rust-belt region, filled with industrial decay, population decline, and the resulting social issues. Fushun, as a city of heavy industry, was especially hard hit, and the electric railways, which had served as its main transportation arteries for decades, were by 2009 no longer capable of operating public service. The city had no money to pay its subsidy, and with that the public operations of the Fushun electric railways came to an end. Mining operations continued, and a tourist-oriented service reinstated on the system from 2018 to 2020, but today the Fushun railways are slowly fading away, and the 14th Five Year Plan for transportation in Fushun proposes its rehabilitation as a transit railway that would inevitably be quite unlike the electric railway of the past. The population of Fushun is in decline and its old electric railway is entering into the past - or at least the passenger services are.
Below are the formation diagrams posted by @hokuman_hailaer with accompanying description. I hope they are accurate but don't currently have a way of confirming it.
There were more sets of which I don't really know anything about. Additionally, 29 YZ-31 cars, the Type 22 variant with hard seats in commuter layout, were acquired in 1980 and hauled around by locomotives. The bafflingly diverse fleet, which was substantially rebuilt in different ways, appeared in various colours over the years. During the early 2000s, they were bright blue, but more recent footage shows them in railway green.
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