Training a lens on China's railway

Pulling together

Guan likes to "follow the trains" with other enthusiasts－or trainspotters as they are referred to in parts of the West－and they communicate via dedicated WeChat groups.

Feng Jiaxi, a 15-year-old high school student in Guangzhou who started to take photos of trains in 2015, is in the same WeChat group as Guan.

"People who like to take photos of trains often meet at the railway station," Jiaxi explains. "When a train pulls in, you can easily tell who are the train enthusiasts as they start snapping away with their cameras."

Trains are given nicknames by these enthusiasts. The Yellow Doctor, for instance, is a train that examines and tests the track before the scheduled passenger services.

"In the WeChat group, we share information as well as all the photos we take and I will ask questions in the group if there is information about a train that I can't find on the internet," Jiaxi says.

In July, Jiaxi, Guan and another friend took a two-day train trip from Guangzhou to Zhanjiang in Guangdong province. "There are railways on the seaside, which are pretty to record, and I enjoy the feeling when a train passes by," he says. "During the trip, Guan was very kind and took good care of me."

On May 11, 2018, the first day of the Guangzhou-Hong Kong high-speed railway test run, Guan missed the new train, most commonly referred to as the "Vibrant Express", to the Guangzhou South Railway Station.

He and another trainspotter later found a tall building about a kilometer away from the station, where they found a good vantage point to take photos. They could also clearly hear the toots, whistles and the whine of the train's engine.

The next day, he was finally able to train his lens on the Vibrant Express departing from the station. "I like to take photos of models like the Vibrant Express. The design is interesting, and it's very colorful," Guan says.