Mayuan station has been completely renovated, attracting locals and tourists to take photos and “Check in”.

Tourists visit the Yunnan Railway Museum to learn about the culture of metre-gauge railways.

The locomotive night market is growing in popularity and has become one of the must-visit spots in Kunming.

The metre-gauge railway is a brilliant historical and cultural calling card of Yunnan. In recent years, travelling on the metre-gauge railway has become a popular form of entertainment for many citizens and tourists. Between entertainment and consumption, the appearance of the metre-gauge railway has passed through the dust of history and gradually become clear to the public. What are the most popular attractions on the metre-gauge railway after the continuous construction in recent years? What are the most interesting? How is the construction of the metre-gauge block progressing?

Locomotive Night Market: delicious, fun and lively

Kunming North Railway Station is the starting point of the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway. It carries the past and present of the Yunnan Railway. The journey through Kunming over a century begins here. Today, the locomotive night market next to Kunming North Railway Station is not only a place to eat, but also a fun and lively social place. With its unique station and railway elements as its theme, it has attracted many tourists and locals.

A few days ago, this reporter followed the crowd into the Locomotive Night Market. The first thing that caught his eye was a very long railway carriage. The carriage had been converted into a place to sell barbecue and milk tea. Tables, chairs and benches were neatly arranged beside the carriage for customers to use. Eating in this environment has a unique flavour.

Li Yanqing, assistant to the chairman of Yunnan Aosidi Industrial Co, Ltd, the management of the Locomotive Night Market, introduced that at present, the road section where the merchants lay the road is located in the eastern section of the metre gauge track of the North Station, which retains some railway facilities; while the western section retains a relatively complete railway scene, which is a good place for sightseeing and taking pictures. At the Locomotive Night Market, visitors can visit the Yunnan Railway Museum to learn about the metre-gauge railway culture, taste the special flavours of the food, and also visit the Jacaranda Park in May to witness the blooming of the season's flowers.

It is worth mentioning that the Yunnan Railway Museum has attracted more than 500,000 citizens to visit in the past two years.

Fanghuali Metre-gauge Cultural and Creative Market integrates gaming, shopping and entertainment.

At the intersection of Renmin East Road, Donghua Community and Tianyuanli, a special meter-gauge market is very popular. The Fanghuali Meter Gauge Cultural and Creative Market near Donghua Community is 618 metres long. Since its construction in 2017, it has presented a complex operation of hotels, restaurants, offices and other business formats. Along the metre-gauge to the north, on the side of Tianyuanli, a new metre-gauge market, about 700 metres long, is under construction and will soon be open to the public.

The Fanghuali Meter Gauge Cultural and Creative Market is a special block built on the meter gauge, integrating specialty food, intangible cultural heritage, cultural and creative products and landscape “check-in”. Walking along the meter gauge, you can see restaurants, “check-in” facilities, cinemas, flower landscapes, etc. It is a great spot for leisurely visits and snapshots. A local resident said it was easy to relax here, and drinking beer and eating barbecue on the track was even more unique.

It is reported that the Fanghuali Metre-long Cultural and Creative Market was built in three stages. The stalls that have been built so far focus on the vibrant atmosphere in the city; the second phase will focus on attracting various artists and aesthetic managers to settle down and continuously enhance the influence, radiation and attractiveness of Fanghuali by holding cultural activities such as concerts and art exhibitions; the third phase will focus on creating a number of competitive cultural brands, forming a number of development experiences that can be replicated and promoted, and adding a new landmark that can highlight the cultural characteristics of Guandu and the development of industrial clusters.

Yan Rui, the person in charge of the market management, introduced that along this section of the metre-gauge north, a new metre-gauge market with a length of about 700 metres has been renovated and built. It is called Meter Gauge MAP and will soon be open to the public. "This section will be mainly catering, but there will also be other formats." Yan Rui said there would be 10 metre-gauge carriages in the metre-gauge section, and Michelin locomotives will be placed outside for people to take photos. There will also be entertainment venues such as skateboard sports parks.

Mayuan Station: A great place for fun and leisure

Mayuan Station was formerly known as Kunming West Station. The retro yellow walls with green windows, timeworn train tracks and nostalgic buildings stand out beautifully against the backdrop of the blue sky and white clouds, attracting many locals and tourists. On social media sites such as the Red Note, many bloggers have posted pictures of themselves here, attracting netizens to like and comment. During the Spring Festival, this place has become the first choice for many people to visit.

The aunt who sells guandu baba said that during the Spring Festival of the Year of the Snake, she could sell hundreds of guandu baba every day, and the perilla flavour is the most popular.

A lady who brought her family here said that the place that impressed her most was the green train. Seeing the green train reminded her of the experience of riding the train when she was a child. Aunt Wang, who came to hang out with her daughter, said that the platform at Mayuan Station was her favourite place. The colour scheme of the platform is very novel, the combination of yellow and green is eye-catching, and it is also very photogenic.

At night it is still bustling. Under the interplay of light and shadow, people took photos, visited the metre-gauge track, and had a drink and a chat in the food shop, which was very pleasant.

According to Xu Xiaoping, the person in charge of Yunnan Cultural Tourism and Transportation Development Co, Ltd, which is responsible for the construction of this section of the railway, the Mayuan station has a memory-tasting market and will hold railway exhibitions from time to time to bring the people an immersive railway cultural experience and colourful cultural performances.

The cultural and tourism resources of the urban area are interlinked.

The 12.4-kilometre line from Kunming North Station to Shizui, a relic of the "Yunnan-Myanmar Railway", is called the "Kunshi Line". At the end of 2016, the "Kunshi Line" was completely suspended due to the construction of Metro Line 4. In June 2022, with the signing of the strategic cooperation agreement for the Yunnan Province Centennial Meter-gauge Tourism Development and Operation Project (hereinafter referred to as the "Centennial Meter-gauge Project"), the Centennial Meter-gauge was reborn. The Centennial Meter-gauge Project focuses on the protection and development of meter-gauge railway resources. It plans to reopen the 12-kilometre railway from Kunming North to Shizui, and first build the meter-gauge Xiyuan Road to Xiaocaiyuan Block and Greenway. The "metre gauge + business format + greenway" approach will create a composite urban linear landscape that integrates humanities, ecology and tourism. In June 2024, the construction plan of the Mayuan to Xiaocaiyuan Meter-gauge Block Project passed the evaluation of the large-scale characteristic market in Wuhua District. The project was officially launched and basically completed and officially put into operation during the National Day celebration.

According to reports, the metre-gauge block from Mayuan to Xiaocaiyuan is about 3 kilometres long and is divided into 5 sections by Xiyuan Road, Dianmian Road, Hongshan East Road, Jianshe Road, Lianhuachi Zheng Street and Minyuan Road, connecting 4 street offices in Wuhua District. A total of 1 urban greenway, 2 characteristic pocket parks and 5 historical and cultural blocks have been built along the route.

Among them, a neighbourhood market and an internet celebrity check-in wall between Dianmian Road and Hongshan East Road; jacaranda will be planted along the entire route, and a rose wall will be set up for tourists to visit and take pictures. A cultural and creative market and a ginkgo forest will be set up between Hongshan East Road and Jianshe Road; a cultural corridor will be established between Jianshe Road and Lianhuachi Zheng Street, and bougainvillea will also be planted.

As a key project for the transformation of the metre-gauge micro-spaces, the two characteristic pocket parks have entered the final phase of construction. Among them, the sunken pocket park has been completed and the event planning has been finalised. It pioneered the concept of "urban soundscape theatre" and planned special scenes such as choral performances and immersive fireside music. Starry sky symphony nights and ballad fireside parties will be held in the future. The main landscape project of Yimumian Pocket Park has been completed, and brand investment promotion is being carried out in an orderly manner. It is planned to introduce experience formats such as boutique coffee workshops and plant aesthetics laboratories, and to launch complex social scenes such as urban wild afternoon tea and ecological art exhibitions in cooperation with settled merchants.

The five historical and cultural blocks fully explore the history and culture of the existing blocks, and on the premise of respecting history, expand the characteristics and style, and create block market spaces such as "Mayuan Memory Tasting Market", "Neighbourhood Market", "Cultural and Creative Market" and "Cultural Corridor".

At present, the block has completed the construction of Mayuan to Jianshe Road. The railway relics, meter-gauge landscape buildings, ginkgo forests, bougainvillea flower walls, jacarandas, Chinese rose walls, Yunnan specialty food and other check-in points in the block are very popular with tourists. In particular, the metre-gauge line passes through areas rich in tourism resources, such as Dianchi-Xishan-Mayuan-National Southwest Associated University Site-Jacaranda Block-Lianhuachi Park-Panlong River-Kunming North Railway Station, which can realize the stringing of cultural and tourism resources in Kunming City.

Click here to view the Chinese report

(Editor: Reena, Ines)