90 years ago, Red Army soldiers wore straw sandals and successfully arrived in Yan'an. 90 years later, the Fuxing train speeds through the loess ravines, turning the arduous Long March Road into the fast-speed Revitalization Road. From measuring mountains and rivers with your feet to roaring through high-speed trains, each steel track records the earth-shaking changes in the old district of Yan'an.
The picture shows an old photo of Yan'an driving animals. Photo courtesy of Xi'an Railway Bureau
In Yan'an, 92-year-old Zhe Zhengqian guards six heavy document boxes filled with newspaper clippings and old materials, with a total weight of nearly 5 kilograms, completely preserving the Xiyan Railway's more than 70-year dream pursuit history. In the past, transportation in Yan'an was congested. In the early years, it took more than ten days to go to Xi'an to drive animals. In 1959, the West Extension Railway was included in the national plan. However, due to financial constraints and complex loess geology, the project was suspended twice in 1981 and 1986. Zizheng has been collecting railway-related information for decades, carefully cutting and pasting information about every planning, suspension, and resumption of work. In 1991, when the rails were laid to Yan'an, he solemnly wrote down the date in his notebook. He took the train to Xi'an for the first time and kept counting the tunnels along the way. He couldn't hide his excitement.
The picture shows Zhe Zhengqian at the Yan'an Railway track laying ceremony. Photo provided by interviewee
In 1992, the Xi-Yan high-speed railway was officially opened to traffic, and steam locomotives drove into Yan'an Station, ending the history of the old area not being connected to railways. Many local people made a special trip to the station just to see the train they had been waiting for half their lives. At that time, the train journey from Xi'an to Yan'an took more than ten hours. In 2012, the West Extension EMU was opened, reducing the travel time between the two places to 2 and a half hours. The Xiyan High-speed Railway was officially opened to traffic on December 26, 2025. The fastest train from Xi'an to Yan'an can arrive in one hour. 92-year-old Zhe Zhengqian was sitting in the waiting room of Yan'an Station, stroking the thick information book, and said in a choked voice: "A lifetime's expectation has finally come true!". Books and books of yellowing information are what an ordinary old man has been watching for half his life, and they are also the simplest yearning for people in the old district to get rich through access.
The picture shows Zhe Zhengqian at the Yan'an Railway track laying ceremony. Photo provided by interviewee
The iterative upgrade of Yan'an Railway is a common memory for generations. Veteran driver Miao Tingfei drove the first test train into Yan'an in 1991. Now his son Miao Lei serves as the attendant at Yan'an Station, manning the dispatching station to ensure the safe operation of the high-speed rail. Two generations of railway workers, father and son, have witnessed northern Shaanxi's transition from the green leather era to the era of high-speed rail with a speed of 350 kilometers per hour.
The picture shows the old Yan'an Station building. Photo courtesy of Xi'an Railway Bureau
Yan'an Station has also undergone three transformations, from a simple small station in 1991 to a modern passenger terminal with four stations and 10 lines integrated into the high-speed rail network. During the National Day holiday that just passed this year, Yan'an Station sent a total of 154,000 passengers, a year-on-year increase of 57.41%, of which 76,900 were high-speed rail passengers, nearly half of the total. A large number of study tourists took the high-speed rail to Baota Mountain, Zaoyuan, and the former Luochuan conference site. Red cultural tourism continues to be popular. The benchmark train G358 "Yan'an" started running on January 26 this year. It has operated safely for 261 days, made 522 trips, traveled 12.62 million kilometers, and transported 520,000 passengers. The red display panels, reading corners, and cultural and creative products in the carriage turned the train into a mobile red classroom. Many research students completed "mobile ideological and political courses" on the way back.
The picture shows Yan'an Station taken on July 1, 2025. Photo by Zhang Yuan
All industries are prospering when the roads are connected, and transportation dividends are really falling on industrial development. Luochuan Apple is the most vivid example. The Luochuan apple industry began in 1947. After 79 years of development, it has grown into a "golden fruit" that has made the local people rich. The county's farmers grow 3.3 acres of apples per capita, ranking first in the country; the total output in 2025 will be 1.1685 million tons, the comprehensive output value will exceed 16.5 billion yuan, and the brand value will reach 101.629 billion yuan.
Employees sort apples at an apple industrial park in Luochuan. Photo by Zhang Yuan
In the past, due to transportation restrictions, Apple's overseas transportation losses were high and price negotiation was difficult. Wang Bin, a fruit company, returned to his hometown to start a business and introduced optical imaging testing equipment, which can perform a "CT scan" on each apple and detect more than ten indicators such as sugar content and hardness at one time, with a detection accuracy of 98%. After the opening of the Xiyan High-speed Railway, it has become more convenient for merchants to travel to Luochuan, and the company's export business has rapidly expanded. Apples are exported to 12 countries and regions including Vietnam, the Philippines, and Nepal, and the annual foreign exchange earnings from exports have exceeded 32 million yuan.
Employees load apples into trucks at an apple industrial park in Luochuan. Photo by Zhang Yuan
In response to the pain points of cross-border transportation of fresh fruits, the railway department has created a "warehouse-railway-port" door-to-door cold chain multimodal transport. On June 17 this year, 100,000 kilograms of Luochuan apples traveled 3,800 kilometers on the 37,119th freight train to Kathmandu, Nepal. Compared with traditional road transportation, the logistics cost of this solution is reduced by 2%. The temperature is constant throughout the entire process without unpacking, which greatly reduces the loss of fruit from collision and deterioration, and opens up a new channel for fresh fruits in old areas to go to the sea. Manshan Apple Orchard is no longer just a pastoral scenery, it has become a real "bank of wealth" for ordinary people.
The picture shows the Yan'an Revolution Memorial Hall. Photo by Zhang Yuan
Enabled by high-speed rail, Yan'an's economic construction has blossomed in many areas. The popularity of red tourism continues to rise. Tourists no longer check in at a single point. Instead, they rely on the high-speed rail network to connect red holy places such as Ruijin, Shaoshan, and Zunyi, and cross-regional red study routes are taking shape. In addition to apples, Fuxian smoked paintings have become popular again thanks to passenger traffic; special agricultural products along the line have taken advantage of the logistics network to go out of the mountains. As Shaanxi's "meter"-shaped high-speed rail network takes shape, and the West Extension High-speed Railway is connected to the national eight-vertical and eight-horizontal high-speed rail network, Yan'an has transformed from a traffic terminal in the past to an important node in the national road network, and the flow of talents, funds, and information has accelerated in both directions.
The picture shows Yan'an today. Photo by Zhang Yuan
90 years ago, the Red Army overcame hardships and embarked on the Long March to save the country and the people; today, the Fuxing train is speeding across the Loess Plateau, paving the way for people to increase their income and become rich. It took 32 years for the West Extension Railway to realize its dream. The construction of the high-speed railway has overcome the world-class problem of collapsible loess, with bridges and tunnels accounting for 91%. This in itself is the story of the Long March in the new era. Folding stacks of materials collected by Qian Laoren, it records not only the changes of a railway, but also the epitome of the continuous struggle of the people in the old area.
The track laying of the West Extension High-Speed Railway reaches Yan'an and the track is connected. Photo by Zhang Yuan
From the Straw Shoes Long March to the revitalization of high-speed rail, what has changed are the means of travel and the speed of traffic, but what remains unchanged is the spirit of not being afraid of hardships and working hard to forge ahead. The speeding Fuxing, carrying the sweetness of Luochuan apples and the expectations of the people in the old areas, travels through the Loess Plateau and continues to write new answers to the high-quality development of the revolutionary old areas on the railway lines of the new era.
