China's efforts to improve coal supplies include the building of a new east-west passenger railway line, set to open in 2013, which should free existing tracks for coal transport.
The passenger service on the railway came to a halt in 1965, but volunteers set up the LRS in 1975 to reopen and restore the tracks, running mostly steam engines that attract an estimated 100, 000 visitors to the area annually.
That is what happened with Japan National Railways Settlement Corporation, a company set up ten years ago to assume the massive debts of the privatised railway network.