Bisezhai Railway Station 碧色寨

About Bisezhai Railway Station

Bisezhai Railway Station (碧色寨) is a former station on the Yunnan–Vietnam Railway (滇越铁路), 10 km north of the city of Mengzi (蒙自) in Honghe Prefecture, Yunnan, with Changqiao Lake (长桥海) to the west and Liba Mountain (犁耙山) to the east.

Before the railway, the site was a hamlet called Poxin (坡心) of a dozen or so households. The French-built line reached it on 13 April 1909 and opened throughout in 1910. Bisezhai was the only special-class station on the Yunnan–Vietnam Railway, and from 1921 it was also the starting point of the privately run narrow-gauge Gejiu–Bisezhai–Shiping Railway (个碧石铁路). Imports and exports for the whole of southern Yunnan were transferred here between the metre-gauge and narrow-gauge tracks. The Mengzi city government records more than forty pairs of trains a day at its height, merchants arriving from 18 provinces and 108 counties, and foreign firms such as the Mobil (Sanda) Kerosene Company (美孚三达水火油公司); the place was nicknamed "Little Paris" (小巴黎).

The decline came in stages. On 12 September 1940 the Nationalist government, fearing a Japanese advance from Vietnam, ordered the bridge at Hekou (河口) blown up and 177 km of track between Hekou and Bisezhai torn up. The Mengzi–Bisezhai line was dismantled in October 1959, passenger trains stopped in 1992 and the station closed in 2010. Yunnan listed Bisezhai as a provincial protected site on 21 December 1987, and in 2013 eleven historic buildings at and around the station entered the seventh batch of Major Historical and Cultural Sites Protected at the National Level (全国重点文物保护单位). Feng Xiaogang (冯小刚) shot scenes of his 2017 film Youth (芳华) here.

The station grounds cover about 2 km². Visitors walk among yellow-walled, red-tiled buildings in French style, old warehouses and staff quarters that the city government says keep much of their appearance from the opening years. The Tropic of Cancer (北回归线) passes through the village.

What to look for

• Yunnan–Vietnam Railway station building at the north end: two storeys of brick and timber, red tiles and yellow walls, 600 m²
• Gebishi Railway station building (个碧石铁路站房) at the south end, built in 1917
• Geluoshi Hotel (哥胪士酒店), a 1912 branch of a Greek-run trading house that sold foreign wine and coffee, part French and part Chinese in style
• Datong Company (大通公司), a 1912 courtyard warehouse complex that stored American aid and Flying Tigers supplies during the war with Japan
• The narrow-gauge locomotive shed (寸轨机车库) and the water tower
• The station clock, the old police station and the red-earth tennis court
• A grapevine planted by the French

Location & getting there

Getting to Bisezhai Railway Station

• Search for 碧色寨 with 红河哈尼族彝族自治州 and 蒙自市.