Forty-one retired subway trains from Beijing, the oldest batch
of domestically made subway trains in China, will be put on auction
soon.
Retired subway trains wait
for auction in a warehouse.
Beijing Evening News reports that Beijing Equity
Exchange will take over the auction of these aged trains, which
went into service in the 1970s when Beijing opened the nation's
first metro service.
The floor price for each train is set at around 50,000 to 60,000
yuan, or 6,250 to 7,500 dollars.
The owner, the Beijing Subway Company Ltd., says each train is
19m in length and weighs 20 tonnes. They are all about 40 years
old, almost 30 years older than their service life and it's amazing
that they are still in a fairly "fine condition."
The Beijing Subway Company Ltd. originally considered the
recycling center as the old trains' final resting place, but many
buyers' strong interests in buying them and re-making use of them
for other purposes have made the company change its mind in the
end.
Some bidders are recycling companies, but the majority of the
bidders don't plan to dismantle these antiques. Some have revealed
their ideas to modify them into bars, guesthouses, book shops or
vendor booths to keep these trains running in the commercial
world.
(CRIENGLISH.com August 23, 2007)
