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)