The Peking-Kalgan Railway was the first major railway built by the Chinese themselves and is thus a source of considerable national pride. The name Peking is based on the pronunciation of the name Beijing in southern dialects of Chinese and means “Northern Capital” while Kalgan is the Mongol name for the city now known as Zhangjiakou. In Chinese the name abbreviates to Jing-Zhang Tielu (Tielu means “Iron Road”). With the later extension of the railway to Hohhot, formerly Guisui, capital of the former Suiyuan province, the railway became known as the Jing-Sui Tielu (but in the period when Beijing was renamed Beiping as the
