Yet few people know that the soon-to-be-opened north-south elevated light railway largely overlays the route of the old Wusong-Shanghai Line, China's first railway.

In 1874, a British company began laying the railway from Henan Road North near Suzhou Creek to Wusong Town ferry at the estuary of the Yangtze River. The railway was five kilometres long.

Construction of the route became a crowd-puller locally. Thousands of curious people from nearby towns and counties came to get a peek at the construction site and watch the spectacle of a "steel road" being built.

Finally in July 1876, the section of the railway between Shanghai and Jiangwan was completed and officially opened. The railway tickets, expensive as they were, sold out very quickly as people lined up to get a kick out of experiencing a ride in the train. The whole of Henan Road North was packed with excited people, men and women, young and old, rich and poor.

En route, country scenes of all sorts were viewed by the exhilarated passengers through the train windows. Shanghai people savoured the scenery unfolding before them and the convenience of modern transportation.

In less than one year, more than 160,000 people in the then much smaller city of Shanghai had taken the train. The Shanghainese used a vivid description of the coal-fuelled train to coin a name for it - "fire-wheeled carriage." Later the name was shortened to huo che or "fire carriage," which is still the Chinese word for train today.

In contrast to the Shanghai people's enthusiasm, the Imperial Qing Court harboured fears and worries about the train. Conservatives expressed concern that the roaring "fire wheeled carriage" would disturb the gods and spirits and destroy the qi (the inner force) of the mountains and rivers, drawing down natural disasters on the landscape.

One year later in 1877, the Imperial Court allocated 285,000 taels of white silver from its modest revenue to buy the Wusong-Shanghai Railway from the British company.

Wasting no time, the court had it dismantled and the rails were later "exiled" to Taiwan where they were re-laid to help in the transport of coal.

Shanghai people missed the railway they had briefly owned. Local newspapers were filled with nostalgic stories about the railway and train. As time went by, the dream of rebuilding the railway gathered steam among Shanghai people.

In 1896, during the "Self-Strengthening Movement" initiated by enlightened mandarins who advocated learning Western techniques in order to strengthen China, several key officials entreated the court to rebuild the Wusong-Shanghai Railway.

Western influence and modernization had mellowed the rulers in the 20 years since they had disassembled the railway, and they decided to bring it back. Two years later the Wusong-Shanghai Railway was rebuilt and opened to passengers.

From that time until the 1950s, the Wusong-Shanghai Railway transported countless numbers of passengers. But as the city proper grew and more bus lines were added in the area along the old Wusong-Shanghai Railway, China's first railway was gradually abandoned.

The railway was dismantled for the second time some years ago to make way for the more advanced elevated light railway, also the first of its kind in China. (By Joshua Shi)