The Mystery of Markham Road Junction

Below is a picture snapped illicitly in the Shanghai Railway Museum. It is of the Markham Road Junction. That is what it is – you can read the sign on the junction box. Markham Road was in Shanghai’s International Settlement and is now Huai’an Road. Markham Road is on most maps of Shanghai pre-1949 and is a small road running from Suzhou Creek (Soochow Creek). It is usually described as a ‘cut-through’ or ‘short-cut’ to Gordon Road.I have seen records of some wealthy Chinese living on the street and several Chinese Christian missionary workers too.

There was a bridge across Soochow Creek at the end of the street called the Markham Road Bridge, which took you out of the Settlement into the Chinese-controlled districts of Zhabei (Chapei) and Baoshan (Paoshan) across the Creek. Trams ran along the street, indeed they crossed Soochow Creek at the Markham Road Bridge. In 1932 American Marines were drafted in to protect the Markham Road Bridge during the First Shanghai War. On October 14, 1937 a Japanese bomb hit a tram in Markham Road killing all the passengers. Markham Road became a frontline in the battle to defend the Settlement against the Japanese with sandbags and barbed wire across the road and British soldiers from the Durham Light Infantry posted on sentry duty.

But here’s the mystery. On no map I have or have ever seen is there a railway line shown as being on or near Markham Road, so what’s this junction box and railway line doing there? I can’t find a picture of Markham Road with a railway line on it and though I’ve seen pictures of the sandbags at the bridge in both 1932 and after 1937 but none show a rail line (you can see a shot of Markham Road in 1937 sandbagged here from the Karl Kengelbacher archive). John Markham was a well connected British diplomat of the nineteenth century and roads were named after him in Bombay, Toronto and several other places in Canada, could this possibly be one of those by mistake?

Anyone know anything? I’m stumped!!