QJ 3121 rounded the curve at Shandi with train 571, the 06:53 passenger from Mudanjiang to Suifenhe on 2 March 1990. This line was built as part of the original Trans-Siberian Railway and opened in 1903. The section across Chinese territory from Manzhouli through Harbin and Mudanjiang to Suifenhe was known as the Chinese Eastern Railway and was originally laid to 5 foot gauge, until converted to standard gauge in the 1930s. By then a lot had changed. Russia lost its influence over north-east China to Japan after the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-5 and a new section of the Trans-Siberian, less direct but built entirely on Russian territory, bypassed the Chinese Eastern Railway.