Being a train driver used to be a prestigious technical career on the mainland. Working for a large, state department meant a stable, well-paid job with the added perk of travelling around the country when few even had the chance to visit a neighbouring city.
That's no longer the case for Max Zhou and his disillusioned former engine driver colleagues, who say the job today brings mostly exhaustion, frustration, and pressure. Now their main concerns are to arrive at the next station on time, have enough rest and time off with their families, and to get a fair wage.
Unlike many of his former colleagues whose relatives worked on the railways, Zhou fell in love with the locomotives as a boy in Hunan province.
After graduating with an economics degree from a local university, Zhou's family asked their 'connections' - which means bribing industry insiders - to help him find a job as a trainee train driver.
He worked at the job for more than three years until he quit in 2009.
As Zhou soon learned, the job's prestige had not only declined and the hours lengthened, the drivers had become much reliant on technology.