On August 20, 1651, although the coldest season had passed, a group of railroad workers were still struggling to repair a section of track on the line of the Southern Cone Interoceanic Railway. The 41-kilometre railway branch line from the Black Mountain Coal Mine to Qingniwa Station is now facing many troubles, the most important of which is the frequent damage to the tracks in winter and the extremely high cost of repair.

As we all know, the Southern Cone and Two Oceans Railway was built on the south bank of the Xingnan River, located in the cold high-latitude Gobi region. In winter, when the west wind is cold, the temperature drops very quickly, if you are unlucky enough for another snowfall, then the rails, roadbed, track bed, and sleepers on the railway line will face a very strict freezing and hardening problem, which cannot play the due buffering role. Especially when the heavy train is frequently opened, the impact of the wheels on the rails is very strong, at this time, due to the thermal expansion and contraction (often up to about 50 mm) to guide the ice expansion of the track, the load of the rails and sleepers becomes very uneven, and the deformation is produced under the impact of the wheels, which has a great destructive effect on the railway.

Needless to say, the quality of the rails produced on the east coast is inferior compared to later generations, and one of the major manifestations is that the material is not resistant to low temperatures, so that the bottom of the rails will produce a large number of comb-shaped defects after the train passes through the train in winter, and the sleepers will also be broken in large quantities, and the economic losses caused cannot be underestimated. This problem is not visible on the warmer east coast, but in the colder region of southern Patagonia, it is fatal, with frequent rail damage, which is not only expensive to repair, but also affects driving safety.

To solve this problem. It is still necessary to start from many aspects, including technical research involving rail materials and heat treatment processes in the production process of rails. There is also the problem of railway bed drainage in winter - although precipitation is scarce along the Southern Cone Railway (no more than 300 mm per year), because the evaporation is not strong, and the precipitation is mostly concentrated in winter and spring, the problem of track bed freezing cannot be ignored.

After realizing this problem, the Southern Railway Company has now begun to regret the use of sand track beds for small and cheap use, and they have now fully notified the railway line under construction, and instructed all construction sections to stop the construction of sand road beds. Instead, build a well-drained gravel track bed to avoid frost heave problems in winter. Affects the life of the rails on it. In addition, the railway lines that have already been built will be gradually renovated - again a huge project - to ensure that the adverse effects of frost heave on the lines are minimized.

In addition, research on steel for cold protection is bound to be put on the agenda. The State Administration of Railways also attaches great importance to this. They contacted Ping An Iron and Steel Plant and Tieling Special Steel Plant, intending to conduct research from two aspects. First of all, the heat treatment process of the rails is responsible for the Ping An Iron and Steel Plant, and Ma Jia, who is almost the only metallurgical expert in China, vaguely remembers that the production of cast iron rails in the cooling process, how to eliminate the different thermal stresses due to different heat distribution is the key to solving the problem, and the heat treatment of the finished product, the waste heat of the furnace, etc. are all factors that need to be considered. All in all, this is another scientific and technological research operation, which requires a lot of money and manpower, and this part of the cost is currently paid by the Southern Railway Company, and the personnel are provided by the Ping An Factory. The resulting patents are shared between the two parties.

Secondly, the problem of rail material cannot be ignored, which has to be taken care of by Tieling Special Steel Plant. The plant has now received a request for assistance from the State Administration of Railways. At the same time, the Southern Railway Company also sent a small number of personnel to carry first-hand information and a large amount of research funds to the door, and cooperated with the Tieling Plant to carry out research on low-temperature resistant steel materials. This is more troublesome than the previous heat treatment process, the ratio of carbon, manganese, nickel and other elements in the steel is different, and the characteristics of the steel are different, which requires a large number of real yàn jù to perfect.

Although Ping An Iron and Steel Plant had handed over to them the ratio of dozens of steel models with the highest secret level (a considerable part of which was given by Ma Jia himself from memory), it was necessary to do a lot of low-temperature resistance tests in order to develop the most low-temperature resistant special steel on this basis. If it is a railroad track, it has to be tested at low temperatures, and this needs to be carried out on the real Yàn railway at the Southern Rolling Stock Factory in Meilin County -- it is still a very time-consuming and laborious task. After all. There is no other shortcut to this kind of process and material matters, we can only carry out a large number of practical products under the guidance of theory and experience, and then gradually summarize, and finally select the most suitable steel composition ratio.

In other words, these processes and proportions require a lot of money and time to come out, and there is no other way. Of course, once this is studied, it will also play a significant role in promoting the metallurgical technology and materials science of the East Coast Republic of China, and it is worth trying. Similarly, after the technical patent is researched, it will be shared by the Southern Railway Company and Tieling Special Steel Plant.

However, as the saying goes, far water cannot quench the thirst of the near, and before the low-temperature resistant rails can be studied, on the Southern Cone and Two Oceans Railway, all the Southern Railway Company can do is to de-ice the railway in time -- mainly when it snows, if it does not snow, the groundwater level in the place is low, and there is no need for a large area of frost heave in the track bed -- and at the same time, it is required to reduce the speed of winter driving. As for reducing the number of departures or even temporarily suspending services in winter, sorry, this simply can't be done!

If you take a look at the 203 kilometers (of which about 70% are open to traffic) of the 203 kilometers of the Southern Cone Railway, then you will clearly find that in the three sections of the Black Mountain Coal Mine, Qingniwa, Araukan Port-Qingniwa, Xingnangang, and Xinbao, which have been opened to traffic for a long time, all kinds of materials have already been opened to the Guò Railway and are carrying out frequent transportation and exchanges between various places. In particular, the branch railway from the Heishui Coal Mine to the Qingniwa is very frequent, both in terms of personnel and materials, and a large amount of Montenegrin coal is transferred by rail to the port of Araucan, an important maritime port, and then loaded and transported to other places, or for their own use, or sold to the Spaniards, or transported back to the mainland for sale (fierce competition with Tacheng coal), creating excellent economic benefits.

Therefore, if the Southern Railway Company is to be persuaded to abandon railway transportation in winter and use freight wagons by road, not to mention how to make up for the huge transportation gap of grain, building materials, and coal, it is not enough for them to bear the freight. Now that they have tasted cheap rail transportation, they have become tired of the high cost of road transportation, and the Southern Railway Company would rather reduce the speed of trains and increase the frequency of track repair and replacement than give up this vital and cheap mode of transportation - the cost is a qiē.

For example, this is the case for the current section of railway maintenance near Qingniwa Station. Because this place is located in a swampy area, the groundwater level is high, and the frost heave of the roadbed and the roadbed is naturally higher than that of other places, and it has snowed a few days ago, so the frost heave is generally 50-80 cm, which is really not light. And after a heavy-duty coal train passed through guò, not only did the sleepers under the rails produce many cracks, but even the lower edge of the rails also produced many irregular defects - in the low-temperature frost heave environment, the quality of the rails produced on the east coast is indeed not up to standard, both in terms of strength and toughness. It may not be relevant on the East Coast itself, but it is exposed in Southern Patagonia, which is not the warm East Coast itself.

After the railway repair squad of the Southern Railway Company, which has dozens of staff, finally laid the new railroad tracks with the assistance of various equipment, the leading squad leader greeted them, and everyone took a number of human-powered rail cars and drove towards the Qingniwa Railway Station in the rear. On the way, they came across a steam locomotive that had come to pull the train lying on the railroad track, and they were able to ride it back for free, saving a lot of effort.

After arriving at the railway station, the stationmaster carefully inspected the damaged rails and sleepers they had replaced, signed the maintenance record, and then walked briskly to the telegraph room on the second floor, and found someone to ride to the Black Mountain Coal Mine to inform the people there that the railway had been restored.

A young dispatcher nodded nervously, then grabbed his coat and hurried downstairs. Now the experimental telegraph line between the Qingniwa railway station and the Black Mountain Coal Mine is still being erected, and the identity of these so-called telegraph operators is actually very embarrassing.

The middle-aged railway station manager, who was a veteran, took off his seal fur hat from his forehead and carefully checked the insulation in the lower room - the Southern Railway Company stipulated that the room temperature in the telegraph room must be maintained at a certain level, and if the temperature is too low, the voltage of the battery that keeps the telegraph system running will decrease, which will eventually affect its efficiency. A lot of lead-acid batteries have been brought in the room, so the temperature inside must be guaranteed.

After doing this, the stationmaster took out the cigarette pouch from his pocket, lit a pipe for himself, and then walked towards the freight yard outside the train station with whale leather boots in his mist. The previous truck was parked at the yard to fill up water and coal, while unloading a sought-after load of supplies – all necessary to sustain the local population's daily life. The conscientious stationmaster thought that it would be better for him to go to the freight yard to check the supplies, and he was really worried about the Italian supply keepers, who had come to the East Coast at their own expense, and who had learned a little bit of mathematics and some bookkeeping methods, so that they had easily managed to get a job at the railway station.

"The barbarian background is the barbarian background, the black eyes only recognize the silver of the white flowers, if you don't keep an eye on it, these hateful people are afraid that they will get a lot of benefits for themselves. Damn, do you really think that you can do whatever you want if you climb up to the section chief? Lao Tzu also fought Jinan with Mo Dashuai back then, you Yiren are a fart! Grab the handle and send you to Montessori Harbor one by one to blow the cold wind. The stationmaster thought viciously as he smoked his pipe. (To be continued)