Hou Zhengfeng smiled: "Do you still need to choose those lines?" It's all in my head, do you know what our greatest strength is? ”

Lin Yuan asked, "The biggest advantage?" What do you mean? ”

Hou Zhengfeng said with a smile: "Do you know which stage of the construction of the Ludao Railway took the longest?" You can't guess that the time to choose the line is actually the longest, let me give you an example, for example, from Beijing to Zhangjiakou, there are countless ways to walk between the two locations, so which villages and towns should be passed? It is necessary to consider not only the geology, hydrology and other factors, but also the number of industrial and mining enterprises around, whether they can drive regional development, and to what extent the region will be driven. ”

"Let's give you an example, after the founding of New China, we built the Chengdu-Kunming railway from Chengdu to Kunming, just went out to survey it took four years, and finally determined three feasible routes, and the process of analysis and decision-making took nearly a year, and then we started to build, and we don't need to, the predecessors have chosen the line for us, the geological situation has not undergone any major changes within a hundred years, and the industrial and mining enterprises basically do not, so there is no need to consider, so we can use it directly."

Lin Yuan asked, "What about the seamless railway you said on the track inspection car?" Can we make it? ”

Hou Zhengfeng nodded and said: "Of course we can, we just want to build our Beijing-Yunnan Railway and Beijing-Shanghai Railway into the most advanced railways in the world, especially the Beijing-Yunnan Railway, its construction is so difficult that it will be a miracle in the history of human railway construction!" ”

Hou Zhengfeng continued: "Since it is the most advanced railway, the seamless railway must be the first choice, in our time, the railway has two development directions, one is high-speed, our country's high-speed railway has been widely known, such as EMU, the maximum speed reaches 400 kilometers per hour!" In this era, the speed of China's railways was only about 20 kilometers per hour. ”

"The speed of 400 kilometers per hour is close to the limit of the speed of the conventional railway, the conventional railway is dependent on the adhesion between the wheels and the track to produce traction, the relevant theory and practice have proved that there is a limit speed for such a railway, and if you want to break through this limit speed, the conventional improvement has not worked, and you can only use magnetic levitation."

"Although high-speed rail has a variety of advantages, but it is not suitable for us now, what we need now is another direction, that is, heavy-haul railway, heavy-haul railway can simply carry a lot of goods at a time, and our actual situation now is: the number of locomotives and professionals is very small, so the number of trains we can send is relatively small."

"And if we want to transport as much minerals from the west as possible, we can only increase the number of goods carried at a time, so the heavy-haul rail is our only option."

Lin Yuan nodded and asked, "Okay, let's build a heavy-haul railway according to what you said, I don't know what preparations we need to make if we want to build the most advanced railway?" ”

Hou Zhengfeng thought for a while and said, "There will definitely be a lot of preparation needed, but there are three major directions that I have in mind now. ”

Lin Yuan asked, "Which three general directions?" ”

Hou Zhengfeng replied: "First: steel; Second: lasers; Third: Communication. ”

Lin Yuan frowned and asked, "I understand steel, the track must be made of steel, but what do lasers and communication mean?" What do you need for these things for the railway? ”

Hou Zhengfeng replied: "Our rails must be paved straight, can not be paved slanted, laid on the earth, there is no reference, how can you guarantee that the track from the starting point to the starting point is a straight line, if it is not a straight line, it will definitely consume materials, not only that, our Beijing-Yunnan Railway is indispensable to open up a tunnel, and the opening of a tunnel is even more so, we must ensure that the path opened up is a straight line, if it cannot be guaranteed, the tunnel is even in danger of collapsing." ”

"As for communication, it is even more necessary to ensure that our railway will operate in the future, and it is impossible to run only one train on such a long route, so it is necessary to have a communication system to coordinate the location of different trains, and if this coordination is not good, there will definitely be an accident!"

Lin Yuan thought for a while and said, "Lasers and communication equipment have something in common, and they can be made together. ”

Hou Zhengfeng asked, "Do they also have something in common?" ”

Lin Yuan said: "There are a lot of semiconductor devices used in communication equipment, and lasers also use semiconductors, so I say that they have something in common. ”

Hou Zhengfeng suddenly realized, and then said: "In fact, what we need to solve most is the steel problem, and our current steel production may not be able to meet our requirements." ”

Lin Yuan asked, "Are there any special requirements for the steel needed for the track?" ”

Hou Zhengfeng said: "Generally speaking, the heavier the rail, the better, like the steel rails used in our country, there are 50 kilograms per meter, 60 kilograms per meter, 75 kilograms per meter, 75 kilograms per meter of steel, the damage is far less than other steel, and the use of such steel, for heavy loads is also good, our railway line will be very busy in the future, so I recommend laying 75 kilograms per meter of steel rails now." ”

"As for the composition, we need to use manganese ore, we are rich in manganese in the iron ore in Liaoning, so we can directly make manganese steel, but you can calculate our demand for steel, from Beijing to Kunming, the mileage is about 3,000 kilometers, if we use 75 kilograms of steel per meter throughout the process, then the rails needed are 200 million tons! The entire steel production of this era does not reach this figure! ”

Lin Yuan said: "Then I'll find a way." The two left the roast duck restaurant while talking, Lin Yuan returned to his residence, thinking hard about countermeasures, and thought: "200 million tons, it's just astronomical, I didn't expect this railway to use so much steel." Lin Yuan immediately notified the Beijing ship and asked them to send people to Shanghai, Fuzhou and other coastal ports to buy all the tin ore on the market now and use it for the time being.

At this moment, someone came to the door: Thomas asks to see!

Lin Yuan thought to himself: "It's already dark, what is Thomas coming to me for?" Lin Yuan then let him in, and when Thomas came in, Lin Yuan saw that his face was full of disappointment, and couldn't help asking, "What's wrong with you?" ”

"I'm afraid our contract won't be enforced, and our team may be back in the U.S. in a few days," Thomas said. ”

Lin Yuan was surprised when he heard this, and thought to himself: "If they leave, we will have no skilled workers to build the railway!" No, you can't let them go anyway. So Lin Yuan asked, "Why are you leaving?" Is something wrong? ”

Thomas said, "It's in steel!" ”

Lin Yuan's heart moved when he heard the word "steel", and he hurriedly asked, "What's wrong with steel?" ”

"It takes a lot of steel to build a railroad, and the Pacific Railroad has reached a strategic alliance with Carnegie Steel, and all the steel that the Pacific Railroad needs is supplied by Carnegie Steel, and now you're asking for your own steel, and Carnegie is not doing it, and he used the means to force the Pacific Railroad to stop building the railroad," Thomas said. ”