Chapter 11: Simple Rail Transit

“Old high-pressure boilers used wrought iron tubes,” a fat man squeezed over. “I’ve dismantled the antique boiler in our factory. There was no steel, it was all soft iron. The fire tubes inside were made of wrought iron.”

“Who are you?” Wang Luobin was stunned for a moment.

“I’m Xiao Gui, from the machinery factory,” the fat man said with a helpless look. It was never a good thing for the leader not to recognize him.

“Do you think there’s a problem with copying a high-pressure boiler?”

“It’s not a big problem. It’s just that there are many novices and few skilled workers here, so the work is not very good. In my opinion, let’s start with a simple Lancashire boiler to let everyone practice—after all, Master Zhou’s riveting work is also new. It’s not easy to have an accident if we build something with low requirements first,” Xiao Gui said conservatively, but he didn’t seem to care at all.

“Okay, let’s copy two Lancashire boilers first. After we’ve practiced, we’ll work on the high-pressure boiler,” Wang Luobin said.

Solving the boiler problem was equivalent to solving half of the steam engine problem. The key component of a steam engine is the cylinder, which is a product that tests the processing level of the transmigrator industry. The cylinder is actually processed with a boring machine, and the quality of the cylinder directly affects the actual output power and safety of the steam engine.

The machinery factory had already accumulated considerable experience in using large boring machines by processing cannon barrels in the past. This time, they did not encounter any technical difficulties in manufacturing the cylinder.

The first steam engine designed and manufactured by the transmigrators, the “Mozi I,” was a horizontal steam engine. It was driven by a Lancashire boiler, and the cylinder with a steam jacket sat on a cast iron base. The slide was cast in one piece with the base and had holes drilled in it. The crank pin was connected to a suspended crankshaft plate, and the outer end of the crankshaft was supported by an independent bearing. The governor automatically adjusted the expansion according to the load of the machine. There were two eccentric wheels on the crankshaft that drove the main slide valve and the expansion valve. The cylinder diameter was 311mm, and the stroke was 560mm. When the steam pressure was 4 kg per square centimeter and the speed was 95 revolutions per minute, it could produce 50 horsepower. This level was already comparable to the power of the small-power portable engines brought by the transmigrators—of course, the portable engines achieved this with a smaller boiler volume.

If they wanted to increase the horsepower, they could directly enlarge the diameter of the cylinder and increase the stroke. By enlarging the cylinder diameter to 560mm and increasing the stroke to 1000mm, a steam engine of the same structure could produce 185 horsepower, which was enough to meet most industrial applications.

The materials used for the boiler and steam engine were either pig iron or wrought iron, except for a few parts that used low-carbon steel—which was very suitable for the transmigrators’ metallurgical level.

“Actually, there is still a lot of room for improvement,” Xiao Gui commented on the design drawings drawn by Xiao Bailang. “For example, using a drop valve instead of a slide valve, or simply using a cylindrical oscillating valve—this will have to wait until the material and processing level are improved—”

“The processing level is no problem. We have so many modern machine tools and professional personnel.”

Xiao Gui smiled. “No one has ever done this work before. It’s better to be careful. Proceed step by step. Accidents with boilers and steam engines can be fatal. We’ve all worked in factories, so don’t forget about production safety.”

“That’s right. Accidents can happen at any time in a factory if you’re not careful. The apprentices are better now. Children have a strong ability to accept things. The adult workers are not very careful and even think we are making a fuss—sooner or later, there will be industrial injuries,” Jiang Ye deeply agreed.

“There’s no way around it. People won’t remember without a bloody lesson,” Zhan Wuya sighed and said, “Let’s not talk about this anymore. Our policy for producing equipment is: proceed step by step, take small steps and run fast, and constantly improve. In terms of production technology, we are just repeating the old path that our predecessors have walked. There are precedents for technological improvements, so we won’t take any detours.”

Starting with technically simple equipment and gradually increasing the technical content and processing difficulty of the equipment could not only quickly climb the technology tree but also avoid the risks brought by a Great Leap Forward-style development.

Even very simple and primitive equipment could play an important, even indispensable, role at this stage. Things like steam engines were much more useful than diesel engines at this stage.

Producing boilers and steam engines was a golden finger for the great cause of transmigration, the key of keys. No one dared to be negligent. Ma Qianzhu ordered the Planning Committee to unconditionally approve all the material and energy applications sent by the Industrial and Energy Committee. Wu De also patted his chest and said that he would provide as much manpower as needed. The Lingao Construction Corporation even organized a shock construction team to build the factory buildings.

Although there were many different types of factories in the five-year plan, in reality, most of them were just various workshops in the Bopu industrial zone. The layout of the industrial zone had been planned as a whole to make full use of the space and to centralize the arrangement of various pipelines. Concrete pedestrian walkways and simple tracks for transporting goods were laid between the workshops and warehouses.

Of course, this kind of track could not run trains. It was just two rolled wrought iron bars directly embedded in the concrete floor, with a small load-bearing capacity. Originally, the mechanical group was prepared to use hardwood tracks. Considering the climate of Lingao—wood products are prone to rot and damage during the rainy season—they still used forged iron—it was cheaper than steel and tougher than cast iron tracks, and was the main material for early railway tracks.

Originally, Zhan Wuya designed this kind of track just to imitate the simple transportation method between workshops in his previous life—he had worked in a spray painting workshop for a while, and large workpieces were loaded on a flatbed truck and pushed along the track from the previous workshop. It saved both manpower and time, and was highly efficient.

However, when the train enthusiasts among the transmigrators saw the track, they couldn’t help but feel excited. Under the joint petition of a group of people, the Executive Committee was finally moved, and the originally simple track between workshops became a complex “track system.”

In the new plan, the length of the track was greatly increased, and the scope of connection was also wider: from Bairen City, the farm, East Gate Market, to the hydropower station on the bank of the Wenlan River, the inland wharf, the Bairen Commune, and extending to the various workshops, warehouses, and office buildings in the factory area. It could not only transport various equipment, raw materials, and goods, but also transport personnel. A switch and an auxiliary track were set up at certain intervals on the track to allow vehicles to avoid each other.

In order to grasp the operating status of the vehicles and facilitate dispatching, a high platform was specially built as a central control console, equipped with wired telephones and a lighting control system. In an emergency, a set of colored flag visual system could also be used, or it could be directly connected to the broadcast system and controlled by high-powered speakers.

“Chief Wen, these are several types of vehicles we have designed for rail transit,” in the vehicle workshop, Li Chiqi, the workshop director, introduced the several flatbed trucks parked under the shed to the main members of the Executive Committee. As a young man with a major in machinery and automation, the reason why he could hold such an important position was firstly because his major was basically useless, and he could completely use his time on the tedious administrative work of a leadership position—people with skills like Jiang Ye, Zhou Bili, and Xiao Gui were too busy with technical research, design, and processing products every day.

Of course, another reason why he was the director of the vehicle workshop was that he was a senior model player, especially proficient in full-interior vehicle models—which was considered the closest to vehicle manufacturing. Since its birth, the vehicle workshop had not disappointed. It had modified more than a dozen handcarts, manufactured and modified the first batch of two-wheeled freight horse-drawn carriages, and recently produced the transmigrators’ first four-wheeled carriage, the “Red Flag” model.

Wen Desi and the others looked at the several flatbed railcars under the shed. They all looked very ordinary, no different from the small flatbed railcars used in the factories in their memory, except that the vehicles in front of them used more wood.

“This is the basic flatbed freight type,” Li Chiqi said, wearing a pitch-black work uniform. He was a short, curly-haired, small-eyed fat man—he hadn’t lost any weight since coming to Lingao, but he had become exceptionally strong.

“This flatbed type has a maximum load of 5 tons. It has no power and relies on manpower to push, horses to pull, or a powered vehicle to pull. With further improvement, a load of 15 tons is not difficult to achieve.”

“Powered vehicle traction, what kind of power?” Ma Qianzhu became interested. He remembered that this kind of rail flatcar used in factories was generally electric. It was certainly impossible here.

“Well, we have developed several models of powered vehicles. The specific ones to be selected will be evaluated by the Industrial and Energy Committee,” Li Chiqi said. “On this basic model, we have designed a variety of detachable modification kits, including tanker transport type, bulk cargo transport type, extra-long parts transport type, etc. By installing different kits, different functions can be achieved.”

“This design idea is not bad,” Wen Desi agreed.

Ma Qianzhu was not very relieved. “Is there a problem with the vehicle bogie?”

“No problem. We overcame this difficulty when we developed the Red Flag carriage,” Li Chiqi said confidently. “Now a major problem limiting the vehicle load is that the actual situation of the track load is not certain.”

Wen Desi waved his hand. “No problem. The British used wooden tracks and horse traction to transport several tons of coal in one cart back then, not to mention that our rail transit is built with concrete and steel materials.”

“This is the second type of vehicle: a self-propelled flatcar,” the second model introduced by Li Chiqi was exactly the same as the basic freight type, the only difference being that there were four seats at the four corners of the flatcar, and there were some chains, wheels, and other things under the seats. There were pedals under each seat—obviously, it was propelled by people pedaling.

“This is not bad, but is the driving force of four people pedaling enough?”

“It’s enough. It’s very fast when it’s empty, and we’ve also installed a braking device for it. It’s just that it’s very difficult to start when it’s fully loaded,” Li Chiqi had already done experiments. When there was too much cargo, if there was no external force to help start, the four people on the car would not be able to pedal it no matter what. “It probably takes about ten people to push it to start, and after it starts, it can be propelled by pedaling.”

Do we have to specially prepare ten people as starters? Obviously, this kind of vehicle can only be used as a transport vehicle or for transporting light objects.