In the morning, at the north city of Hanshan, outside the north gate, at the station, Zhang Ying and a group of officials gathered in front of the station office.

The railway connecting the Limin Mine Area (coal mine) and Hanshan North City took more than a month and was opened to traffic not long ago. Zhang Ying brought the shogunate assistant here to see the transportation speed of the rail carriage with his own eyes.

He took out his pocket watch, but saw that time had "walked" around 7:40.

The precise timer tool pocket watch is a type of clock watch. It is named because it is small in size and can be kept in your arms.

According to the time unit of the clock, twelve hours a day are divided into twenty-four "hours", that is, one hour is equal to two hours.

One hour is sixty "minutes", and one minute is sixty "seconds".

Zhang Ying quickly got used to this kind of timing tool, as well as timing units and pocket watches, which became a must-have tool for him.

Put away your pocket watch and look at a railway in front of the station. It stretched northward and disappeared at the other end of the horizon.

The railway is nearly forty miles long and is a "double line", so the mileage of a single line is 80 miles, which consumes a huge amount of iron and is not low in construction.

Because the project is "sufficient in preparation", carefully inspected in advance, and has rich experience in laying tracks, the preliminary work has been done.

After construction starts, each section is constructed at the same time, with railway tracks laid on average one mile every day, so the construction speed is relatively fast, but the specific transportation effect is only known after actual operation.

Now, Zhang Ying wanted to see if the horse-drawn truck departing from the Limin Mining Station can arrive at the "Hanshan North Station" on time within one hour.

According to the plan, at 6 o'clock every morning, the first convoy will depart from Limin Station and Hanshan North Station opposite each other, and it will take an hour to arrive at the terminal.

In other words, the moving speed of a horse-drawn truck is twenty miles per hour, or twenty miles per hour, which is about twice the walking speed of a person.

It is slightly faster than a normal carriage on a dirt road, but a carriage on a railway can maintain a constant speed because the road is 'flat'.

And because it is a four-wheeler and the 'friction' on the track is very small, the load capacity of a horse when pulling a cart can be significantly increased.

This has been confirmed in the rail transportation of mining and port areas.

Forty miles apart, the burden is not heavy for a horse pulling a cart.

When the time came to 7:50, a dark shadow appeared on the railway, gradually getting bigger, but a fleet of vehicles slowly came over.

It seems that there is no problem to arrive on time.

Zhang Ying and the officials watched the horse-drawn truck convoy enter the station with interesting interest.

I saw a four-wheeled vehicle with a special style, driving on the track, the four wheels are the same size and the diameter is about four feet. The carriage is made of iron frames, wooden boards, rectangular and covered, like a large box.

There are eight four-wheelers, the same size, connected to the head and tail, like a centipede.

There are six horses pulling the cart, two in one row, three in front and back. The two grooms driving the horses are sitting on the front of the first car with a pergola on it.

Although there are many four-wheelers and the load capacity seems to be indispensable, six horses pull the car and move lightly, and they still have the strength to do it.

The convoy was not slow and gradually approached the station. The two people in the last car in the convoy heard the groom ringing the gong in front and moved the long rod beside the carriage.

The long rod is a mechanism of the 'brake system'. After being pulled, the wheels will not rotate smoothly and the movement speed will slow down.

One of them walked forward along the carriage. Whenever he arrived at a carriage, he moved the long rod on the side, which significantly slowed the convoy. At the same time, the groom also slowed down the speed of the six horses.

The convoy walked through an iron frame in the shape of a door frame and stopped, so that the iron frame was located right in the middle of the convoy.

Zhang Ying and the officials stepped forward to watch the loading and unloading workers loading and unloading goods on the spot.

The iron frame is very thick and thick, called the "door crane". The "door feet" each stand on a track and are equipped with wheels, so it can move forward and backward.

There is a movable pulley under its "door beam". The pulley has six hooks that can hook the four corners and the middle of a car.

The frame and carriage of the four-wheeled vehicle are separated and fixed by a pin. As long as the pin is removed, the carriage can be "lifted" by a door-shaped crane by manpower, and then it can be lifted several feet and then translated to the frame parked on the parallel track next to it.

After the carriage was placed on the empty frame, four young and strong men in crotched "number clothes" pushed the car forward directly.

Behind, the second horse-drawn truck from Limin Station arrived. Ten minutes apart, they entered a track next to them and carried out the "unloading truck".

The eight cars of the first train were lifted away one by one. Six horses pulled eight empty frames forward, passed the "man" shape and changed direction track, and entered another track.

The head changed to tail, the tail changed to head, and the horse pulling the cart was untied. The tail of the original convoy, the current head, and the new group of six horses were "connected".

Another assembly of loaders and unloaders lifts the carriages on these eight empty frames. After the lifting is completed one by one, the frame and carriages are fixed.

The four "coach drivers" who had rested drove six horses and pulled the convoy to head north.

This unloading and installing one piece of equipment looks simple, but it is actually not simple, and involves multiple processes.

Different teams use division of labor and cooperation to ensure that cargo loading and unloading, receiving and receiving, cargo registration, fleet changing tracks and changing horses at the same time, the purpose is to increase the "throughput" of the station.

Not far away, Zhang Ying looked at the pocket watch in his hand and was very satisfied with the loading and unloading of the carriage.

Of course, what is more satisfying is that the use of "containers" has indeed greatly improved the efficiency of cargo transportation.

A "container" is made of iron frames and wooden boards, with uniform sizes, self-weight and cargo, and weight is controlled at about 3,000 kilograms. It is a freight container designed by Li Li.

Container transportation is indeed helpful in improving material transport efficiency, but if it is just like this, it is not enough.

Not far away, there is the noisy Sishui Wharf. Eight carriages (containers) that had just arrived at the station were pushed onto the unloading track and parked.

The loader opened the side panel, and coal poured out and landed on the slide next to it.

Someone jumped into the slide where coal was piled up, inspected the coal quality, and installed the sample of the inspection.

After the random inspection is completed and the personnel are determined to evacuate the slide, the staff then open the partition and let the coal roll into the funnel-shaped device at the other end of the slide.

Below the funnel is a ship berthed at the dock.

Coal falls from the funnel and falls into the cabin.

After the truck of coal was dumped, the staff near the funnel blew the whistle, leaned out, and danced the small flag to the ship below.

The loader and unloader on the side of the ship got the order of the foreman and jumped out of the cabin with a shovel and leveled the coal piled up like a hill.

After leveling, they left the cabin. The people on the funnel device confirmed that there was no one in the cabin, and soon a new batch of coal was "fallen".

After repeated several times, the cabin was full of loads, the boatman covered the cabin and supported the boat to another berth. A new empty ship replaced it, opened the cabin and waited for cargo under the funnel.

Next to him, Zhang Ying looked at the pocket watch and was very satisfied with the speed of loading.

After a series of measures, the "Coal Direct Transportation Sishui Wharf" project in Liming Mining District has achieved good implementation results.

It's midsummer now and the weather is hot. Zhang Ying and his entourage are just standing and watching, sweating all over. Now the time is over. I turn to the pergola aside to cool off and drink tea to quench thirst.

Zhang Ying asked everyone what they thought. An official spoke in Zhongli’s accent and said:

"The departure of Limin Station is a standard fleet of six horses and eight vehicles, nearly forty miles away, and it arrives at Hanshan North Station in one hour. The unloading process is half an hour, that is, one hour."

Another official, speaking in a Huaiyin accent, said:

"One container, which carries 2,400 kilograms of coal, that is, twenty hu (stone), eight containers, one hundred and sixty hu of coal, and one 200 hu canal ship, which carries steadily."

"It took nearly an hour to load the ship, which means that the coal loaded the car at Limin Station was already in a cargo ship on the Sishui Pier two hours later."

Another person, speaking with a Guangling accent, said: "Limin Station, starting from 6 am, one train departs every ten minutes, six trains per hour, ending at 6 pm, seventy-two... no, seventy-eight trains."

"That is to send coal to the south every day... one thousand five hundred and sixty stones, and return to the north, transporting 1,560 stones of grain."

Another person smiled and said, "One thousand five hundred and sixty stones, two thousand stone cargo ships can be loaded. It is the cheapest cost to transport water."

He spoke in a Jiankang accent, but the Zhongli man said before: "No, time is fast, this is the difference. Rail transport, shipment on the same day, arrival on the port on the same day, and transportation on the water. Now the port area is busy, so you can't wait in line, wait for a day or two?"

"Just let's talk about coal, shipped to Hanshanxi Port Area. When unloading, you have to rely on manpower to shovel out with iron shovels, load them, and transport them to the Sishui Wharf in the east to load them."

"Sometimes, when you get busy, the transfer will take a lot of time, so that coal accumulates in the cargo yards, waiting for the transfer."

"Now there is a dedicated rail coal transportation line. The coal truck sets out from the mining area and goes directly to the Sishui Wharf in the southeast of the northern Hanshan city, which saves a lot of trouble."

"This time is also a cost, so it must be counted."

Seeing that everyone was very clear, Zhang Ying nodded.

Li Li's shogunate came from all over the country. He did not care about his background, but must have talents. He was basically a minor official.

After a period of running-in, the shogunate assistants began to take the lead.

What everyone said just now is true. Moreover, the freight capacity of the newly opened coal railway from Limin to Hanshan (North) is not just "the coal transports 1,560 stones in the south every day, and the same amount of grain is transported in the north."

An official from Guangling said: "The trial operation is over, and the departure strategy is improved. Both railways are used to change lanes at the midway station to avoid them. In this way, the number of trains departing south can increase by 50%.

"The same departure was made at night, and the freight volume doubled." The official from Huaibei added.

"In this way, the maximum transportation capacity of coal transported in the south in one day and night is close to 5,000 stones. The coal to be transported in the Limin Mine Area will no longer be backlog. The owners of the coal mine will wake up laughing when they sleep."

The official from Jiankang thoughtfully calculated: "In this way, the departure volume can ensure that the coal transportation line can earn maintenance costs, but it will not be easy to recover the construction cost."

When Zhang Ying heard this, he said, "The profit of the railway itself is valuable enough to maintain the cost."

Everyone listened, and Zhang Ying continued: "Junhou is right. If you want to be rich, build roads first. Railways are one of the roads."

"The coal transport railway is nearly forty miles long and has been completed and opened to traffic, not just for transportation of coal, but for the benefit of the people along the road."

Everyone still didn't understand: "But there are military farms along the way. How can they earn back the money from building railways?"

"After all, this money is borrowed. After the expiration, you have to not only repay the principal, but also the interest."
Chapter completed!