I am Da Song

Chapter 610 Railway System
Tang Yi looked at the simple shape of the train and asked, "Is this the thing that makes a noise every time it emits thick smoke?"

It is very difficult for her to accept that Da Song has invested billions of dollars, and the royal appropriation she has reviewed alone has more than one billion dollars. There are tens of thousands of scholars in Taiyuan Academy, hundreds of thousands of craftsmen in the world, and millions of soldiers and civilians. Just researched such a replica of the bullock cart.

If the so-called train is this kind of thing, how many bullock carts can the Song Dynasty set up for the whole country with its persistent investment for so many years?

Su Dai walked to the side of the train and said, "Don't underestimate Shanggong. It can pull thirty carriages, carry 450 passengers, and pull two thousand stones of goods (about 90 tons, less than [-] tons), and it costs Traveling at a speed of two hundred miles an hour."

"Two hundred miles per hour?" Zhao Huan was very sensitive to this number.

That is fifty kilometers per hour. Anyone who has driven a car at this speed knows that it is basically crawling at the speed of a turtle.

If the war horse ran at extreme speed, it would not exceed this speed.

But the horses can run for a few hours at most, while the train can run non-stop for a day and a night.

I was able to run more than 2000 miles in twelve hours, from Tokyo to Xijing.

Moreover, it can carry nearly one hundred tons of cargo. This order of magnitude can instantly change the situation of front-line supplies.

Zhao Huan walked forward and knocked on the metal wheel. The front wheel was basically the same size as a carriage wheel, but the rear wheel was smaller, about the size of a millstone.

Looking at this structure, Zhao Huan also believed that as long as the steam engine was fired up and given some power, it could run.

It is too simple, returning to the essence of mechanics.There is nothing too complicated about the principles.

Zhao Huan asked: "What is the reason why this train cannot be mass-produced?"

Su Dai replied: "We really underestimated the difficulty of mass production with uniform specifications and the loss of continuous train operation."

"The airship can go to the sky because each airship is basically unique. Many materials are enough to rub by hand. The number is limited, and the requirements for metallurgical materials are not high."

"But trains are different. To be used on a large scale, materials must be purchased uniformly. And officials should not underestimate this locomotive, which has thousands of internal parts."

"And the rails need tens of thousands of miles. Each of these requires the same size and uniform texture. It is not hand-polished at all. Only after research can we understand the real difficulty of producing this kind of train."

Zhao Huan instantly understood that in the final analysis, the billions of money invested by Song Dynasty were not used to deal with the train at all.In fact, what really consumes a lot is promoting mechanical production and unifying and standardizing specifications.

But this aspect should be exactly what Da Song is good at!

Since ancient times, the Central Plains can be produced in a standardized manner, except for the crossbows of the Qin Dynasty, which should belong to the Song Dynasty.

Zhao Huan said: "As far as I know, there are books in my dynasty that clearly record hundreds of parts of the equipment, and standard equipment can be produced by reading the books. It should not be difficult for the Taiyuan Academy to promote this aspect."

Su Dai said: "The Taiyuan Academy has been doing its best to promote this matter. Strive to improve the industrial base."

Zhao Huan nodded, in fact, he could understand Da Song's current difficulties.

Although it took only a few years for a miner in the UK to develop a complete railway train, the industrialization of the UK had advanced for hundreds of years at that time, and it had a strong industrial foundation.

So train research only needs to choose the right parts. As long as he can complete the design, he can complete the production.

However, the industrialization of the Song Dynasty has only been advanced for less than 20 years. It is not difficult for Taiyuan College to design a train. The difficulty is how to produce it with quality and quantity.

Just like the steam locomotive in front of us, Da Song craftsmen can grind it out bit by bit by hand.

For Da Song, gathering countless skilled craftsmen and designing various shapes can definitely design a suitable locomotive.

However, it is obviously a test of craftsmanship to make each of the components uniform in specification and wear-resistant.

Zhao Huan then asked: "When I went to Hejian Mansion, I heard that the local machine tools are very advanced, and it seems that they also took over part of the railroad tracks? Does your Taiyuan Academy cooperate with them?"

"This is available. Their machine tools are really good, and some key components have been handed over to them for production. It is because of them that the Taiyuan Academy officially decided to lay railroad tracks and test run trains."

Zhao Huan praised: "The idea of ​​the Taiyuan Academy is very good. Don't be afraid to spend money. The railway track is of great significance to our dynasty. It has unparalleled significance in economics, military affairs, border defense, and politics."

"Even if we use financial resources to smash it down, we must first pile up a few locomotives that can run with unparalleled manpower and material resources."

As for the loss of components, the specifications cannot be unified for the time being?

This can be a problem for small countries.

For Da Song, it can be solved in a brutal way.

Each train is equipped with an engineer and an eighth-level worker. Even if it is polished on site, this part is also ground and adapted.

For this railway transportation, Da Song can set up [-], [-] or even [-] employees.Instead of production, they specialize in the maintenance of trains and rails.

If all this can work, the postal system and the Wubao system of the Song Dynasty can be abolished in large numbers.

There is a post station every [-] miles along the track, with dozens or even hundreds of employees and hundreds of horses, which is no less than the number of employees in the train system.

But the transportation capacity is very different.

It can be said that the train project has not been perfect so far, but Zhao Huan firmly believes that as long as there is a start and the direction is correct, the subsequent problems will be gradually resolved during the operation.

Su Dai stood beside the train and said, "Officials, in fact, the Tai Academy has already analyzed the development idea of ​​the locomotive very clearly."

"His core is that the steam is in a cylinder, pushing the piston, and then linking the movement of the guide rod. There is nothing difficult in principle."

"So if we want to continue to improve, the Taiyuan Academy has already had an idea, focusing on the performance of the steam engine. If the machine tool is successfully used on a large scale, a thicker train will appear soon."

Zhao Huan said with a smile: "It's better if the train is thicker. I have always believed in a principle. The rough aesthetics is currently the easiest to apply in practice."

The most typical example of this is Tsarist Russia. From a barbaric country with backward feudalism, he quickly built a huge industrial scale. His foundation is definitely not as strong as the current Song Dynasty.

After all, you can't expect any cultural literacy from a group of gray cattle, but they just copied the railway network at an extremely fast speed.

As long as the principle is understood, a fool can develop rapidly.

Finally, Zhao Huan said to Su Dai: "Tomorrow, Qing and I will attend a court meeting, and I plan to start building some railways immediately."

(End of this chapter)