The Red Era: Starting from a Truck Driver

Chapter 254 Train Meal

In the 1970s, or before the reform and opening up, public security was always better than after the reform and opening up.

One is the restriction on travel, and the other is that you need a ticket to buy things. This makes it difficult for many criminals to escape, and having money alone is not enough.

Just like now, ordinary hard seat train tickets are open to the public and you can buy tickets without a letter of introduction.

In China now, no one has an ID card, which means that you cannot tell whether the person on the train is a human or a ghost.

Not many people take the train now, mainly to visit relatives and friends, for business trips, and for some educated youth who go to the countryside and return to the city every day.

The public security on the trains was still good, but in two years, vendors, migrant workers, and tourists appeared. The trains would be crowded, and valuables had to be carried at all times and placed in the inner pockets of clothes.

Otherwise, when you fall asleep at night and wake up, it is normal to find that the pockets of your clothes or bags are scratched.

We often see thieves on trains in TV shows or movies. There are many thieves on the trains, and they are rampant. Some people say that people in the 1960s and 1970s were simple, the public security was good, and people did not pick up things on the road.

In fact, it is because you need a letter of introduction to travel far away, and if you have money but no tickets, you can't spend the money.

How come there are almost no thieves in later generations? Is it because of the strong security patrol? Or is it because of mobile payment that people don't carry cash anymore?

It is still due to environmental reasons that some professions disappear, not that those good people will not do bad things.

In addition to theft, truck drivers will also be unreliable. When everything is easy to sell, you will understand what it means that poor and remote places produce "unruly people".

In about two years, truck drivers will basically have a gun in their vehicles, and will not get off the vehicles if possible when driving in remote areas.

In the 1980s, everyone knew what business was the most profitable. For the scrap industry, they would open a scrap yard, not in a busy area of ​​the city, but in the suburbs where towns meet.

If you are a little bolder, you can make a lot of money by collecting scraps. Many people can tell at a glance that the things they have stolen are stolen. As long as the price is not too outrageous, you can get a lot of things.

In the 1980s, people did not go to bicycle repair shops to buy second-hand bicycles, but to privately owned scrap yards. After some enterprises became self-sufficient, some unwanted equipment could be sold to scrap dealers as scrap metal.

Zhou Lingying insisted on leaving at 4 o'clock for a train ticket that left at 5 o'clock. The only people who could buy sleeper tickets were basically at the train's departure station. Otherwise, they had to have some connections and be able to call the railway bureau to reserve a ticket.

There was no internet in those days, except for the departure station. For other trains passing by, you had to ask on the spot, and you had to be qualified to buy a sleeper ticket.

Changcheng to Nanjing, more than 800 kilometers, takes a whole day by train. It is much faster than driving. If Jiang Cheng drives, it will take two days without wasting time, even if he has to get up early.

However, this is not because the train runs fast, but because the train does not stop at night. The train takes six or seven hours to travel less than 300 kilometers, and has to pass more than 20 stops along the way.

It is estimated that it will take about 20 hours to travel the 800 kilometers, and we will arrive in Nanjing at 1 or 2 o'clock tomorrow afternoon.

If we drive a car, the main reason is that the road is not good, and the driver can rest at night for two days. If two drivers take turns driving, we can reach Nanjing the next morning.

Fortunately, it was the first stop, so even if Jiang Cheng and his friends arrived at the train station at around 4:00, they could still get on the train in advance and stay inside. Otherwise, it would be very cold waiting for the train outside the station.

After getting on the train, probably because of the New Year and the return of educated youth, there were quite a few people on the train, but Jiang Cheng and his group were in the soft sleeper car. The compartment-style layout allowed people to close the door.

Each box has four berths, two floors, and the configuration is not bad even in later times.

In the past, only people of high status could buy such tickets. In order to buy these three tickets for Jiang Cheng, Zhu Lan even went out of her way to give him gifts.

In the compartment, Jiang Cheng and his companions waited until the car started moving, but they did not see the fourth passenger in his compartment. This allowed them to be more casual in the compartment.

"It's past five o'clock, Jiang Cheng, do you want to eat something?" Zhou Lingying asked.

"There is a dining car on this train. You must cook some eggs and bring them on board. Jiang Zhaozhao, Jiang Panpan, are you hungry? Do you want to go to the front to eat with daddy?" Jiang Cheng said, holding one daughter in each hand.

When she came, Zhou Lingying directly boiled 20 eggs. If Jiang Cheng hadn't stopped her, she would have brought steamed buns and stir-fried vegetables to take the train.

When Zhou Lingying first came to Changcheng from Nanjing by train to the countryside, her family cooked eggs for her and brought rice and steamed buns for her to eat on the road.

This is true for most people in the hard seat carriages. There is always a special dining car on the train, and the price is actually not expensive. But for some people, it may be difficult to afford the money to buy a train ticket.

The eggs Zhou Lingying brought were already cold, and there was no water heater on the train to fill up with hot water. Before boarding the train, you had to get your own thermos to fill up with hot water, and if you wanted hot water on the train, you had to go to the dining car.

So on the train, many people put cold food in their mouths and chew it slowly, warming it up in their mouths before eating it into their stomachs.

"Dad, I want to eat eggs." Zhou Zhaodi said.

"I want to eat eggs too." Zhou Pandi also said.

Jiang Cheng also resigned these days. In the past, he was not at home. Even if Zhou Lingying made delicious food, the ingredients were not as rich as in later generations.

Children still like to eat boiled eggs in shells. They can be used as snacks instead of meals.

But the eggs were already cold, so Jiang Cheng took out an enamel cup, put the eggs in it, and then poured the hot water from the thermos into it.

"Let's go eat in the front first. The eggs are cold now, but we can heat them up when we come back later." Jiang Cheng said.

"Jiang Zhao~Zhaozhao, Jiang Panpan, listen to daddy, let's go eat and come back to eat eggs later." Zhou Lingying also echoed.

When you are out, you can't call your child by random names. Calling them Zhaodi, Pandi, Niandi, Sidi, etc., is really funny. Especially if you go to Zhou Lingying's house and still call them like this, she will be embarrassed if she doesn't say that her daughter's belly is not good enough.

As soon as Zhou Lingying opened her mouth, Jiang Zhaozhao and Jiang Panpan obediently stood up and followed her to eat.

Several people came to the train restaurant, and the food here was really good. It was similar to the fast food of later generations, with many dishes and you could eat whatever you wanted.

There is a set meal here, 50 cents per portion, which is actually the form of rice with toppings in later generations. There is also shredded pork noodles, 30 cents.

There are many dishes here, too. Spicy chicken costs 1.2 yuan per serving, fish slices costs 1 yuan, pork slices costs 90 yuan, white pork costs 80 yuan, braised spareribs costs 60 yuan, and stir-fried meat costs 50 yuan. The rest are vegetables, which cost 10 or 20 yuan per serving.

The key is that there are several varieties of vegetables on the train in this season, while in the vegetable market there are only carrots, potatoes and cabbages for sale. Rice is 10 cents for a large bowl and 5 cents for a small bowl, both in quantity.

How should I describe the price of the food? It's about the same as in a restaurant, but the portion is incomparable to that in a restaurant. As for the taste, it's quite good, because the level of a chef who can be a chef on a train can't be bad.

There are special carriages for foreign guests on the train. How can we entertain foreigners if the chef’s skills are so poor?

There are also beer and bread for sale in the train restaurant. Many people will buy some to bring back for their families even if they don't want to eat bread themselves. However, there is a limit on the amount of bread, and one person can only buy four loaves.

Jiang Cheng and his friends ordered three small bowls of rice and two large bowls. Then they ordered four dishes, both meat and vegetables. The total cost was two dollars and eighty cents.

Then Zhou Lingying took the train ticket and marked it with the waiter, and bought twenty loaves of bread at ten cents each.

This means that in just a short while in the train restaurant, I spent nearly five dollars.

This is nothing for Jiang Cheng and his friends, but for many families, apart from their expenses, they may not be able to save even ten dollars a month.

After returning from the dining car, even though Jiang Zhaozhao and Jiang Panpan had eaten a lot, they were still thinking about the eggs. They ate the eggs anyway. Anyone with a child in the future would like this appetite.

In fact, when Jiang Cheng was almost done eating in the dining car, he saw the train attendant packing lunch boxes in aluminum boxes. After 5:30, there were few passengers coming to the restaurant to eat, so the train attendant would pack some leftover dishes and rice in aluminum boxes and sell them as lunch boxes.

The portion of this dish is a little smaller than the 50-cent set meal at the restaurant, and there are not as many meat dishes. But they are packed into boxes and put into cloth bags to sell in the carriages, and they only cost 30 cents each.

If you have a big appetite, you can buy two lunch boxes with different dishes for only 60 cents.

Even if there were adults and children like Jiang Cheng, they could definitely eat comfortably with just over one dollar. But Jiang Cheng and his friends spent nearly three dollars, and the most they could do was to have more choices and a more comfortable dining environment.

The train was stopping and starting, and Jiang Cheng and his friends had sleeper tickets, so it was more comfortable to lie down. And the children didn't get carsick, which was a good thing.

When Jiang Cheng used to drive a car, he often took his daughter for rides. After getting used to it, even if she got carsick, she wouldn't get carsick anymore.

The train stops at a station almost every half an hour, and occasionally at stations that are far away it may not stop until more than an hour.

In those days, the railway department had a train sales department.

In the 1970s, passengers could buy food on many platforms in addition to on the train.

There are usually a lot of food for sale on the platform, and during festivals, they will also prepare some special foods.

For example, on the first day of the Lunar New Year, the platform will sell dumplings, and on the fifteenth day of the lunar year, there will be 20 cents per bowl of Yuanxiao for sale. On the fifteenth day of the eighth month, there will be moon cakes, and on the fifth day of the fifth month, there will be zongzi.

But usually they sell some sesame cakes and snacks, and many places sell braised chicken. This braised chicken is similar to beggar's chicken, and is made from young chickens.

This means that the chicken is not particularly big, and it costs more than two yuan each. If it is an old hen or a chicken that can lay eggs, two yuan is definitely not expensive. But for chicks, this price is a bit extravagant.

Jiang Cheng went to the platform several times in the first half of the night to buy food, such as candied haws and big steamed buns. He also bought roasted chicken, but the chicken was too small. If he really wanted to eat it as a meal, he could eat five or six at a time if he had a big appetite.

At around ten o'clock, Jiang Zhaozhao and Jiang Panpan, who were taking a train for the first time, couldn't resist sleeping. However, they had their own beds but didn't sleep in them. Instead, they slept together with Jiang Cheng in their underwear.

Jiang Panpan always falls asleep directly on Jiang Cheng's chest. Jiang Cheng doesn't know when this little cotton-padded jacket in winter will start to rebel.

Three people squeezed into a small sleeper bed, and Jiang Cheng couldn't even turn over. He just held his daughter in bed for a while, then he went to another bed to hold his two-year-old daughter Jiang Niannian to rest.

She slept until the next morning, but Zhou Lingying didn't sleep well at night. Maybe because of the environment, the fourth child Jiang Sisi woke up and cried in the middle of the night. She fed her again and took the third child to the toilet.

Jiang Cheng, as a father, is really lucky in this era. If it were a woman in the future, she would probably just kick him awake and ask him to take his daughter to the toilet or something.

~~
Nanjing’s staff residential buildings are still the same as they were six years ago.

In the blink of an eye, Zhou Lingying's mother Liu Xiaofang is already fifty years old and will retire this year. Her father Zhou Dongming is also about to retire, he is fifty-three this year.

In this era, the retirement age for women is 50 and for men is 55. For cadres or those working in technical positions, both men and women can retire five years later.

Zhou Lingying's brother Zhou Xingcai also moved out after being allocated a house in the third year after his marriage.

Liu Xiaofang and Zhou Dongming now have many children and grandchildren, but the only thing they are worried about is their daughter who has not returned for more than seven years after going to the countryside.

Fortunately, the educated youth began to return to the city in the past two years, but not all of them were allowed to return to the city at once.

An application needs to be made and the situation needs to be reviewed, and they will be transferred back in batches.

The first people to return were those who had passed the college entrance examination after its restoration and chose to return to the city to attend university.

Zhou Lingying could actually take the college entrance examination, as long as she studied hard in the first two years. But she had just given birth to her third daughter, and she had no intention of taking the college entrance examination.

Jiang Cheng would not agree to her going to any university. If she dared to leave her daughter behind to go to university, Jiang Cheng would really beat her up.

Now, Zhou Lingying's uncle used his connections in the second half of last year to make Zhou Lingying a member of the second batch of people eligible to return home.

Yesterday, Liu Xiaofang received a call from her daughter, saying that she would take the 5pm train from Changcheng. Yesterday morning, she went to the local train station to check the train schedule. If she is on time, she will arrive at the station around 1:30. But if she is not on time, it is normal to be delayed by about half an hour.

Zhou Dongming took a day off today and went to the train station at noon to pick up his daughter and granddaughter.

But when it comes to their granddaughter, Zhou Lingying's parents also feel a little embarrassed. Their son-in-law Jiang Cheng comes here to visit them many times every year, so he naturally knows about their daughter's childbirth.

But the good news was that they had a granddaughter, and now they had four granddaughters in a row, which made them feel a little guilty in front of Jiang Chengdu.

As parents, there is nothing they can do since their daughter is not doing well.

(End of this chapter)