Bringing the Railway to Daming

Chapter 153 Railway Inspection, Operating at a Loss?

The originally happy Dragon Boat Festival royal lunch ended in an unpleasant atmosphere due to Li Wenzhong's final advice.

Fortunately, both the uncle and nephew were more restrained this time, and the conflict on the disputed issue was not particularly serious, so the matter was later left unresolved - at least on the surface.

Liu Kuan no longer worried about Lao Zhu's family affairs. Two days after the Dragon Boat Festival, he asked for permission to lead a team north to confirm the condition of the railway section from Jiangpu to Xuzhou.

Over the past six months, the Science and Technology Department has sent people to check the conditions of various sections of the railway many times.

After the Spring Festival this year, the carriage project in charge of Qiu Qichi mastered certain railway maintenance techniques and sent special inspection teams several times to the north and east to inspect and record the actual conditions of various sections of the Beijing-Shanghai Railway, and even to assess the possibility of safe passage of trains.

According to multiple reports from the carriage project group's inspection team, the railway from Dantu, Zhenjiang Prefecture to Xuzhou was indeed not damaged by the changes in the river, just as Zhu Biao had sent people to check when Liu Kuan first crossed it.

When the Beijing-Pukou Railway (Beijing to Jiangpu) was built in the late Qing Dynasty, the Yellow River had already burst its dike at Tongwaxiang decades ago, taking over the Daqing River to flow into the sea. Now it is taking over the Huaihe River to flow into the sea.

Therefore, a small section of the railway in Xuzhou was indeed flooded and partially destroyed by the Yellow River.

This section of railway cannot be repaired with the current technological level of the Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, after the train was put into practical use, it could only go directly north to Xuzhou. Then, people had to take a ferry across the Yellow River, and then transfer to another train to continue north on the other side.

On the other hand, there are many rivers in Zhili Jiangnan, and the river courses have changed a lot over the centuries. Therefore, the railway was destroyed by rivers in several places on its way eastward through Changzhou, Suzhou and Songjiang Prefecture.

Although the report shows that the damage to these railways is not serious and repair is possible, it is not something that can be repaired casually - certain tests are required, and the repair of each railway bridge takes a certain amount of time.

Therefore, after Liu Kuan discussed with Su Quan and other people from the Science and Technology Department, they decided to first list the Dantu to Xuzhou section of the railway as the section for practical use of trains.

As early as after the Spring Festival, before the second phase of the train test began, Liu Kuan personally led a team to walk along the railway from Beijing (Nanjing) to Dantu to confirm that it was safe for trains to pass, and only then allowed the test to proceed.

Now that the train is going to be put into practical use on the Xu-Dan section of the railway, he must personally lead the team to travel along the railway from Beijing to Xuzhou again before he can feel at ease...
Liu Mansion.

In the bedroom.

Liu Kuanzheng and Zhu Huilan bid farewell reluctantly.

"The journey to Xuzhou is not short, and official business will take quite some time. Husband, please take care of yourself."

Zhu Huilan leaned on Liu Kuan's chest, put her arms around his waist, feeling reluctant and worried.

Liu Kuan smelled the delicate fragrance of Zhu Huilan and said with a smile, "Don't worry, I will take care of myself. Besides, I exercise every day. You know how healthy I am. I don't get sick that easily."

Zhu Huilan thought of something and her pretty face turned slightly red, but she was no longer worried.

She straightened Liu Kuan's collar and accompanied him to the gate of the mansion. She watched Liu Kuan and his entourage go away. Even though she could no longer see him, she still stood in front of the gate for a long time.

Liu Kuan still went to the large military camp in the northwest of the city first to join the 1,000 personal troops arranged by Zhu Yuanzhang.

Liu Kuan felt that it was inconvenient to lead a thousand troops north, and originally thought that bringing two or three hundred guards would be enough.

But Zhu Yuanzhang was worried and insisted on arranging a thousand personal soldiers to accompany him for protection, so he had no choice but to accept it.

The general who took on this task was an acquaintance of Liu Kuan, Zhou Tao, a captain of the Feixiong Guard.

Liu Kuan brought with him the groom Li Er, the servants Arong and Ahu, a general flag of the Yiluansi led by Wang Guangyue, and a railway maintenance team of twenty to thirty people led by Qiu Qichi himself.

Liu Kuan had traveled this section of railway from Beijing to Jiangpu several times before, so there was no need for him to look at it in detail. Therefore, the team slowed down only after passing Jiangpu.

Liu Kuan was riding his horse on the newly built dirt road on the side of the railway, but his eyes were on the railway next to him.

There was not a single weed or shrub on the railway or on both sides, obviously someone cleaned it regularly.

But there was a lot of rust on the rails.

The Beijing-Shanghai Railway has been repaired several times in later generations. In fact, the rails have been replaced with steel rails and the sleepers have been replaced with concrete ones.

But even steel rails, exposed to wind, sun and rain for more than half a year in the wild, without frequent friction from trains and without maintenance and inspection by railway workers, are bound to rust.

After looking along the road for a while, Liu Kuan suddenly slapped his forehead and looked distressed.

It was only at this moment that I remembered that there seemed to be a kind of human-powered railcar specially used for railway maintenance workers.

This type of vehicle only requires a simple transmission system, and people can use the vehicle to pedal to move along the rails. Although it is not fast, if people are arranged to travel back and forth day and night, it can also reduce the degree of rust on the rails.

As for the horse-drawn train in "Let the Bullets Fly", it can only run on special railways, and this railway built with stones and concrete sleepers is not suitable at all.

Thinking of this, Liu Kuan signaled the team to stop.

He dismounted and took Qiu Qichi and other maintenance team members to the railway to personally check the rust on the rails.

I found that there were spots of rust on the rails. Although there seemed to be a lot of rust, they were only on the surface and had not rusted into the inside.

Same goes for some of the screws on the rails.

On the other side, Qiu Qichi brought a few craftsmen, who were using small hammers to knock and detect various parts of the rails.

Seeing that he had finished, Liu Kuan asked, "Master Qiu, do you think this track is safe for trains?"

Qiu Qichi thought for a moment and said, "Actually, when we were testing the horse-drawn carriages at Lime Mountain, the rails weren't much more rusty than here. But after running the carriages for a few days, the rust gradually disappeared."

"Although there is more rust on the rails here, it's all superficial, so there shouldn't be any problems for trains passing through."

"However, the lifespan of the screws on these rails may be much shorter than before. We need to prepare for replacement soon."

Liu Kuan was silent for a moment after hearing this.

With Ming Dynasty technology, replicating screws wasn't a problem, but replicating a product capable of replacing them on the railway was a significant challenge—it involved precision machining. Of course, this wasn't an insurmountable problem, as railways without electrification weren't particularly sophisticated.

However, if we want to solve the problem fundamentally, we still have to improve the industrial level of Ming Dynasty as soon as possible, such as metal smelting, precision processing technology of metal parts, etc.

"It seems that after the train is put into use, Guo Tianwen must be transferred to the Machinery Manufacturing Bureau as soon as possible to strive to develop various metal parts processing machine tools as soon as possible."

While thinking about the problem, Liu Kuan, Qiu Qichi and others walked nearly a mile on the railway before returning to the dirt road.

Liu Kuan called Qiu Qichi over and rode side by side.

"Master Qiu, with the technology you currently possess, how much would it cost per year to inspect, maintain, and even repair one mile of railway?"

Since the Spring Festival, the second phase of trial operation of the train has begun, although it is nominally jointly managed by Guo Tianwen and Qiu Qichi.

But in fact, there is nothing that can be changed in the train carriages at present, so in the past few months the carriage project team has mainly been studying how to use the existing materials in the Ming Dynasty to build a new railway and how to repair the Beijing-Shanghai Railway.

That’s right, because of the generation gap in materials and technology, for the Ming Dynasty, repairing the Beijing-Shanghai Railway was even more difficult than building a new one.

Fortunately, the carriage project team has the support of the entire Ming Dynasty and can recruit a lot of talents. At present, there has been considerable progress in both the construction of new railways and the repair of future railways.

As the head of the project team, Qiu Qichi has also gained some experience in railway inspection, maintenance and repair.

After hearing Liu Kuan's question, he paused for a moment and then said, "If the situation is similar to the one mile of railway we just inspected, the total cost of inspection, maintenance, and repair for a year would be around two hundred strings of cash."

"Of course, if we encounter widespread damage, that's another matter. Repairing each mile would likely cost tens of thousands of guan."

"Moreover, with our current materials and technology, the repaired railway is not as safe or durable as the original one."

After hearing what Qiu Qichi said, Liu Kuan frowned slightly.

The Beijing-Shanghai Railway is nearly three thousand miles long. Even if it is like the section of railway just now, with no damage, the annual inspection, maintenance and repair costs are only calculated at two hundred strings of cash. The entire Beijing-Shanghai Railway will cost six hundred thousand strings of cash a year!
Today, the financial revenue of the Ming Dynasty is mainly calculated in terms of grain. In recent years, it has been at the level of more than 20 million shi, and has not yet reached the historical highest of more than 30 million shi.

One stone of grain is worth about two strings of cash.

Therefore, the current annual fiscal revenue of the Ming Dynasty can be estimated to be around 50 million guan.

Six hundred thousand strings of cash is certainly not much compared to fifty million strings of cash, but if it is only used to maintain a railway, it is too much.

It should be noted that the Ming Dynasty spent a lot of money every year on military expenses, official salaries, education, infrastructure, disaster relief, etc. Although it did not have frequent fiscal deficits like later countries, there was not much left over.

Even if Mr. Zhu supports railway transportation, he would probably feel distressed when he sees that this is higher than the railway maintenance cost.

Coming back to his senses, he asked, "I know your project team is still in the accumulation stage of railway maintenance technology, and there is considerable room for improvement."

"After a few years, when the technology matures, I imagine the annual maintenance costs will be significantly reduced, right?"

Qiu Qichi said, "It can be reduced, but it's probably difficult to reduce it too much."

After hearing this answer, Liu Kuan fell into deep thought again.

The Beijing-Shanghai Railway is definitely in use, and we cannot allow it to slowly become scrap metal.

As some people in the court privately discussed, prying up the rails and melting them to make weapons and armor would be a waste of resources.

So, with the maintenance costs of hundreds of thousands a year, plus the labor costs required for operation, will the court lose money?
If it were any other railway, Liu Kuan would definitely not think that he would lose money.

But the same cannot be said for the Beijing-Shanghai Railway.

Because the Beijing-Shanghai Railway runs south along the Grand Canal, there are more waterways near the south of the Yangtze River, and its transportation function can easily be replaced by waterways.

Therefore, even if it is put into civilian use in the future, Liu Kuan is not sure that the Beijing-Shanghai Railway will not lose money in operation due to the lack of experience and actual data to base his reasoning.

But again, we can’t abandon it just because it’s operating at a loss.

Some high-speed rail lines in later generations even made losses after operation.

"Since the cost of railway maintenance cannot be reduced much, and the profit and loss after operation is still unknown, in order to ensure the court's support for railway operations, we can only try to increase the court's fiscal revenue to increase Zhu's confidence in supporting railway construction and operation."

"However, given the current situation of the Ming Dynasty, there are many ways to increase the court's financial revenue."

Thinking this in his mind, Liu Kuan slightly increased the speed of his horse.

···
About a month later.

The time came to June of the fifteenth year of Hongwu.

Forbidden City, inside Fengxian Hall.

Liu Kuan bowed to Zhu Yuanzhang who was sitting on the dragon throne.

"I am here to see you, Your Majesty!"

"Be flat!"

"Thank you, Your Majesty!"

Zhu Yuanzhang then stepped down from the imperial steps, walked up to Liu Kuan, took a good look at him, and said with a smile, "You've gotten quite a bit tanned, but you look stronger too. Tell me, is the railway still usable on the way to Xuzhou?"

　First update.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)