Over the past 300 years, human civilization has made three major breakthroughs in the field of technology. Among them, the first technological revolution ushered us into the age of steam, and realized the rapid progress of lifestyle.
In the 60s of the 18th century, the steam engine invented by the Englishman Watt transformed manual production into industrial manufacturing of machine production, which marked the beginning of the world's entry into modern civilization from feudal society.
One of the most direct influences of the invention of the steam engine was the innovation of transportation. In feudal times, people relied mainly on foot power or horses for travel, and wooden boats for ocean navigation.
The advent of the steam engine has promoted the emergence of new means of transportation such as trains, automobiles, and ships, replacing the bulky and slow old means of transportation, greatly facilitating people's travel, and at the same time accelerating the integration of the world.
Nowadays, the emergence of airplanes and high-speed railways has further improved the speed of people's travel and promoted the development of the information age.
China's high-speed rail technology is unique in the world, driven by China's special geographical environment and population distribution needs. With an astonishing speed of 300 kilometers per hour, high-speed rail has become the best choice for people to travel long distances.
However, high-speed rail running at high speed faces serious challenges in making a U-turn. China's solution, however, has shown remarkable ingenuity.
Compared to the clumsy approach adopted by Europe and the United States, China's solution appears to be smarter. On the eve of the 2008 Chinese New Year, southern China was hit by severe snowstorms, and nearly 20 provinces were affected by low temperatures, rain, snow and ice.
As a result, several major railway lines were blocked by snow and ice, and train stations in many cities were shut down. In the face of this situation, China's "high-speed rail revolution" has shown strong vitality and quickly launched rescue work after the snowstorm.
On the eve of the Spring Festival in 2008, the sudden heavy snow made many migrant workers who were going home for the New Year stranded at the Guangzhou Railway Station, which became the most serious scene in the Guangzhou Railway Station at that time.
Nearly 400,000 stranded people waited for 11 days to return home in the snowstorm and ice.
Guangzhou Railway Station was suspended, and the military police and the masses helped each other to fight the wind and snow. The city has made many efforts to bring in hundreds of buses to send the people who have been waiting for many days home.
This event inspired the determination to transform the infrastructure, the most important of which is to carry out the "high-speed rail revolution". Since then, the speed of China's high-speed rail construction has increased significantly, and the railway bureau has adjusted the medium- and long-term high-speed rail network planning, and began to promote the construction strategy of high-speed rail trunk lines across the country.
China's high-speed railways have operated more than 40,000 kilometers, making it the country with the longest operating lines in the world. The successful operation of high-speed rail has gradually freed people from their dependence on traditional trains, greatly shortened travel time, and relieved the pressure on railway operation.
However, in the early days of building high-speed rail, engineers were faced with a dilemma: how to solve the problem of train U-turns. Although China's high-speed rail technology has reached the world's leading level, China still started late compared with Western countries in the long history of train development.
As early as 1840, Charles Levisic of Conwall, an engineer, designed the world's first train to run on tracks.
Over the past 100 years, Western countries have invested a lot of resources in the study of rail transit, and successfully invented advanced transportation tools such as steam trains, urban rail transit, and high-speed rail.
However, how to make the train turn around became a major challenge for them. In their opinion, the key to the train's U-turn lies in the locomotive. Therefore, European and American countries invented a tool called the "big turntable".
This "big turntable" is actually a circular mechanism that can be rotated, ** with a single row of tracks set up specifically to accommodate the locomotive. When the train pulls into the next workstation, the staff will separate the front of the locomotive from the car, and then drive the separated head of the locomotive into the "big turntable", and change the direction of the front of the car by rotating the car.
The large turntable is the key to achieving a 360-degree rotation of the train and achieving a "U-turn". However, there are some problems with this method, such as taking up a lot of land resources, consuming a lot of manpower, and the whole process is time-consuming.
Therefore, it is not applicable in countries with large populations. However, as early as the early days of the emergence of trains in China, there was a pioneer of original design, who was known as the "father of Chinese railways" Zhan Tianyou.
Zhan Tianyou is a pioneer in China's railway construction, and his "herringbone" railway design solves the problem of train U-turn. In 1905, he led the construction of China's first self-designed railway, the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway.
However, due to the little knowledge of train technology in China at that time, Zhan Tianyou had to take on this difficult task. During the construction of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway, Zhan Tianyou fully considered the topographical characteristics of the railway and designed a unique "herringbone" line, which only needs two locomotives, one in front and one in the back, to easily solve the problem of train U-turn.
His design not only shortened the line and reduced the cost, but also demonstrated the strength of China's railway construction and laid a solid foundation for the development of China's railway industry.
The earliest solution to the "train U-turn" in China was the "herringbone" track design, but in the early days of the founding of New China, due to the weak industrial base, only one-way locomotives could be used, which made the "herringbone" method unapplicable.
In response to this, a "bulb-style" line was used to make a U-turn for the train.
Engineers have created a completely new way for trains to make U-turns—triangular lines. This method is more efficient and safer than the traditional "light bulb type". The design of the triangular line divides the U-turn line into two parts, the nose and the carriage.
When you reach the U-turn line, the front of the car separates from the car, travels in a triangular line, and then rejoins with the rear of the car. This method not only saves a lot of land, but also reduces the risk of the train rolling over during the U-turn.
This innovative way to make a train U-turn is both practical and safe, and is the brainchild of engineers.
Although the "triangle" line improves the safety of the train to make a U-turn, it is not much different from the "bulb" line, which also requires a lot of land resources, and the "triangle" line U-turn is complicated, and even takes more time than the "bulb".
Therefore, we need to find a more reasonable, cost-effective and safe way to make a U-turn. With the improvement of China's industrial capacity and the improvement of train track technology, we began to reconsider the "two-way locomotive" design.
This design is expected to solve the problem of existing U-turn methods, providing us with a more efficient and safer solution.
The two-way locomotive of China's high-speed rail has more flexibility than the locomotive that travels in one direction. With just a slight extension of the tracks, the entire train can easily turn around.
Therefore, it was once believed that a "two-way locomotive" could solve the problem of a train turning around. However, this is only part of the problem, and the wheels also play a key role.
If you look at the structure of a train's wheels, you will see that there is a disc on the inside of the wheel that has a larger radius than the wheel, and that is the "rim".
China's high-speed trains are in the process of moving"Rim"It plays a vital role in being able to hold the wheels of the train tightly to the track and prevent the train from derailing.
However, this also makes the train inflexible when changing directions. To solve this problem,"Turnouts"Emerged. "Turnouts"It is an important structure on rails, which contains a movable pointed rail.
When the sharp rail fits tightly to the original track, the wheel flange gets stuck on the sharp rail, changing the direction of the train. There it is"Turnouts"with"Rim"The train only needs to adjust the running direction of the front and rear locomotives on the extended railway, and it can easily achieve a U-turn.
At the beginning of the construction of China's high-speed railway, the U-turn problem was fully considered, and the double-head design was adopted, each front and rear of the car had an independent operation room, and the driver only needed to move from one locomotive operation room to another locomotive operation room after the vehicle stopped, and the U-turn could be completed.
At the same time, in order to maintain the comfort of passengers, the seats are designed to rotate 180 degrees, and when the high-speed rail is turned, the seats will also turn at the same time, ensuring that passengers are always facing the direction of travel.
This innovative U-turn not only saves a lot of land, manpower and time costs, but also shows the wisdom and design strength of Chinese engineers. Compared with the disc method commonly used in Europe and the United States, the two-way front has more advantages.
Its design concept originated from the "herringbone" track section adopted by Zhan Tianyou in the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway more than 100 years ago, which is also the origin of the two-way locomotive.
A network** depicts the vigorous development of China's high-speed rail industry, and in less than 20 years, China has built the world's largest high-speed rail network from scratch, an achievement that has captured the attention of the world.
Today, China's high-speed rail technology is among the best in the world, and the quality of trains it exports is comparable to that of Germany and Japan. This convenient and efficient mode of transportation has also amazed many Western countries.
The rapid development of high-speed rail technology has made the suspension of Guangzhou Railway Station a thing of the past. This achievement stems from the concerted efforts and common efforts of the people of the whole country.
As long as we are united, China has the confidence and ability to overcome no matter how big the difficulties may be in the future.