On February 29, the 35th day of the Spring Festival, at 2 o'clock in the morning, the night was deep, and 17 flaw detectors in the Maoming high-speed rail flaw detection work area of the Zhaoqing Public Works Section of Guangzhou Railway Group wore headlamps and flashlights, staggered and squatted next to the two rails to carry out flaw detection operations on the rails.
Maoming Station is a dual-purpose station of high-speed rail and ordinary railway, the intersection center of the Guangmao Line and the Shenzhen-Zhanjiang Line, and an important passage connecting Guangdong, Hainan and southwest China. During the Spring Festival, the average daily train operation at Maoming Station is nearly half of the usual. In addition to inspecting the line equipment in the Maoming station area, the work area is also responsible for the inspection of a total of 95 kilometers of lines of the Shenzhan Line and the Guangmao Liberation Line.
In order to ensure the safety of railway rails, when there are no trains passing through the line in the early hours of every morning, they will seize the time to go online to test the rail flaws. There are 5 skylights a week, and 1 skylight is working for six or seven hours. Because of the particularity of their work, they have an additional name, called "rail inspector".
During the Spring Festival, after the high-frequency rolling of the EMU, coupled with the large temperature difference between day and night, there may be micro cracks and other damage inside the rail, which is difficult to distinguish by the naked eye, so it is necessary to use professional rail flaw detection instruments to detect flaws, find out potential hidden dangers, and ensure the safety of the train.
At 4 o'clock in the morning, the foreman led the workers to work the road for more than 2 hours, their waists were sore, and their eyes were red and bloodshot. But they still stared intently at the subtle changes in the waveform of the instrument, for fear of missing any damage and causing driving hazards.
I saw that Guo Hongzhi was holding the probe in one hand, debugging the instrument with the other, and checking inch by inch along the rail. "When reviewing key injuries, we will hold the probe directly with our bare hands, so that we can operate accurately, feel good, and the probe can also find the damage that exists inside. Guo Hongzhi said. Because he holds the instrument with his bare hands all year round, his palms are extraordinarily rough and covered with calluses.
At 5 o'clock, they completed the eddy current flaw detection of the turnout at Maoming Station and the flaw detection of the main line rail. Guo Hongzhi said: "In the past, we used traditional manual flaw detection methods such as rail flaw detection, hammer knocking, and mirror photography, and we could only inspect about 6 kilometers of lines a day. Now, with the advanced dual-track flaw detector, an average of 32 kilometers of lines can be inspected in one night, and the quality and efficiency are improving."
Working at night, dark light is a big challenge. In order not to affect the quality of flaw detection operations, their headlamps and flashlights were put into battle, and the operation site instantly became "bright".
Master Guo often taught us to take out the strength of picking bones in eggs to test the rail flaws, because a small hidden danger may also affect the normal operation of the train. Apprentice Huang Yongsheng said.
At 6 o'clock, the skylight operation was completed. When the harvest was finished, everyone stood up, stretched their waists, and shook their arms, although everyone was tired and sleepy, their expressions relaxed a lot. Guo Hongzhi said: "Tonight, we inspected a total of about 33 kilometers of rail lines, and found 1 hidden weld and 1 external damage, which have been handed over to the masters of the line workshop to deal with." It's hard work, but watching the trains run safely and smoothly makes us feel like it's worth it.
*: Guangzhou Railway Group.
Text: Cai Zhen, Wang Peifeng, Chen Zhouhui.