The times are developing and progressing, and the old objects of the past are gradually withdrawing from the stage of history, such as the green train that carries the memories of a generation.
However, the recent freezing rain has made netizens call out, or "Spring Festival Grandfather" is reliable, it turned out that under the influence of freezing rain, the high-speed rail was trapped and blocked, and had no choice but to stop operating, and the green train was not afraid of the blizzard and freezing rain appeared in front of everyone's eyes, like a veteran once again put on the battlefield, although it is the twilight of life, but the combat effectiveness is still "online", a group of older netizens have feelings, it turns out that the green train that has not been seen for many years is still there!
Why can't high-speed rail run in freezing rain?
In layman's terms, freezing rain is when the upper airflow is lower than 0 °C, when ice crystals or snowflakes fall, they encounter the warm current in the middle layer, and then turn into water droplets and fall, but the temperature near the surface is lower than 0 °C, and the low temperature layer is very thin, and when the water droplets have not had time to condense into ice crystals or snowflakes, they fall to the surface of the object, and then form ice crystals to wrap the object.
From the point of view of the difficulty of the formation conditions, freezing rain is very rare, this time the central and eastern part of the continent encountered freezing rain, because the cold air from the north went south, encountered the southwest warm and humid airflow just north, the two aircurrents hedged and collided, forming a natural phenomenon of low temperature above, warmer middle, and low temperature near the surface, which also triggered the formation of freezing rain.
Freezing rain freezes the rails into "ice rails", and the train will encounter great resistance when running, which will affect the accuracy of replacing the forks and increase the braking distance, and when running at high speeds, a large amount of ice slag will be continuously hit by the air flow into the interior below.
In addition to the freezing damage of the rails, the "ice spikes" above are also dangerous, imagine that a large number of ice picks are suspended on the catenary, once the high-speed rail runs, these sharp ice picks will fall above the train, causing great damage to the train equipment, it is not excluded that the ice picks directly pierce the metal shell, and passengers have greater safety risks.
In addition, the high-speed rail needs to be rubbed against the catenary through the pantograph device above, so as to obtain high-voltage current to obtain power, once the ice is thick, the heat generated by the friction is not enough to melt the ice, and the high-speed rail will be delayed or stopped in a large area.
Even if a drone is dispatched to break the ice, the efficiency is not enough, this side has just been cleared, and that side is frozen again.
Some netizens may say, why can the high-speed rail in the Northeast operate normally even on a snowy day?
The reason is that the continent is vast, from south to north contains a variety of natural climates, at the beginning of the train design, will be adjusted accordingly due to the local natural climate, for example, the northern high-speed rail will be equipped with professional anti-frost and warm materials, and the southern high-speed rail if it is also like this, there is no need for this, and the cost of later wear, maintenance, repair and other costs is also very high.
Therefore, it is normal for the central and eastern regions of the mainland to suffer from freezing rain disasters, and the delay or suspension of high-speed rail.
Why does the Green Train run even in freezing rain?
Green normal-speed trains are widely known as "green trains", although many styles of green trains are now also using electricity, but the degree of dependence is not as serious as that of high-speed rail.
In severe rain and snow, if the power system is affected, the green train can change the internal combustion engine head and use the internal combustion prime mover to drive the wheels to run, because the speed is slow, the ice on the track is crushed and shoveled off by the wheels, and the damage to the train will be much reduced.
In freezing rain, when the high-speed rail is trapped, the green train can pull the high-speed rail back to the platform, according to the news of China Railway on February 5, the department has prepared 48 diesel locomotives in advance on standby, if necessary, the first time can carry out emergency traction tasks.
Is the green train useful other than emergency traction, and why is it almost invisible?
Although high-speed rail is popular today, green trains have not completely disappeared, they continue to shine in other places, the most important value of which is "poverty alleviation".
Many remote mountainous areas have little contact with the outside world, if you build roads, in addition to the expensive construction costs and later maintenance costs, the real reason is not cost-effective, not to say to give up, but to choose to build railways, with green trains to replace roads.
On the one hand, the green train is spacious, and the villagers can take it at a fixed time, and can carry a large number of items and even pigs, cattle and sheep and other domestic animals, on the other hand, if you want to carry these things, what means of transportation can meet them, and there are a few people in remote mountainous areas who can afford to buy trucks.
At present, the "slow train" has entered 21 provinces in China, stopping at 530 stations, passing through 35 ethnic minority areas such as Yanbian in Jilin, eastern Inner Mongolia, Xiangxi and Yunnan-Guizhou regions, transporting 12 million people along the line every year.
The important thing is that the green train has a public welfare, the fare per kilometer is less than 6 cents, sometimes the villagers bring more things, or the money is not enough, they can also get on the train and go back, in addition to remote mountainous areas, between most provinces and cities in the mainland, in addition to high-speed trains, there are still green train purchase options when buying tickets, and the ticket price is much lower than that of high-speed rail.