Talking about the opening of the entire Guangdong-Han railway, there is a figure who will definitely be mentioned that he is Shu Hongxun
Born in Changshu, Jiangsu Province, 1894-1981, He was an expert and educator in railway engineering. He once served as the president of Nanyang University (the predecessor of Jiaotong University) of the Ministry of Communications, the technical director of the Ministry of Railways and the Ministry of Communications, the director and chief engineer of the Railway Engineering Bureau (Division), the director of the Railway Administration, the executive secretary of the Ministry of Communications, and the acting minister. Since 1929, he has presided over the construction of railway trunk lines (including sections) such as Longhai, Yuehan, Xianggui, Tiancheng and Baotian, becoming another pioneer in the construction of important railways by the Chinese people themselves after Zhan Tianyou.
▲ Director and Chief Engineer General Engineering Department Shu Hongxun personally nailed the last way nail
1. From small shareholders to large bureau chiefs
History is sometimes as coincidental as the plot of a novel. In 1905, when the 12-year-old Was studying at the Guangzhou Fu Middle School, he spent a dollar and became a minority shareholder of the Cantonese-Han Railway. Unexpectedly, after 27 years, Yuehan Road had not yet been built, and he was assigned as the director and chief engineer of the engineering bureau of this road, responsible for connecting the section from Zhuzhou in Hunan to Shaoguan in Guangdong. Three years later, the Guangdong-Han Railway was connected to a small station in Shonan called Taipingli, and he came to hit the last nail. At this time, thinking about the fact that he invested a dollar in this road more than 30 years ago, Huan Hongxun did not feel another taste in his heart. In late September 1932, Xu Hongxun, who was participating in an industrial expedition in southern Shaanxi, received a telegram, and Gu Mengyu, minister of railways, told him to hurry to Nanjing. After the meeting, it was learned that he was going to be transferred to the Zhushao section of the Guangdong-Hankou Railway as the director of the engineering bureau. On November 1, 1932, He Hongxun came to the office located on the upper floor of the Guangzhou Silk Industry Bank and was officially appointed as the director and chief engineer of the Zhushao Section Engineering Bureau.
2. The Engineering Bureau moved to Hengyang
After Coming to the Zhushao Section Engineering Bureau, He walked through the whole line. He felt that Guangzhou was not a center of engineering and that it was easily constrained by politics. He fancied this place in Hengyang, which was almost the center of the Zhushao section, and the Xiang River passed through, which was a very important place in Hunan. And from Hengyang to the west, can go to Baoqing, to the southwest, can pass through Guangxi, the future railway is very promising from Hengyang zhan built out.
▲ Hengyang Station Yuehan Wharf Freight Yard
In September 1933, the Zhushao Section Engineering Bureau moved from Guangzhou to Hengyang. Huan Hongxun settled his family and children in Nanjing and came to Hengyang alone. The Guangdong-Han railway was laid on the east bank of the Xiang River, and the railway station was built on cai jia soap, a mile away from the river, and the engineering bureau rented a private house on the street along the river. Since the construction of the Zhushao section began, Hengyang's business has flourished day by day, and its status has become increasingly important. Duan Heng, the commander of the hengyang garrison, wanted to open up the road, but there were no road construction engineering talents in the local area, so Duan Heng asked Huan Hongxun to help. The engineering bureau happened to have a large number of technical personnel, and Xuan Hongxun planned on his behalf and sent a survey team to measure. Soon, several roads were expanded in Hengyang City, and since then there have been cars in Hengyang City.
Third, careful selection of lines is difficult before easy
The border between Xiang and Guangdong provinces has been a barrier between the Central Plains and Lingnan since ancient times, especially between Baishidu and Pingshi, lofty mountains, high mountains and deep streams, curved river valleys, and inaccessible people. Building a railway in such a dangerous place is undoubtedly difficult.
▲Guangdong-Han Railway Xiangyue Provincial Boundary Bridge
At that time, British engineers had selected a section of the line from Lechang to Yizhang, which required 66 tunnels to be dug, with a total length of 5800 meters. He led the engineering and technical personnel to go deep into the scene, climbed over the mountains, climbed the mountains and waded through the water, and obtained a large amount of first-hand data after several retests. After repeated comparisons, he believed that Yizhang had no need to go through a place, and finally decided to abandon the Yizhang water and take the road of white sand water, from Lechang to Chenzhou. After this path change, 52 tunnels were subtracted, the length was reduced by about 4,000 meters, the investment was saved by more than 4 million yuan, and the road construction time was also reduced a lot.
▲Liao Jia Wan Tunnel
Where does the Zhushao section cross the watershed between the Yangtze River and the Pearl River, which is also a problem that Shu Hongxun has been thinking about, and the slope of the line is very important for the selection of the line. At this time, the engineer Li Yaoxiang measured Liao Jia Wan as the lowest point across the watershed, and Wei Hongxun immediately convened a technical meeting to discuss, and finally decided to move the original YueLing Pass from Liangdong Bay to Liao Jia Wan, 4 km southwest, thus avoiding the difficult project of Mo Xin Tan, this path reduced the height of the line by 18.3 meters, the slope dropped from 15/1000 to 1/10,000, and its longest section was only 4 km, which greatly reduced the amount of construction work and greatly reduced the driving difficulties in the future.
▲ The Cantonese-Han Railway passes through The Eighteen Beaches of Kutaki
The Zhushao section is the most difficult section of more than 90 kilometers between the north of Lechang and the watershed, along the way to pass through the Wujiang River Jiutaki Eighteen Beaches, across the Baisha River, over the watershed, the amount of solid stone excavation reached 3 million hectares. And this section of traffic is the most inconvenient, sparsely populated.
After the Opening of the Shaole Section, Shu Hongxun began to organize the construction of this section north of Lechang. Together with engineering and technical personnel, he presided over the design of 5 stone arch bridges according to the mountain and river terrain between Baishidu and Pingshi, of which 3 stone arch bridges were more than 100 meters long, and the longest new rock bridge was 6 holes and 190 meters long, which was the longest railway stone arch bridge in the country at that time. The 5 arch bridges are all made of stone and dedicated to trains, which is undoubtedly a bold design and extremely difficult to build. During that time, He Hongxun led the engineering and technical personnel, ate and lived at the construction site, and worked with the road construction workers to overcome many difficulties and finally completed the key project of the whole line. The "Five Arch Bridge" spans the Baisha River in less than 10 kilometers and has become a strange flower in the history of China's railway road construction.
▲ Luojiadu Station of Guangdong-Han railway
Difficult work is carried out first, and easy work can be done in a hurry. The road between Zhuzhou and Hengyang in the northern section is flat, and the three bridges of the Chu River, the Huan River and the QiHe River are mainly huge. At the beginning of the resumption of work in 1933, He Hongxun organized technicians to drill the bottom of the river and start construction in November. In the summer of 1934, floods occurred frequently, and the highest water level reached more than 75 meters, which was unprecedented in more than ten years, and the two major steel bridges of the Weihe River and the Leihe River were repeatedly built and destroyed. After two winters of construction, the pier works of 3 bridges were completed.
Fourth, the construction of the section goes hand in hand with the north and south
In order to speed up the construction progress of the Zhushao section, Shu Hongxun divided the whole line into 7 general sections and measured the start of construction separately. In September 1933, the 49.76 km from Shaoguan to Lechang, which was responsible for the construction of the first general section, was completed and handed over to the Administration of the Southern Section of the Guangdong-Han Railway for acceptance.
▲ The section from Pingshi to Lechang of the Guangdong-Hankou Railway
In 1934, the whole line of surveying had been completed, and 21 sections of 6 general sections between Zhuzhou and Lechang were built at the same time, and the road was carried out in parallel. In the process of road construction, due to hemorrhoids, wars, floods and other reasons, the construction progress was affected for a while. In order to speed up the progress of the Zhushao section of the project, Shu Hongxun believes that from the north and south ends to the opposite direction of the construction, the middle Hengyang to Chenzhou section must be carried out at the same time. In April 1934, Hengyang Railway Station was completed. In August, the Engineering Bureau moved into the station.
▲ Hengyang Station of Guangdong-Han railway
Considering that he would also need car operators in the future, He recruited car operators in Changsha, Hengyang and Guangzhou, and selected 40 outstanding young people from high school to give them various trainings in Hengyang. In order to cultivate engineering and aircraft maintenance talents, the Engineering Bureau has also selected 20 or 30 fresh graduates from relevant departments from Jiaotong University, Sun Yat-sen University, Lingnan University, Beiyang University, Hunan University and Central University to work as interns in the railway. At that time, the largest railway project in the country was the Zhushao section, and each school selected the best students to recommend to the engineering bureau.
▲ Deng Jia Tang Station of Guangdong-Han Railway
Difficult work is grasped first, and the rest can be solved. In the last month of track laying, the daily track laying ranged from one kilometer to three or four kilometers, and there was no difficulty in making progress in the construction of the entire Zhushao section. On April 28, 1936, the north-south track was laid at Taipingli Station, and Shu Hongxun wielded a sledgehammer to hit the last nail. At this point, the Guangdong-Han railway has been paved.
Fifth, from the full line to the full line opened to traffic
After the Zhushao section was paved, He was busy with the finishing work of the project and the preparation of the whole line for operation. At this time, due to the outbreak of the "Liangguang Incident", the two 30-meter-long steel bridges of Tiantoushui on the south side of Pingshi and Jiufengshui north of Lechang, which had just been completed in the Zhushao section, were destroyed. Xu Hongxun and several engineers immediately rushed to Tiantoushui and Jiufengshui to organize workers to repair them day and night, but fortunately the war did not break out, and the two bridges were quickly repaired.
▲ The entire Line of the Cantonese-HanKou Railway is connected to Liao Jia Wan
On August 1, 1936, He Hongxun was appointed as the director of the Guangdong-Han Railway Administration, and the three sections were formally merged, and the administration was located in Wuchang, which consisted of the General Affairs Office, the Public Works Department, the Accounting Office, the Transportation Department, and the Sales Office. Because there was still unfinished work in the Zhushao section, the Zhushao section engineering office was set up in Hengyang, and The director was also the director of the Zhushao section. On September 1, 1936, the Guangdong-Hankou Railway opened a direct bus from Guangzhou to Wuchang for the first time. The journey is 1096 kilometers, and the train runs for more than 40 hours. At this point, the Guangdong-Han Railway, which took 36 years to build, was fully opened to traffic. This is a highly memorable event in the history of China's transportation, and it is of great significance to the country's economic construction and national defense construction. On October 1, 1937, He Hung-hoon officially left the Cantonese-Han Railway. Two months later, he went from Hankou to Nanning to serve as the director and chief engineer of the Nanzhen section of the engineering department, shouldering the new mission of rushing to build the Xianggui Railway.