The price of steel, in the current Dinghai, has been reduced, these directly poured I-beams, the price is only 2 Wen more than the basic one, that is, 6 Wen a catty, but the 3 kilometers of road, but the cost is huge.

Simple steel, a kilometer is about 30 tons, is 60,000 catties, the cost of steel per kilometer alone is 360 guan, plus nearly double the labor and other inputs, this total value is very amazing.

Although it is not as good as the bluestone road, it is also much more expensive than other ordinary roads, and the most important thing is that it is two steel bars side by side, and I don't know what it does.

Soon, people knew what these were for, because the carriage also appeared, steel wheels, a total of 4 bearings, linked to 16 wheels, looked, quite thick, and the huge carriage on the top, with steel as the skeleton and filled with wooden boards, also looked huge.

At this moment, all preparations have been made, and the carriage is loaded with at least 5 tons of weight, which is not the limit that the carriage can bear, because the carriage is a steel skeleton, in principle, as long as the wooden baffle can withstand it, he can withstand it, and it cannot be said that it reaches 60 tons, and the degree of this later railway, 10 to 15 tons, is still no problem.

If it is too heavy, it will increase the burden on the horse, and Zhao Xin needs something that can be fast and efficient, rather than simply pursuing weight.

The carrying capacity of the railway, and the number of one-time traffic, as well as the density of traffic has a lot to do with it, and the train timetable of later generations is accurate to the minute, the reason is this, to ensure that under the safe situation, the maximum efficiency of the passage is guaranteed.

At this time, it was still early to discuss the operation of the train, and Zhao Xin was more concerned about the effect of this.

Horse-drawn trains, which in the 19th century, became a symbol of Chinese ignorance, in many years, will become a laughing stock, more than 1,000 years ago in the Northern Song Dynasty, in this era, Zhao Xin knows, this is not a laughing stock, but how much effect it can have, it is really unknown.

A total of 8 horses, this is a temporary increase, the Northern Song Dynasty still has a lot of skilled craftsmen, simply design the traction of horses, you can see that you can make eight horses in one direction, do not affect each other.

The reason for using 8 horsepower is also to take into account the weight and speed, for a long time, horsepower has always been one of the units of strength, the early Ford Model T, his horsepower is only 20, of course, the weight of the Model T is very light, he has a lot of power to use with the friction, not a high-grade road, it is difficult to get enough lubrication.

The railway is different, all the wheels, and the railway, are polished, cut together, smooth iron surface, the friction coefficient is much lower than that of high-grade roads, the reason why it is not paved with steel, is because if it is really a road, what to do with braking.

There is no such problem in the railway, it is a closed one, without any obstacles, and can go directly forward, so that even if there are only 8 horses, you can pull heavy things and move forward at a faster speed.

Sun Ji, Xue Yu, Niu Dali and others all came to the scene, the first two were curious, and in order to protect Zhao Xin's safety, the latter was to see what the so-called railway that Zhao Xin asked him to make was useful.

Sun Zhou is a groom, he has been driving horses for at least 12 years for his master, what single-horse carriages, two-horses, and even 4-horse carriages, have been driven, this time, it is much wider, and 8 horses are also used to pull the big guy behind him, but he is not nervous.

Straight forward, there are no turns, no uneven roads, he just has to work hard to catch up, which is very easy for him.

Zhao Xin and others, standing at a place of about 1.5 kilometers, only 3 kilometers of railway, 500 meters in front of the start, and 1 km of deceleration buffer in the back, not counting, he mainly considers the fastest such a kilometer.

This was the key, the key to examining the efficiency and speed of the entire railway, and in the absence of accurate timing tools, he chose the hourglass.

It has been repeatedly calculated before, this hourglass, through the comparison with the corona, is accurate to a certain extent, maybe seconds, there will be problems, but the minutes, there is definitely no problem.

For low-speed horse-drawn trains, the standard of minutes is already very suitable, and Zhao Xin has not thought about more blocks, but he has to preliminarily master a speed.

Soon, the preparation has been completed, a salute rushed into the sky, the light is very dazzling, this is the opening sign, Zhao Xin simply recorded the time, this is not the key, the early 500 meters, to provide acceleration for the train.

The weight of 5 tons, plus the train itself, is estimated to be close to 12 tons, because the wheels made of steel and the body of the carriage are almost a cube of steel, which is also the source of the heaviness.

Pulling up a 12-ton weight from the rails and from a standstill, even if the friction coefficient is not high, it will take a while, but fortunately, compared to other weights and frictions, the obstacles here are a little smaller.

Slowly, the train moved, and after moving from stationary to motion, the horses experienced less force, and they began to speed up.

"That's amazing!" Xue Yu couldn't help but say, he was a little surprised to see that 8 horses could pull up such a heavy thing, such a heavy carriage, in his opinion, it was almost impossible to be pulled up, but the facts were in front of him.

At a distance of 500 meters, the carriage traveled for about 5 minutes, mainly the first section, from stationary, from low speed, to relatively high speed, which takes time.

However, when the speed is added, the speed of the horse increases significantly, and the strength gradually accumulates because of the speed, and this speed will continue to increase until the maximum speed of the horse is reached.

500 meters is not enough to increase the speed to the maximum, but it is about the same, and when the carriage crosses 500 meters, the second fireworks go off.

Zhao Xin recorded another number, silently waiting for the third, this time, the wait was not long, about 4 minutes, the third salute rose.

At this time, Sun Zhou had already begun to brake, because the whole road was only 3 kilometers, although at the end of the three kilometers, he had made preparations, even if he crashed into it, it would be no problem, but he was such an excellent master, how could it be like that.

As early as 10 days ago, Sun Zhou was selected, as a royal hand, he has also cultivated a relationship with these horses, not to mention like an arm finger, but also able to understand some of his commands, one by one pulling the reins, the speed of the horse began to slowly decrease, about a minute or two, it was lowered, and then the huge vehicle, because of the lack of the horse's strength, began to slowly stop.

"It's fast, it's really fast!" Xue Yu couldn't help but admire, before, before the test, he still felt that this thing was too wasteful, completely meaningless, two iron rods, you can speed up, or such a heavy vehicle, is this a fantasy?

But the facts are in front of us, not as fast as the galloping horses, but not slow, compared to the speed of the baggage troops, several times faster.

Sun Ji didn't speak, but in his eyes, he was also admired, they were all soldiers, they had participated in the war, and most of the cost of the Northern Song Dynasty War was in logistics, if the logistics were accelerated, this would be a good thing for the army.

The most important thing is actually the weight, the Northern Song Dynasty popularized the two-wheeled carriage, this kind of car, the speed is OK, a little faster than a person, but the cargo capacity is not good, 1000 catties is already the limit, but 8 horses, but can pull up 10,000 catties of things, but also can walk three or four times the speed of travel, what are the benefits of logistics.

As for the cost, three or four hundred miles a mile is a bit expensive, but it is not too big a problem.

From Kaifeng to Longxi, it is 1,500 miles, and it may only cost 600,000 yuan to build a road, but the logistics improvement brought by it may be no less than that of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal.

Longxi fought against the Western Xia, the most important thing is consumption, if you don't fight, you may consume millions of guan, once you fight, tens of millions, or even 20 million, are like flowing water, you can't stop at all, a 60 guan road, reduce the logistics and transportation consumption, this situation, how to choose it.

You must know that the reason why the price of grain at the border is expensive is partly because the distance is long and it takes a long time, and partly because the grain is consumed.

To put it bluntly, transporting a cart of grain to the frontier, along the way, eating and drinking will also exceed a cart, and even in some places, it will be more.

Increasing capacity, speeding up, naturally, reduces consumption.

This horse-drawn train, compared with the two-wheeled car, it seems, the horse has not decreased much, a car 1000 pounds, an average of 1250 pounds for a horse, an increase of about a quarter, but it turns out, it takes more than a dozen people to be able to drive away, now, one or two people can, this saving manpower, is also equivalent to saving a lot of consumption.

Sun Ji and Xue Yu are soldiers, and it is natural for them to focus their attention on the military role, but Niu Dali is not, he is a craftsman, and he has just been developed by Zhao Xin with research ability, so he naturally pays attention to the numbers recorded by Zhao Xin.

"How?" Niu Dali couldn't help but ask,

Niu Dali knew that Zhao Xin recorded some of the performance of the train, scientific calculation, he was learning, but he was not very proficient, in this regard, Zhao Xin is a master.

There are 3 main data recorded by Zhao Xin, and there are 12 data selected by the node in the middle.

Overall, to his satisfaction, the main record of one kilometer of speed, the average is about 17 kilometers per hour, and the speed of the two nodes, more than 21 kilometers, that is to say, the limit of this horse-drawn train, may reach more than 20 kilometers, and the capacity, there can also be a large excavation, maybe it can reach ten tons, which basically meets the requirements.