Just 5 days after the second blast furnace was ready, a strange order was delivered to Niu Dali. I-shaped hard steel requires a certain degree of hardness and surface wear resistance.

There are certain specifications for such steel, such as width, hardness, length, etc.

It looks very fine, and the lack is not complicated, mainly on the abrasive, simple production, and pouring molten steel into it.

The current formula of steel, basically, can meet the requirements.

This is the result of Zhao Xin's careful consideration, after the blacksmith workshop was on the right track, he did not directly turn to making things like glass, but chose the railway.

Without the steam engine, the railway would not have been possible, but you must know that the prototype of the railway was not pulled by the steam engine.

Why the width of the vast majority of railways in the world is the same, the reason is very incredible, it is decided by the butts of two horses.

This history, the body can be traced back to the ancient Roman era, when the width of the chariot was like this, and then this habit continued, and some old roads were pressed out by such wheels, and then as long as the carriage was not this trajectory, driving on such an old road, it was easy to break.

It is this story that gave Zhao Xin a lot of inspiration, and now, he can't build a qualified high-grade highway, let alone a railway, but he can build a similar fast lane, using the horse-drawn method, two railroad tracks, can ensure the smooth passage of vehicles.

The speed of this construction is much faster than the cement road, and the difficulty is not great, special rails and iron wheels, do not have to consider unevenness, or shock absorption, etc., under the premise that the friction coefficient is small enough, so that the speed can also be guaranteed, and the goods pulled are enough.

It's a creative approach, and it needs to be tested whether or not to use it, but overall, it's not very difficult.

China does not have connectors, so from ancient times, it is a two-wheeled carriage, a four-wheeled carriage has appeared, but it should be inconvenient to turn, and be eliminated, this horse-drawn railway, can not consider the problem of turning, dedicated line, to a certain extent, enough to obtain a faster operation method.

At the same time, under the premise of horse-pulling, the carriage cannot be too heavy, and the requirements for the railway are not high, about 15 kilograms per meter, which is already a suitable weight.

Now, the ordinary formula steel of the steel mill can be used, which is an easy to realize benefit for the Dinghai Navy.

In fact, the horse-drawn train was also a ridiculous joke in the late Qing Dynasty, when railways were popularized in all countries of the world, and railways not only became a hot spot for investment, but also became the key to commercial development.

However, in order to shake the ridiculous reason of shaking the ancestral mausoleum, the Qing Dynasty removed the locomotive and switched to the horse-drawn method, from the opening of the railway in 1881 to the Sino-French War in 1885, in three or four years, some horses pulled heavy carriages to and from this less than 10 kilometers of railway, transporting cartloads of coal.

At the end of the 19th century, this method was ignorant and rejected the advanced, which was a terrible joke, but in the Northern Song Dynasty more than a thousand years ago, it became the most convenient solution.

The speed of the horse depends on many aspects, the speed and strength of the horse itself is constant, and the friction coefficient with the ground has become the most important criterion for loading, of course, this is a four-wheeled carriage, compared with the four-wheeled one, there is also reasonableness, bearing capacity, and the weight that can be pulled up varies greatly.

If there are railroad tracks, it is conservatively estimated that it is no problem for a few horses to pull up a few tons of things, which is labor-saving and fast, which is almost a complete two-wheeled carriage.

Rapid transportation, nothing more than cement roads and railways, the former costs a lot, take the ordinary village through the cement road, about 6 meters wide, 20 centimeters thick, the cost of cement, 1200 square meters per kilometer, this is a terrible number, excluding reinforced concrete, the density is about 2.4 tons per side, even if you deduct sand, stones and other natural minerals. More than 500 tons of cement are used per kilometer, and dozens of tons of steel are used.

Although cement production is relatively easy, it is compared with steel, the investment is huge, and special resources are required, even if a large-scale cement plant is built, it is estimated that it can barely be about the same as steel, with an annual output of 5 million tons.

This kind of cement production is a lot, but how many kilometers of roads can be built, 10,000 kilometers, how much, not much, 5 1,000 kilometers of roads, it will cost them all, not to mention, bridges, roads, and other expenses.

However, if the railway is replaced, it will save a lot, 30 tons of steel per kilometer, at most a little cement, the bottom should be hardened, and sleepers should be laid.

Horse-drawn trains, like later railways, with sleepers and padding materials underneath, should be almost fixed to the ground like trams to prevent damage to horses.

This is not a problem, even if it is hardening, or even burying some of the sleepers underneath, filling the upper layer to prevent damage to the horse, these costs may only be a fraction of the cost of the road.

In the future, when the development of cement plants and steel plants reaches a certain height, the highway is an inevitable choice, because it can be accessible in all directions, and it is very convenient, and the special four-wheeled carriage after the transformation is not much worse than this horse-drawn train, at most there is a little gap.

However, when the time comes, as long as a qualified sealing material is found, the project of the steam engine should have reached a considerable extent, and it will be seamlessly connected with this.

It is not very difficult to produce 100 tons of steel at one time, I-shaped steel, as for sleepers, Dinghai was originally sparsely populated, and many places are densely covered with trees, although Zhao Xin will not completely cut down, but it is no problem to cut down a part of it for sleepers.

Soon, the raw materials were sent, these according to the standard, 12 meters for a root of I-shaped steel, after special polishing, it appeared particularly smooth, a total of 500 heels, about 6000 meters.

Zhao Xin had already found the personnel and prepared to install it, and even chose the butt of a medium-sized horse with a bad taste, and chose the distance between the butts of the two horses.

Of course, it can't be the standard 1435 of later generations, but it is slightly enlarged, reaching 1495 mm.

At this time, Zhao Xin couldn't help but wonder with bad taste, thousands of years later, will there still be legends that use horse's ass as the standard.

The construction of the railway, not so high, put the rails side by side, in a certain place with rivets, or other parts to connect, as far as possible to ensure that the rails on the same horizontal plane, the more flat, its coefficient of friction is lower.

These, need some careful construction masters, to be able to achieve, Zhao Xin's simple requirements, after seeing the first one laid, he left satisfied.

He went to the Wagon Factory, which was also a newly established unit, and had been selected from among the craftsmen, who had carpentry experience, and some, who were even proficient in building carriages.

It is certainly impossible to choose wooden wheels for horse-drawn trains, and under the high-intensity and high-speed of horse-drawn trains, wooden wheels are easily worn out.

Can only use steel wheels, of course Zhao Xin can't understand the train, but he understands the bicycle, bearings, lubricating oil, steel balls, these things are connected together, it constitutes the main body of the bicycle, although, now, whether it is a steel mill, or a navy, it is not easy to process these things, but he still concentrates a large number of skilled craftsmen.

If the technology can't be reached, use the quantity to pile up, just like the previous Dinghai coin, and pile him out.

However, the technical content of this train, of course, cannot be compared with later generations, because there is no power system, purely relying on the power of the horse to pull, in front, there will be a braking horse position, similar to the later four-wheeled carriage, there is a steering axle, after that, it is similar to a trailer, there are four to eight wheels, can be pulled and run quickly.

The order for wheels has been handed over to the steel mill, just casting dozens of hollow wheels, which is nothing, as long as the abrasives are manufactured, and polished and quenched, it is easy to achieve, and the internal central shaft and steel balls are not so easy, and the hardness requirements must be very large.

The choice is, of course, stainless steel, and there is also an experiment, the extracted high-hardness steel, after these raw materials are made, they can only be carved and molded, and then they can be brought to Zhao Xin to embody.

Fortunately, there are not many of these things, Zhao Xin is ready to make about 50 sets at most, in Dingjun, these are enough, and the rest, after the technical level of the steel plant is improved again, see if it is possible to cast it.

The hardness of the steel wheel, about 5.2, is the most ordinary, the steel ball is a little higher, up to 6.1, basically ordinary stainless steel, as for the bearing, this is a kind of wear-resistant, and the hardness is very high, in more than 100 tests, unexpectedly obtained, the hardness is as high as 6.6, and the wear resistance is also good.

At that time, Zhao Xin spent a lot of effort, with the help of cutting and card system lighting, it took 3 days of hard work to get it down from the middle, and now, the entire smelting process cannot be reproduced, let alone manufactured.

In addition to the chassis, steel discs and bearings, the upper layer is made of wood, mainly to reduce weight, in the future, the right iron or steel will be used, but it depends on the operation of the horse-drawn train.

Zhao Xin attaches great importance to it, and under the concerted efforts, soon, a small railway of almost 3 kilometers was built, almost in about the same time, the steel site, the wooden upper carriage also became, and in the army, he specially got 4 good horses, all of which were tall and had good endurance, and were ready to do a preliminary test.

This kind of test is very lively, I just heard before, there is bluestone paving, steel paving, how to say, will it not rust, and, the two steel rods slightly off the ground, can support the responsibility of transportation?