Nanchang came back, after the cold autumn, in a blink of an eye to the end of the year, the winter vacation came, this winter vacation, my father made a major decision, soon after the holiday, he took me and my sister, all the way to visit Shangrao's uncle and Zhejiang's fourth uncle.

The eldest uncle helped my father too much, and when the family economy had just improved, and the transportation had just been smooth, but it was not very convenient, my father had an eagerness to visit.

Until now, this eagerness still exists, and in his old age, he rarely stays outside, rarely eats out, but when it comes to visiting his uncle, no matter how difficult it is, he can overcome it.

At that time, Nanchang Railway Station was still a small station, with few trains passing through, and it was a temporary stop, and the time was not long, as little as a few minutes, and as many as ten minutes. The big railway station is in Xiangtang in Jinxian County, there is a departure, and there are many trains passing through. As for which train station it was from, I can't remember it now.

The train is not fast, and every station, no matter how big or small, will stop, a few minutes or ten minutes, and some larger stations, such as Yingtan, the hub of Central China at that time, stop for up to half an hour.

At that time, there was only one mode of train passenger transportation, and later faster passenger trains were added, relatively speaking, one was called a slow train and the other was called a fast train.

The slow train is a unique memory of an era, there is only one mode, and there is only one color, and the long carriage is painted green on the outside, so it is also called a green car.

The first time I saw the train, I was shocked by its huge momentum, the long whistle resounded through the sky, louder than any sound I had ever heard before, there was a thick smoke pipe erected at the front of the train, and the smoke came out like a white pillar, spitting all the way along the way, and the fireworks I saw in my hometown were none thicker than it, and none of them were thicker than it.

The giant wheel is rolling, the front of the car is exposed outside, remember that there seem to be eight on each side, each wheel is painted with red paint, which increases the momentum and dynamic, the thick connecting rod traction on the top, every time the wheel is pulled and rotated, the smoke pipe on the front of the car must "suddenly" spit out a thick smoke, and the wheels under the rear compartment follow the rotation and roll forward.

The train was taller, feeling taller than my building, painted dark green on both sides of the carriage, with three yellow golden lines depicted in the middle, and a white sign on each section, with the name of the place and the arrow indicating the origin and purpose.

In the upper part of the green carriage, there is a row of windows, each of which can be opened, unlike later express trains. There is a door at both ends of the carriage with a number plate above it, and the ticket inspector in a blue and black uniform stands in the doorway.

The black front of the locomotive, the green body, like a dragon with a black head and a green body, lies across the rails, or lies quietly or runs. It is depicted in books and seen on TV, but when I actually see it, I feel that it is so magnificent.

The door of the carriage opens, there is a staircase, three steps, narrow but high, the total height is nearly one meter, after entering, turn into the passage, on both sides are two toilets, the carriage that appears in front of you is particularly narrow.

The rows of chairs are also green, I remember that there seem to be a total of one hundred and eight seats, the chairs are wrapped in plastic holsters, and there is an aisle about one meter wide in the middle, which divides the chairs into two rows, three on one side and two on the other, and the seats are set opposite to each other, and a long semicircular plate is inlaid as a coffee table.

Above the seat, near the top of the carriage, there are two long salute racks, several steel pipes lined up, supported by iron curved steel plates, extremely strong, even the heaviest items can withstand it, and it has never been crushed.

With the initial amazement, these can only be observed, because then there is only one remaining feeling of the word "squeeze". The ticket hall is crowded, and the waiting hall is even more crowded, and by the time you get on the train, the long carriages are already crowded on both sides.

At that time, I saw what a real ticket is hard to find, and my father waited in line for a long time before he bought a train ticket, and I don't remember if it was one or two, anyway, I didn't buy a ticket. The body is too weak, the growth is too slow, and it is shorter than the sister, so it can be regarded as a child, and according to the regulations, children can ride for free.

The train is not based on age but according to height to determine whether it belongs to children, after getting on the door, there is a ruler, one meter two or less is a child, after getting on the train, the ticket inspector really let me measure the height, it is indeed not one meter two.

I finally bought a train ticket, or a station ticket, and the time seemed to be five or six hours later, I can't remember clearly, anyway, I waited for a long time.

With a train ticket, you can enter the waiting hall, which is still crowded, and there are all kinds of people on the train, some carrying two snakeskin bags, some carrying quilts, and some carrying large boxes.

There are also many people with light bags, just to visit, we don't bring many things, like fire-baked fish, dried bamboo shoots and the like, some hometown specialties, daily production, quite ordinary, but for the perennial wanderer, the meaning may be different. The moon is the hometown of Ming, even if it is a hot land, it can make the wanderer burst into tears.

At that time, there may be food in the train hall, maybe not, but there must be no box lunches, to my army service, I also sat in the green car, there are still no box lunches in my memory, to the express train appeared, waiting hall and on the train, there are box lunches for sale.

My father had already prepared, and when it was time to eat, he took out the glutinous rice specially made by his mother, added sweet potatoes to it, wrapped it in plastic film, and took it out with warmth.

When it's time to get on the bus, follow the crowd and queue up through the ticket gate, and it is still difficult to distinguish whether it is a ticket inspection or a cut ticket, because when checking the ticket, the inspector has a special plier in his hand, and after each ticket is inspected, a gap will be cut out on it.

After checking your tickets, follow the announcements and look for the platform. Then according to the train number and car number marked on the ticket, find the train you are taking, and then find the car you are in. My father has been holding my sister and me tightly, for fear that we will be separated, and in such a crowd, once we are separated, I don't know how difficult it will be to find it again.

Find the carriage on the ticket, the crowd has been scrambling to grab the first to live on the train, the train stay time is short, afraid of delaying the train, the door can not be squeezed in, so the window is opened, through the window to turn in, the long train, regardless of the door and window, are struggling to drill in.

There are various forms of squeezing, and it is difficult to squeeze the luggage with a lot of luggage, some of them throw the luggage through the window first, and then the people climb in, and some let the companion get into it empty-handed first, and then pick up the luggage and pick up the companion.

As a Red Guard who has been in colleges and universities all over the country, my father is experienced and tall, and he is strong and strong, so he dragged my sister and me straight to the car door, and finally succeeded in landing in the carriage.

During the whole process, I always found it difficult to find the feeling of walking, all under the pull of my father, driven forward by the surging crowd. The ticket inspectors in front of the doors were no longer able to check the tickets, and they helped push the crowd to the bus.

When I entered the carriage, I couldn't move my feet, the carriage was noisy, busy, looking for people, looking for luggage, speaking different dialects from all over the world, shouting different names and expressing different meanings.

After finding the luggage, I was in a hurry to put it on the luggage rack, and the movement was slow to be occupied by others, and it was particularly inconvenient to carry luggage in the crowded carriage, and it was not easy to take care of it, and it was easy to be taken by someone, and it was easy to be trampled by the crowded crowd.

The strange thing is that as soon as the train started, the whole carriage immediately became much more relaxed, less crowded, and shouted in the aisle to give way, and squeezed to pass smoothly.

My father seemed to know all this, and after slacking off in the carriage, he squeezed out some space at the junction of the two sections, and laid out the prepared newspapers, so that my sister and I could sit down, while he stood against the carriage.

I met a little girl from other places, about the same age, neatly dressed, obviously a city person, sure enough, fluent Mandarin, the impression is particularly pure, curious to talk to me, with a little shyness of a child in the mountains, with an extremely unfamiliar pronunciation, and her questions and answers, maybe mixed with a little dialect, I don't know if she understands all.

This is the first time I have used Mandarin, and after this journey, I learned that the dialect is rough and difficult to understand, and since then being able to speak fluent Mandarin has become a special yearning for ignorant teenagers.

When I was in high school, I gathered around and talked with the teachers assigned by Yichun, and there were a few people in Mandarin with traces of dialects, which caused bursts of laughter.

The standard rails of the railway, a section of splicing connection, due to thermal expansion and contraction, there is a narrow gap in the connection, and the wheels pass through a slight collision, and each collision carriage will vibrate slightly, making a "click" sound.

The train roars forward, the vibrations and sounds are continuous, the frequency is the same, and the intervals are very short, like the "ticking" of the second hand of the hour hand, even shorter than the second hand interval. This does not affect the stability of the train, but because of the subtle and regular vibration, as well as the "click" sound, it makes people have a special sense of comfort.

I can't reach the window on the door, curled up in the aisle, I can't see the scenery of other places along the way, the comfort slowly produces a hypnotic effect, and the vibration seems to lie down into the childhood shake blue, and the "click" sound becomes a childhood lullaby, and gradually blinds the eyelids, and falls asleep.

The old man appeared in the dream, he was the third son of the eldest uncle, short and sturdy, always with a simple smile, before the college entrance examination had been boarding and tutoring in my house, we had a deep relationship.

In the dream, there was a scene in the sand dealer farm described by my father, and I saw my uncle and aunt who had never met before, and they were waiting at the door of their homes, their faces were full of concern and kindness, and the picture turned around, and the son of the eldest uncle took me to the farm and ran in the mountains, and the scenery was the same as my hometown.

Why is a train so crowded? I don't know how many trains there are in a day, is it the same for every single one?

The next trip, I changed trains several times, especially on the return trip, and spent Chinese New Year's Eve on the train. From the moment I got on the bus until I got off in Nanchang, my feet didn't touch the ground a few times, and I knew that it was indeed crowded.

At that time, I was only surprised and didn't think about the reason, but later I learned that it was a migrant worker tide or a small tide, and the real tide had not yet arrived, because the railway transportation capacity could not keep up, so it was so crowded.

The real tide of migrant workers may be that our group of people born in the 70s began to appear when they entered the society and stepped onto the stage of employment. It lasted so long, spanning the entire nineties, spanning the turn of the century.

In the 80s, the state set up four special economic zones in Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shantou, and Xiamen, and in the past four years, the spring breeze of reform has blown all over the motherland, deep in the mountains, and the years are too young to feel it, and the plains have already been surging.

Those people who hurriedly and desperately squeezed onto the train with bags and luggage and bedding were migrant workers who rushed to the four special economic zones from all over the motherland.

They have dreams, some have talents and want to prove their worth, some are uneasy about the status quo and want to change their fate, some are young and vigorous and want to start a career, some have a keen sense of smell and want to pan for gold here, and more are poor families with meager income, and they come here to seek a way to survive.