In the evening, the train stopped at Ulan-Ude Station, and Erluzi and Nadya got off the train. This is the capital of the Republic of Bria.
Erluzi had already done his homework before coming. We know that the Buryats are the Mongolian Varas living on both sides of Lake Baikal. However, although it is called Buryatia now, Slavs actually make up the majority.
This place makes people feel emotional. It is also the place where Su Wu herds sheep.
Two thousand years have passed, and with the passage of time, everything has changed. This land no longer belongs to us.
A Mercedes-Benz was already parked outside the station, and an old man with gray hair was holding a sign with the words "Welcome Mr. Zhao Chunlei" written in Chinese.
Erluzi and Nadya soon saw the old man. After a few people exchanged greetings, they got into the already very old Mercedes-Benz S600.
Although well maintained, the car is clean inside and out. But this model should be from the end of the last century.
This country does not restrict the import of second-hand cars, so the streets are full of imported second-hand cars from various countries. The prices are so cheap that it makes the idiot who just came from China speechless.
The old man is also very plainly dressed. He is the director of a car factory.
While the old man was driving, he was talking to the idiot. Nadya was responsible for translating.
The technical data and production lines of the NAI-012 steam truck are all in this factory. The factory closed the steam truck production line in the 1970s. At the same time, superiors decided to completely eliminate steam trucks. A large number of steam trucks used in the Siberian forest were discontinued.
More than 20,000 steam trucks were recalled and parked and sealed. Forty or fifty years have passed in the blink of an eye.
When Erluzi heard this, he was also a little worried whether these old antiques that had not been used for half a century could still be used. I am afraid they had long since rotted into a pile of scrap metal.
The old factory director said with a smile. There is a huge underground cave in Ulan-Ude, which is left over from the previous era. The trucks are parked inside. It cannot be blown by the wind or protected from the rain. Even after so many years, at least one third of it is still usable.
For those cars that cannot be used, parts can also be dismantled to provide spare parts for cars in relatively good condition.
The second idiot asked: "Is your factory still producing?"
The old man sighed and said: "It has been more than ten years since we started working. The young people have gone to Europe, to Moscow, to St. Petersburg. There are better development opportunities there, and now only those over fifty are left in the factory. The old workers are still there. They usually do maintenance work and can barely make ends meet."
The economy of their country has been very depressed in the past thirty years. Mainly relying on the sale of oil, natural gas, ore, and food to maintain national finance and economic operations.
Eighty percent of the country's fiscal revenue comes from oil and natural gas exports. Therefore, their country is also nicknamed Saudi Arabia with nuclear weapons.
After the disintegration of the old empire, the entire industrial system collapsed. Now they can no longer even build warships of more than 3,000 tons.
Recalling the strength of the country when he was young, the old man was filled with emotion. Their feelings towards China are even more complicated. After all, they were as close as brothers back then, but later they parted ways.
Today's little brother has already become the world's factory. Big Brother is impoverished. It really corresponds to an old Chinese saying, Thirty years to the east of Hedong, thirty years to the west of Hexi.
Regarding steam trucks, the old man said that in 1940, a design bureau began to design the P-28 steam truck. This was also the first time a truck decided to use a flat-head layout.
This is the first steam truck. In its design, the boiler and steam engine are installed between the cab and the cargo compartment.
The steam engine of this car has a maximum power of 120 horsepower (1500 rpm), a boiler pressure of 100 atmospheres, uses liquid fuel, and a top speed of 40 kilometers per hour.
But in 1941, the Great Patriotic War broke out in the Soviet Union, and the NAI factory began to switch to designing military vehicles. The P-28 plan also came to nothing.
Although the P-28 died, its design ideas survived.
As the old man spoke, he arrived at the factory in the suburbs. The idiot looked out through the car window. The factory area was filled with old industrial areas in Northeast China.
Like a factory building. It seems to be called Bauhaus industrial architectural art style. It came from Germany.
The grass in the yard is as tall as one person, and there are piles of discarded steel materials everywhere. All kinds of equipment, machine tools, and cars were badly rusted.
There was only an old man and two wolfhounds watching the gate.
Behind the factory is a mountain. After bypassing the factory building, we soon saw the entrance to the cave.
Several people got out of the car, and a few old workers at the door opened the door, then pulled the switch and lit the lights inside.
Erluzi and Nadya walked in and found that what they said was a cave was actually three floors of reinforced concrete built between the cliffs of two mountains, each about ten meters high.
It's just that the roof of the building is covered with more than ten meters of sand, gravel and soil. Overgrown with trees and grass. From the sky, it seems to be a complete mountain.
When their country was competing with the beautiful country for hegemony, it was not surprising that these factories had such facilities. After all, the automobile industry was the key target of the war.
This huge cave is more like a three-story parking building. At that time, the cars produced by this factory were basically driven away after production. Sales volume is very good and government orders are sufficient. This kind of air defense cave has always been idle. .
When these steam cars were later recalled, they were placed here. The dismantled production line is also placed here.
A few people walked and watched. The second idiot had done a lot of waste collection and was very skilled in the business. He skillfully got into the cab and looked around.
I have to say, but the workers of Big Brother are meticulous in their work. When it was first sealed, the oil seal was very good. Very little rust, just a lot of dust accumulation.
Because they are all second-hand, some of the tires are badly worn and need to be replaced. Even if it is intact, it has already aged naturally and cannot be used anymore. All the tires were flat and flat.
The old man was very familiar with the situation in his factory. Even in his era, diesel trucks were mainly produced. He himself did not produce this old steam engine truck. However, he still understood the situation very well.
He continued: "In 1946, after the end of the Patriotic War, steam tractors captured from Germany were tested, and on July 2 of the same year, the results of the tests were discussed by the Ministry of Automobile Industry."
"A month later, the Council of Ministers passed a resolution on August 7, 1947, deciding to "mechanize forestry" and launch a steam truck project. NAI was assigned the task of designing and manufacturing a wood-burning boiler. The creation of a wood-burning boiler had no precedent in the world's automotive history. "
Erluzi also searched a lot of information, and it was indeed like this. The Old Empire was the only one in the world that had such a wood-burning steam engine truck. This should be the pinnacle of technology of that era.
"At that time, I considered that the main reason for using wood as fuel was to save money. Because the transportation of fuel in some remote areas. For example, transporting gasoline and diesel to places where there is no oil is a very troublesome matter. And using the ones that can be found locally is very troublesome. Using more fuel can significantly reduce costs.”
"Although it was just a truck, the country devoted a lot of research and development efforts at that time. The Automobile and Tractor Department also took on the task. In 1947, they gave NAI a design drawing of a steam engine."
When the idiot heard this, he couldn't help but ask: "The drawings were only issued in 1947. Wouldn't it be the 1950s for this kind of truck to be mass-produced?"
The old factory director nodded and said: "NAI-012 was manufactured in the autumn of 1948. The first vehicle was not named. The reason for designing this vehicle at that time was very simple, just to conduct experiments. In order to understand the mechanical structure of the steam truck , and also to explore the development direction of steam trucks through it. This vehicle can use wood with a humidity of 35% as fuel. But subsequent experiments proved that the humidity of the wood reaching 50% will not affect combustion. "
This is pretty remarkable, wet wood is everywhere, and if you had to use shade-dried or oven-dried wood, there would be no point in having a truck like this. It only makes sense that trees can be cut down and used at any time.
The moisture content of freshly cut trees is usually 40-200%. Generally, the moisture content of stacked wood is between 8-25%, which is mainly related to the relative humidity of the air.
Therefore, this indicator means that it can be used under natural conditions after a few days of felling trees and piling them up along the way.
The old factory director continued: "At low speed, the engine's torque can reach 240 kg·m, which is five times that of the prototype at the time. A high-pressure boiler, a water tube boiler and a single-expansion steam engine form the powertrain .”
As he spoke, he opened the power cabin access door behind the cab. Saw dusty equipment inside.
"The maximum pressure of the boiler is 25 atmospheres, and the superheated steam can reach 420. The steam generated by the boiler enters the three-cylinder steam engine through the throttle valve. After expanding and doing work, it enters the auxiliary turbine, and then flows from here to the steam chamber above. Fuel The oxygen needed for combustion mainly comes from the cast iron grid under the fuel reservoir. Place the wood on it, and the wood will automatically fall into the boiler combustion chamber."
Hearing this, Er Lunzi couldn't help but ask: "How far can it run with a full load of six tons by adding fuel and water once."
This issue is very important, it is battery life. It’s about practicality.
The old factory manager opened the place where the firewood was placed, pointed to the combustion chamber and introduced: "Fill the combustion chamber once and you can drive. But on the highway, there are fuel stations every 80 kilometers and water filling stations every 160 kilometers. "
The second idiot thought 80 kilometers was a bit close. However, considering that the wood has not been burned, this is understandable.
The old factory director pointed to the metal nameplate on the engine, wiped it with his sleeve, and said to the idiot, "These are the basic performance indicators of the truck."
Nadya translated. details as following:
Technical parameters (NAI-012 steam truck)
Drive mode: 4*2(NAI-012), 4*4(NAI-018)
Number of seats: 3
Curb weight: 8300kg
Load capacity: 6000 kg
Engine power source: steam
Number of cylinders: 3
Displacement: 4590 ml
Maximum power: 100/1000 rpm
Top speed: 45 kilometers per hour
Coal and water consumption per 100 kilometers: 300-400 kg of wood, 100-150 liters of water.
