The trial operation of the Meishan-Changxing section of the railway has begun.

Early in the morning, the Meishan Town Station was packed with people. People from all over the surrounding areas rushed to get there. Everyone wanted to see how this big "iron ox" pulled this long string of cars.

A reinforced squad from the Meishan Town Station of the police squadron and a guard platoon from the security brigade formed a long cordon.

With a whistle, the station master waved a triangular green flag and gave the order to start the train.

The steam locomotive, with a big red flower hanging on the front end, finally made a long sound of "steam..." and then sprayed out a thick stream of white water vapor on both sides of the railway, making it impossible to see anything around it.

As a series of metal banging sounds were heard at the joints of the carriages, the huge wheel cranks, which were as tall as a person, finally began to push and sway...

With twelve trains loaded with coal, they set off from the Meishan Town Central Station with bursts of steam.

The coal-carrying carriage is 30 tons/section, which is half the size of the 60-ton/section carriage used in broad track.

A green leather passenger carriage hung at the end. Chen Tianhua, engineering technicians, guards and others traveled with the carriage to carefully test the operation of the train, and by the way participated in the opening ceremony of Yaojin Mining.

The terminal station is Changheng Mountain in the western suburbs of Changxing County. Changxing Railway Station is also crowded with people, several times more than the audience in Meishan Town.

For the small county town in 1904, the train was a completely foreign visitor and a very novel thing.

Not to mention ordinary people, not even the magistrate or many officials have ever seen such a huge creature.

To this end, the police squadron left a reinforced class at Changxing Station, and the Yaojin Mining Security Team and county government officials joined forces to form two cordons with hundreds of people to maintain order.

Amidst the crackling sound of firecrackers, the train slowly entered the station. The Governor of Zhejiang Province, the Governor of Huzhou, the Governor of Changxing County, etc., and a large number of colleagues went to the train station to greet it.

In addition to the bureaucrats of the Qing Dynasty, the British representatives as investors, the consul and deputy consul of the British Consulate in Hangzhou, and the British president of Yaojin Mining were also welcoming the guests.

As the commander of the Railway Construction Headquarters, Chen Tianhua was surrounded by crowds when he got off the train. He clasped fists, bowed or shook hands and hugged the Chinese and foreign dignitaries one by one. After a brief greeting, he entered the celebration banquet hall temporarily set up by the county government at the station and accepted

Questions from interviewees from Chinese and foreign newspapers and periodicals.

…

Changxing Railway Station, as the terminal station of the Changniu Railway, is of course the largest in terms of construction scale and is mainly used for freight loading and unloading.

The transfer from Changxing to water transportation mainly involves three aspects.

One is to transfer the coal to inland rivers and transfer the coal to terminals around the province.

The second is to transfer coal to Taihu Lake and transfer coal to various places on the shore of Taihu Lake, mainly Zhejiang and Jiangsu. The Taihu Lake Basin includes Suzhou, Wuxi, Jiaxing, Huzhou and other places. This is a relatively concentrated industrial area in the south of the Yangtze River and is in great need of coal.

as work fuel.

The third is to transfer to the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal and transport coal from north to south to Hangzhou, Zhenjiang, Yangzhou, Jiangning and other regions.

The opening of the Meishan to Changxing section of the Changniu Railway has greatly increased the coal transportation capacity. The coal mines in the Meishan Town area have basically solved the mountain of coal. It has also enabled the mines to operate at full capacity, and the output has increased more than ten times.

In the future, with the normal transportation capacity, the production capacity can be increased dozens or hundreds of times.

The economic benefits of coal mines have also improved by leaps and bounds.

In addition to coal transportation, Meishan Town is the junction between Zhejiang and Anhui. Mountainous wood, stone, and mountainous specialties can be continuously transported to other places, and the passenger transportation along the railway is also considerable, invigorating the flow and revitalizing the economy.

With this railway line, businessmen from famous cities and places set up processing factories along the railway line.

For example, Chen Tianhua himself opened a large limestone factory and a trading company in Huaikan Town, north of Meishan Town.

The design scale of the Huaikan Limestone Factory is twice as large as the two lime kilns in Shuangqi Town combined, and it is divided into the first and second phases of the project.

Once completed and put into operation, Huaikan Limestone Plant will be the largest limestone processing plant in Zhejiang Province.

He made full use of the large amount of limestone raw materials in this area, especially the Guangde Mountains, and the limestone factory also built a special railway branch line. In the future, after the railway section from Niutoushan to Meishan Town is completed and opened to traffic, this three-kilometer long branch line will be

Huaikan Railway Station merges into Changniu Line.

Huaikan Limestone Factory dispatched management and technical personnel from Shuangqi Lime Kiln Farm, and the general manager of the factory is Hu Yaoxiang.

Over the past few years, Hu Yaoxiang has grown up very quickly. She is free from worries and educated. She has devoted all her energy to learning the business of the limestone kiln. Chen Tianhua has provided her with many books on theory and practice.

combine.

She recently divorced Fan Chenggui, and Shuangqi Kiln Farm is all her assets.

Huaikan Limestone Factory is a joint investment between Chen Tianhua and Shuangqi Kiln. He personally accounts for more than 50% of the majority shareholder.

The second phase of the factory construction funds was supported by credit from Fengzhong Bank. In this regard, Chen Zongyu continued to trust and support Chen Tianhua.

Hu Yaoxiang herself is willing to come from Shuangqi Town to Huaikan, a mountainous area, mainly for Chen Tianhua.

Because she misses him so much.

In the past, he was too busy and stayed in Meishan Town for a long time. She wanted to see him, it was like going to heaven.

When she arrived at the Huaikan Limestone Factory, she was very close to her beloved, just over 30 miles away from him on a mountain road.

The next step is for her to learn to ride a horse, which will be very convenient for her to meet.

…

The section from Meishan Town to Changxing was opened to traffic on schedule, but the section of railway from Meishan Town to Niutoushan Town is facing many more difficulties than expected.

The first one to bear the brunt is the tunnel. The progress is slow but the cost is high. It is estimated that it will take another year to reach the state of opening to traffic, which is more than half a year longer than the original planned opening time.

The budget was also greatly overrun.

Fortunately, this section of the railway is entirely privately funded, with investments from the Xuanhuai family, the Li Jingfang family, the Xu family, Chen Tianhua and Li Cunzhi as the main investors.

Investors such as Fengzhong Bank were secondary and did not waste much time in raising additional funds.

Anyway, it was a loan of three million silver dollars from HSBC Bank for the development of the mining area and road construction. It was divided into three years and five years. All principal plus interest will be returned by Niutoushan Mining Company.

The wool still comes from the sheep. As a shareholder, you have nothing more than an additional joint liability.

Seeing that the railway would still take another year, fortunately Chen Tianhua took precautions and thought of building a more regular mountain road in advance.

The winding mountain road from Niutoushan Mining Area through Niutoushan Town to Meishan Town has been successfully constructed.

The completion of this mountain road with a total length of more than 80 miles enabled the coal dug out of the Niutoushan Mine to be continuously hauled out using oxen and mule carts.
Chapter completed!