Every time I take a train and stare out the window, staring at those sleepers moving back at a constant speed, I always have a thought: how can these woods withstand the sun and rain for more than ten years without rotting? You should know that the wooden chair on my balcony grew mushrooms after only three rainy seasons. Later, after researching, I found out that all the pine sleepers on the railway had undergone a great health care that was comparable to a 'wooden epiphany'.
Pine wood is an economically viable player in the wood industry. Large production volume, affordable price, and good mechanical strength make it a perfect match for making sleepers. There is only one fatal bug - it is the perfect match in the eyes of fungi and microorganisms. Imagine a piece of pine wood rich in cellulose lying in the wild, like a strawberry cake on a dormitory table, not being divided up completely is simply a waste of the natural material cycle.
At this point, we need to obtain the human cheat code: oil immersion anti-corrosion treatment.
Simply put, it is to stuff the cut pine wood into a huge pressure cooker, vacuum it, and then apply pressure to allow the anti-corrosion oil to undergo a "deep penetration". During this process, oil molecules can penetrate more than 13mm into the interior of the wood, which is equivalent to putting a protective suit on the pine wood from the inside out. This depth is crucial - it's not just a perfunctory surface coating, but a true 'deep into the bone marrow'.
The processed sleepers have undergone subtle changes in their internal structure. The originally loose and porous wood cells were filled to the brim with oil. This is like pouring cement into a sponge, which makes it difficult for water to penetrate, and at the same time, makes it impossible for microorganisms that want to eat wood to swallow. Fungal spores fall on the surface of sleepers, like standing in front of a welded anti-theft door - visible, inaccessible, and ultimately starving to death.
Even better, the sleepers treated with oil immersion have acquired a 'passive skill': self-healing. When a slight crack appears, the internal oil will slowly seep out to fill the gap, providing continuous protection. This is like a tank with a built-in healing buff that can survive in any harsh environment.
Someone may ask, can we just replace the concrete sleepers directly? Indeed, concrete is commonly used in high-speed railways nowadays, but ordinary railways still rely on anti-corrosion sleepers. Because wood has unique elasticity and shock absorption properties, when a train passes over it, the anti-corrosion sleepers can slightly deform and then rebound, a skill that concrete cannot learn. Moreover, considering cost and construction convenience, oil immersed sleepers remain the king of cost-effectiveness.
The operation of 'oiling pine wood' is essentially an arms race between human intelligence and microorganisms. We don't need to change the DNA of pine wood, nor do we need to invent any nanomaterials. We just cleverly use physical pressure to teach wood to "self protect". The sleepers lying horizontally under the railway tracks have undergone a transformation from "food" to "soldier".
The clang of the train crossing the tracks was the weight of thousands of pine trees soaked in oil, carrying heavy loads with their bodies. An oil immersion depth of over 13mm is their badge against decay, and also a hardcore love letter written by human engineering wisdom to nature.
