Fresh pine wood has just been unloaded from the truck, carrying the moisture of the mountains and forests - these woods from across the ocean are about to embark on a "stress resistant life" of hundreds of tons under a railway track. If you stand aside and observe, you will notice an interesting phenomenon: the way workers choose the raw materials for sleepers is very similar to the aunties who scrutinize potential partners in the matchmaking market. Too many scars? pass。 Is the texture skewed? pass。 Insect eyes? That's an absolute hard injury. A qualified sleeper embryo must be a regular pine wood with "regular facial features" and fine and smooth annual rings.
Someone may ask, isn't it just the wood used to pad the railway tracks? As for being so picky? This starts with the "personality" of pine wood. As a sincere child in the cork industry, pine wood has a light and soft texture, and knows how to "bend" rather than "break" when under pressure. This toughness allows it to provide just the right amount of cushioning when the train wheels pass by. But pine also has a fatal weakness: it is not resistant to decay - termites, fungi, moisture, all of which are extremely troublesome. A piece of untreated pine wood lying outdoors can be crispy into a sandwich biscuit in less than three to five years.
At this moment, oil immersed anti-corrosion appeared.
The most eye-catching thing in the entire processing workshop are the silent high-pressure impregnation tanks. They look like enlarged versions of rice cookers, only cooking not rice, but the future of pine wood. The sleepers are neatly stacked into the tank and undergo a "deep SPA" that lasts for several hours in a sealed space. Anti corrosion oil seeps into every intercellular space of wood under high pressure, like putting a liquid bulletproof vest on pine wood. The key here is that oil cannot just be superficial. To ensure that even if the surface of the sleepers wears or cracks, the internal protective layer remains as solid as a rock, the immersion depth of the oil should be above 13mm.
Imagine what this 13mm oil immersed layer looks like? It's not the flashy internet celebrity filter on the surface, but the survival ability truly engraved in the bones. On rainy days, the soil beside the railway tracks accumulates into pools of water. Ordinary wood has already absorbed enough moisture and begun to expand and rot, but anti-corrosion sleepers can keep out water droplets; In summer, the steel rails are scorching hot from the sun, but the anti-corrosion components inside the sleepers still stick to their posts, preventing termites from taking advantage. Ten or even twenty years later, when maintenance personnel pry up a sleeper, they will find that its core is still the same as before, only with a few scratches of time on the surface.
The train passed through the late night track, making a rhythmic 'Moreover Moreover Moreover' sound. There are countless load-bearing breaths hidden in this sound. They do not compete or compete, remain silent, and tame the natural softness of pine wood into the toughness to carry thousands of tons. Anti corrosion treatment is not a high-tech myth, but a simple craftsmanship that allows a piece of wood to live longer than expected - seeing this 13mm oil immersed layer as a guarantee written for the future, guaranteeing that no matter how wind or sun, wheels roll, sleepers will stay there until the day of retirement.
You can't see the 13mm depth, but you can hear the sound of the train passing smoothly. This is the most dignified reward for all anti-corrosion sleeper work.
