Personnel responsible for maintaining steel rails at their posts under high temperatures to ensure railway safety and smoothness
CCTV News: Despite the high temperature weather, many outdoor workers still stick to their posts. The Yingxia Railway, which connects Yingtan in Jiangxi and Xiamen in Fujian, is an important railway freight trunk line. In order to ensure the normal operation of the railway, maintenance personnel have been sticking to the track line under the scorching sun.
Wang Zhenzhong is a maintenance worker at Xiamen Public Works Section. Every day, he and his colleagues inspect and repair the track facilities in the jurisdiction. At 3 pm, the ground temperature in the engineering section had exceeded 40 ℃. Due to the fact that most of the trains running on this line are coal heavy-duty trains, mainly focused on night transportation and unloading, the maintenance work of the steel rails can only be concentrated during the day.
![Personnel responsible for maintaining steel rails at their posts under high temperatures to ensure railway safety and smoothness](https://a5qu.com/upload/images/d03ac3afba9e9d0e863a31bfbd9be4d9.jpg)
Due to the large volume of freight on the route and the thermal expansion and contraction properties of the steel rails, they are prone to deformation under direct sunlight. In order to ensure the safety of railway operation in hot weather, Wang Zhenzhong and his colleagues need to carefully inspect key parts such as steel rails and turnouts, and use impact picks to compact the roadbed. As soon as the impact hammer powered by fuel is started, a large amount of heat is emitted and the heat waves roll in. The maintenance personnel holding impact pickaxes were sweating profusely in no time.
In addition to the heat, Wang Zhenzhong and his colleagues also have to endure the heat. They have an important task - to check whether the track is straight, which requires manual visual inspection and track gauge measurement to be completed together. Wang Zhenzhong and his team inspected and repaired the seam freight line, which has lower equipment standards compared to seamless lines such as high-speed rail and conventional high-speed rail. Therefore, in hot weather and situations where there is a risk of instrument damage or misalignment due to sewing, manual inspection of the track is still the main method of maintenance for this type of line operation, with equipment and instruments playing an auxiliary role. The steel rails under the scorching sun have reached nearly 50 ℃, and Wang Zhenzhong and his colleagues usually kneel on the tracks to check whether the height, level, and orientation of the rails meet the standards.
![Personnel responsible for maintaining steel rails at their posts under high temperatures to ensure railway safety and smoothness](https://a5qu.com/upload/images/ce68192f510b53b9e3eb064e61d4cf9e.jpg)
Maintenance personnel Wang Zhenzhong: This is the cocoon that kneels on the steel rail in daily life. The cocoon has become relatively thick, and if it is thick, it will come off. After it comes off, it will come out again when kneeling.
After visual inspection, Wang Zhenzhong needs to use a ruler to further measure, and every step cannot be neglected. A ten kilometer railway line takes at least three to four hours to inspect, and everyone's clothes are wet, dry, and wet. But this is the daily work of Wang Zhenzhong and his colleagues. For many years, they have been steadfast here, silently ensuring the safety and smooth flow of the railway.
![Personnel responsible for maintaining steel rails at their posts under high temperatures to ensure railway safety and smoothness](https://a5qu.com/upload/images/efd8b43d47aee4236383a15585f07b76.jpg)
Maintenance personnel Zong Honghong: To ensure transportation safety and stability, as a frontline railway worker, this belief is deeply rooted in our hearts, and we must persist no matter how hot it is.