"Six months... to build this kind of track to the depths of the Barbarian Land?" After hearing Roland's plan, Barov, who had seen many "miracles", widened his eyes in disbelief. "But it took the Ministry of Construction more than half a year to build an ordinary road connecting the border and Longsong Stronghold. Now the distance of this road is at least five times that of Kingdom Avenue. Are you sure Mr. Carr can do it?"
There was a lot of whispers on the scene. Kingdom Avenue was the first super-large project started by Roland after he took over Longsong Stronghold. It involved as many as 2,000 workers, which was regarded as a pointless project at that time. The new road needed to be further developed. Coupled with the time limit, even all the workers in Neverwinter would not be able to meet the requirements.
Carr van Bate, the Minister of Construction, did not say a word, as if he was thinking about the feasibility of the plan.
Roland knew what these officials were worried about. After all, there were still many construction projects in the city, and it was impossible to invest all the resources in the railway. But in fact, compared with the cement gravel road, which needed to be graded and repeatedly rolled, the laying of the roadbed was much more convenient.
As for the installation of the railway, which seemed complicated, it was actually the fastest part.
He had seen Anna's demonstration of welding with Blackfire. It took her less than 10 seconds on average to connect the two broken points of a part like the railway. Compared with the traditional bolts or hot-melt connections, the quality was better, and a lot of manpower and materials could be saved. Except for the lack of the nostalgic clanging sound of the old trains, it could be described as perfect.
In fact, the experimental track in front of them was a quasi-seamless track. Except for the joints left by the heat stress of the steel, the whole top surface formed a smooth straight line. When the wheels rolled on it, there was almost no vibration.
At that time, Anna only took half a day to complete this process.
This was also the reason why Roland was confident in setting such a short time limit.
In other words, if the workers spent 10 days laying the road foundation, it might take Leaf five days to place the sleepers and rails, and Anna only needed one day to weld them all. If he didn't deliberately accumulate the number, he would take the Maggie in the morning and return to the castle for lunch at noon.
However, he did not explain in detail. After all, not everyone knew the abilities of a witch like the back of their hand. The other half a year was just a rough estimate. As soon as he arrived in Neverwinter, he went straight to the Wolf Girl and the meeting. He did not even have time to ask Tilly which witches had come to the Sinking Sleeping Island. If there were suitable witches, the railway might have been built faster.
Seeing that Roland didn't say anything else, the officials turned their attention back to the train.
Compared to the modern railway, the train itself was undoubtedly a lot more antique. A complete locomotive was divided into two parts. The front part was mainly composed of the fourth generation steam engine and transmission device, while the back part was the coal storage car. The driver's cab was located in the middle. Other than controlling the speed and sounding the steam whistle, it was also the driver's duty to manually add coal to the boiler.
Although the train was still in the semi-finished stage due to the war, it was still much better than the first steam locomotive in the other world. For example, the steam worked directly on the crankshaft instead of the flywheel belt. Also, the wheels on both sides were equipped with a linkage mechanism without dead points, instead of relying on a single gear set to drive the wheels.
During the design, Roland simplified all kinds of cumbersome functions and almost directly pieced several main parts together. From the perspective of the future, it had many shortcomings — the brake needed to be manually twisted by the winch, the driver's cab was rigidly connected to the girder, the driver could fully feel the "agitation" of the steam engine when it was working, there was no electrical equipment, and the crew needed to be notified by the whistle or the voice, etc... But in this case, it was already the best solution that could be solved with the current technology in Neverwinter.
Just like the first generation steam engine, he had to solve the problems first and then improve step by step.
"Your Majesty, this thing... can carry a lot of goods?" Kyle Sichi, the Minister of Chemical Industry, asked curiously, "How is it compared with those cement boats in the river?"
"I think it shouldn't be a problem to transport five or six boats at a time," Roland said proudly when he saw the surprised look on the people's faces again. "But this is just the beginning. With the improvement of technology, it won't be a problem to transport 100 cement boats in the future."
"One... 100 boats?" Barov swallowed. As the director of City hall, he completely understood what this number meant.
"Then... what about the speed?" Pérot's voice trembled slightly.
"It's hard to say. It depends on the actual test results, but it won't be slower than the cement boats."
However, in their eyes, the paddle-wheel cement boat that moved without any wind was already an extremely fast means of transportation. One had to know that in this era, land transportation was mainly carried by horse carriages or livestock. On the uneven and soft surface, one could well imagine the efficiency of transportation. If the cars ran a little faster, the axles of the cars without any shock absorber system would break and fall apart. Therefore, ships were the main means of transportation in the Kingdom of Graycastle. In the inland rivers, the steam boats, which did not need to rely on wind, obviously had an advantage over sailing boats.
When they heard that the train's carrying capacity would only be greater and its speed wouldn't decrease, the group of people fell into a complete silence.
Roland could not help but laugh in his heart. If he had said this two years ago, he would have been regarded as a lunatic. Looking at these officials who subconsciously wanted to deny it, but also had an expression of what if it was true, he could not help but feel quite happy. Although those descriptions were based on the fact that the ship technology was stagnant, now that the war was imminent, it was good to strengthen people's confidence.
Moreover, he was not speaking without thinking.
This was only an industrial product with the first generation of source power.
When the second generation of source power, which was the internal combustion engine, came out, this epoch-making means of transportation would become the king of land transportation.
"Your Majesty, can you show it to us?" the old director asked after a while.
"Not for the time being. It's currently missing several key parts, so it's not really completed. It'll probably take about a week for everything to be debugged. "Roland shook his head.
"Before the war, you gave the Ministry of Construction a plan to connect the mine and the dock with the track, right?" Barov asked again.
"What's wrong?" Roland sensed that Barov seemed to have something to say.
"If it's really as you said, it will certainly have a positive impact on the City Hall's war propaganda." Barov voiced out his thoughts one by one. "Can you let your subjects witness this incredible scene with their own eyes on the day of the train's departure?"
Roland immediately understood the director's intention. It seemed that the old director had also realized the importance of guiding the people in the past few years.
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