Chapter 190: Maglev Train in Operation! (1)
Chapter 190 – Maglev Train in Operation! (1)
Vroom! Vroom, vroom!
The threaded drill rotated exceptionally quickly, and it generated an ear-piercing screech as it cut through the air. Despite having retreated several hundred meters, the police offers were still pushed back by the generated wind.
Vroom, vroom!
Vroom, vroom, vroom…
At this time, one of the police officers squatting behind a police car held down his fluttering coat. He then looked toward his colleague beside him, “Brother Zhang, this guy’s been spinning for over five minutes now. Why hasn’t it started digging?”
“It’s advanced technology. You wouldn’t understand.” the police officer referred to as Brother Zhang said. Squinting his eyes, he confidently declared, “It’s obviously warming up.”
“It’s already plenty hot. Even the surrounding snow has melted.”
“That means it isn’t hot enough.”
“…”
Vroom, vroom…
After another two minutes had gone by, the drill bit’s rotation actually started slowing to a halt.
All of a sudden, an uncomfortable silence enveloped the construction site.
“What happened?”
“It stopped spinning?”
“Is it out of fuel?”
Amidst the police officers’ discussion, Chen Yu’s voice suddenly came from the maglev train. “h.e.l.lo? Friends outside, can you find me a few excavators? This broken thing’s drill can’t reach the ground.”
Everyone: “…”
Seven minutes later, the person in charge of the scene secured five excavators from a nearby road maintenance site. They then began creating an elevated mound before the train.
Inside the train, Chen Yu awkwardly faced the camera and said, “What a waste of time. Even after raising the first carriage’s tracks to their maximum height, the drill bit at the front still can’t penetrate into the ground. However, this isn’t my fault. There’s nothing wrong with the machine’s operation either. It’s this vehicle’s design flaw.”
In response to Chen Yu’s words, the train AI said, “Chief Conductor, while in smart mode, the carriages’ angle adjustment is limited. You can perform a manual operation to further raise the angle.”
“Stop spouting nonsense.” Waving his hand, Chen Yu said, “Whether I operate the train in smart or manual mode isn’t the problem. The problem lies in your design.”
“While in smart mode, to ensure safety, the carriages’ angle adjustment is limited. Please perform a manual operation,” the AI repeated.
“King.” Raising her hand, Little Peach suggested, “Why don’t you just do it manually?”
“No!” Chen Yu sternly refused. “We are a review agency. We are obliged to point out any problems we find. If we rely on manual operation every time we come across a problem, for what reason would we need this smart mode for?”
“Oh!” Little Peach nodded in realization. “So, that’s the reason.”
“Chief Conductor, while in smart mode, to ensure-”
“You keep quiet!”
“Yes, Chief Conductor.”
Under the gaze of over four million viewers, Chen Yu thoroughly demonstrated a professional reviewer’s standards and persistence.
Bang! Bang!
Roughly a dozen minutes later, an excavator “knocked” twice on the train’s windshield with its claw, indicating that the elevation work had been completed.
Chen Yu then opened the communication system and shouted, “Thank you very much. Now, please retreat as far away as possible.”
After waiting for the five excavators to move to a suitable distance, Chen Yu swiped his finger across his watch while saying, “During the construction process, it’ll be more interesting to watch the train’s outside than inside. So, to let everyone have an intuitive and shocking experience, I’ll have the camera remain outside. That way, you’ll get to witness the whole construction process.”
After saying so, Chen Yu flew the camera out of the train. He then instructed the train’s AI to move the train up the newly-formed dirt mound and point the drill bit downward. Immediately afterward, Chen Yu resumed the excavation operation.
Whoosh— Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
As the carbon alloy drill started spinning again, sweltering heat waves and strong winds began a.s.saulting the surrounding area once more.
“Set off!”
Vroom…
The elevation of the first carriage’s tracks increased, which further increased the cab’s vertical angle. And as the whole vehicle slowly moved forward, the sharp threaded drill finally touched the ground.
Boom!!!
In the next moment, the drill bit easily cracked and tore through the ground.
[Oh~ c.r.a.p!]
[Sparks are flying.]
[Even my phone is vibrating.]
[Amazing!]
[I’m just outside the construction site. My feet have gone numb from all the vibrations.]
[Mechanical Engineering is a true man’s romance!]
[Wrong! It’s the happiness of rich women!]
[Rich women’s happiness+1!]
[Rich women’s happiness+2!]
[I don’t want to watch the construction! I want to look at the female a.s.sistant!]
[The female a.s.sistant dressed as a eunuch today…]
Accompanied by the echoing roars of the drill, ton after ton of soil and gravel were drawn into the receiving port found at the train’s front. When subjected to the high-temperature and high-pressure environment inside the receiving port, the collected soil and gravel turned into a soft, semi-solid substance.
Meanwhile, at the same time as the threaded drill bit penetrated the ground, the dragging force the drill generated with the surrounding soil also significantly accelerated the engineering vehicle’s penetration speed.
Combined with the driving force generated by the caterpillar tracks, the 300-meter train quickly disappeared into the ground, leaving behind a hole with an 18-meter radius.
As for the camera floating outside, after remaining suspended in the air for a few seconds, it also swiftly entered the tunnel.
The inside of the tunnel wasn’t completely dark.
The reason for this was because of the processed soil the train had smeared on the tunnel walls. As the processed earth had yet to cool down, it looked very much like magma and radiated a reddish glow.
Boom… Boom… Boom…
By the time the camera entered the tunnel, the train was nowhere to be found already. However, the intense vibrations and roaring sound it generated still echoed in the livestream rooms.
Under Chen Yu’s manipulation, the camera slowly advanced through the tunnel, letting the livestream’s viewers get a detailed view of the pseudo-vacuum pipeline’s structure.
For every 300 meters it traveled, the train would also erect a cylindrical pillar in the middle of the pipeline. These pillars served as a support to counteract the pressure the pipeline walls were subjected to.
Whoosh—
After showcasing the pipeline’s internal structure for several minutes, the camera shot forth with frightening speed as it tried to catch up with the train. The camera moved so quickly that the scene displayed in the livestream rooms was tainted in a red glow…
This was a result of the lens heating up due to its friction with the air.
[So fast! So hot! Ah!]
[??]
[¿¿¿]
[The camera’s moving so fast that I can’t see anything clearly.]
[I already said the cameraman is the best.]
[I’ve seen the host in person before. I think it’s some kind of invisible camera.]
[The camera can become invisible?!]
[What? It can turn invisible?]
[I suddenly have a bold idea…]
After another 10 seconds pa.s.sed by, the camera finally caught up with the engineering vehicle. At the same time, everyone was finally able to see the vacuum pipeline’s entire construction process.
Simply put, there were only three steps.
Step one: Digging through the earth. The drill bit would dig through the ground and collect the loosened soil and gravel into a circular container found in the middle of the cab.
Step two: Making the pipeline. Once the soil and gravel entered the container, they would be quickly melted into a semi-solid state under high temperature and pressure. The molten substance semi-solid substance would then be squeezed out like toothpaste through the thousands of diffusion holes at the container’s back.
Step three: Expanding the pipeline. Once the extruded semi-solid substance stuck to the tunnel walls, the expanded bezels at the train’s rear would then further compress the semi-solid substance. In doing so, the semi-solid substance would be transformed into a tubular structure that was perfectly integrated with the tunnel walls.
Once the engineering vehicle completed these three processes, it would leave a fairly stable pipeline behind it.
Meanwhile, inside the train cab…
Chen Yu carefully observed the virtual road map displayed before him. He then said to his watch, “We’re currently 1,000 meters below sea level, and our travel speed is 520 kilometers per hour. We’re moving much faster than even a high-speed train. With this digging efficiency, if nothing unexpected occurs…
“We should arrive in Shanghai in two hours maximum.
“The first ‘teleportation’ channel in human history is about to be born.”