The train driver in the courtyard

Inside the office of the Railway Research Institute.

After finishing the small talk, Liu Guozhang got down to business. He stood up, took out a document and handed it over.

“This is an invitation letter from the Second Technical Committee of the OSJD.

The Iron and Steel Group has invited us to attend the technical conference at the end of the year. It just so happens that the Iron and Steel Group's ministerial meeting will also be held at the end of the year, so we will go together with Minister Teng. "

"Iron Group?" Li Aiguo always felt that the name was familiar, but he couldn't remember where he had heard it.

"It's no wonder you don't know. After all, you're just a small train driver and you can't get involved in such a high level."

Liu Guozhang took the opportunity to express his dissatisfaction with Li Aiguo's contentment with being a small train driver, and then introduced the origin of the railway group.

The purpose of building railways is to transport materials and connect different parts of the world.

When railways first appeared, various frictions often occurred regarding railway transportation between countries.

And because the standards and tracks of different countries are different, it has an adverse impact on cross-border railway transportation.

In order to resolve disputes and unify technical standards, the International Railway Organization was born.

The earliest international railway organization was the International Union of Railways, abbreviated as UIC, established in Genoa in December 1922.

The Iron Alliance is mainly dominated by Europe (Western Europe), which started its industrialization earlier.

Later, railway organizations from some countries outside Europe were included, but Western Europe still dominated.

Before liberation, we also joined the Iron Alliance.

Later, the world situation changed significantly.

Thus, the second international railway organization was born. It was the Railway Cooperation Organization, abbreviated as OSJD, established by the ministers in charge of railway transport of various countries at the ministerial meeting in Sofia (the capital of the Republic of Bulgaria) on June 1956, 6.

After liberation, we joined the big family and naturally left the Iron Alliance and joined the Iron Group.

There is both competition and cooperation between the OSJD and the UIC, and they send observers to each other at every conference.

The Railway Group is divided into two parts. One part is the ministerial meeting, which mainly discusses the railway relations among countries and strengthens railway transportation among members.

The second part is the five specialized committees responsible for railway technical cooperation among countries, which are abbreviated as One, Two, Three, Four and Five.

Among them, the Second Technical Committee is specifically responsible for railway signal issues.

After understanding the origin of the railway group, Li Aiguo asked with a smile: "Teacher, is our railway automatic signaling favored by the railway group?"

Liu Guozhang nodded: "Since the completion of the demonstration electric railway, representatives from many countries in the OSJD member countries have visited and highly praised the convenience and safety of automatic signaling.

It just so happened that in the past two years, the OSJD has been advocating that all countries reform their existing railway signal systems, so those representatives recommended our railway signal systems to the OSJD.

It is said that at the end of the year, the Iron Group will select a railway automatic signal and promote it as a standard signal in various countries within the Iron Group. "

When Liu Guozhang talked about this, he couldn't help but admire Li Aiguo's foresight.

As early as the moment the automatic railway signal was successfully developed, Li Aiguo proposed to promote the automatic railway signal as a standard to the whole world.

At that time, Liu Guozhang thought that he was just putting forward this unrealistic idea to encourage everyone.

In subsequent patent applications, many unimportant patents were cut off in order to promote automatic signals in various countries.

Unexpectedly, the automatic signal actually attracted the attention of the Iron Group.

Li Aiguo was not surprised.

Automatic railway signals are considered the safest signals in later generations, and are a dimensionality reduction attack in this era.

"However." Liu Guozhang paused for a moment and said in a low voice: "The Moscow Railway Transport Research Institute has sent their single-track DC track circuit technology to the Railway Alliance, which is said to have attracted the attention of railway departments in Western European countries.

This time, the Iron Group will hold a meeting. They are the big brother and will definitely bring the single-track DC track circuit technology to the Iron Group. We are under a lot of pressure. "

"Only when there is pressure does there become motivation!" Li Aiguo clenched his fists.

These days some people in the country may be afraid of the powerful Big Brother, but our Li Aiguo knows that Big Brother’s good days will not last long.

"That's what the ministry is saying. If our automatic signal system can be promoted in various countries, it will be great for our international image and our relationships with other countries.

So during this period, you should take advantage of the time between train runs to sort out our railway automatic signaling technology, and join us at the end of the year to join the Railway Group!"

This was Li Aiguo's first time to attend an international railway conference, and it was also related to the promotion of automatic railway signals, so he naturally could not be careless.

"Teacher, don't worry,"

Li Aiguo expressed his opinion and took out two wolfskin leggings from his canvas bag and handed them over before leaving.

After the wolf meat banquet was held at Yexi Station two days ago, Li Aiguo brought back the wolf skin. Chen Xueru asked a leatherworker to knead it and made it into wolf skin leggings.

Chen Xueru has a very skillful craft. She put two rows of buttons on the outside of the wolfskin leggings, which can easily adjust the tightness.

"Thank you for your hard work, kid." Although the heat patch can relieve leg pain, it is a consumable after all and is relatively expensive. With this wolfskin leg guard, Liu Guozhang will not have to suffer in winter.

If it was any other gift, Liu Guozhang would definitely not accept it, but this time he took it.

Li Aiguo left the Railway Research Institute on his bicycle and headed home.

The warm winter sun shines brightly on the earth, and the ancient capital city glows with a faint golden light under the warm sun.

The pedestrians and cyclists on the street are covered in sunshine, which blends with the warm tones to create a quiet and peaceful atmosphere.
It is the dream of every railway worker to be able to participate in the technical meeting of the Railway Group.

Moreover, this time it also involves the formulation of technical standards for automatic railway signals.

Li Aiguo, who came from later generations, knew the importance of technical standards better than anyone else.

As the saying goes, third-rate companies sell products, second-rate companies sell technology, and first-rate companies sell standards.

If we master the right to formulate technical standards, domestically produced railway equipment will seize the initiative in the international market.

High-standard railway equipment means huge profits.

In his previous life, Li Aiguo often heard that a screw was worth hundreds of dollars. Now we can follow suit and return the favor.

Once we earn foreign exchange, we can buy food from the international market.

Over the past six months, most of the foreign exchange earned by Hextech has been used to purchase food.

Hextech technology alone is far from enough to meet domestic food needs.

Li Aiguo knew that even if the railway equipment sold well, it would not be able to meet the foreign exchange demand.

But in this era, we must always try our best to do something.

In the sunshine, Li Aiguo rode his bicycle firmly towards the distant light.

"Are you going on a business trip again? Or going abroad?!" When Miss Chen heard the news that Li Aiguo was going on a business trip, she pouted.

"This time I'm going with my teacher." Li Aiguo was afraid of scaring Miss Chen, so he concealed most of the details and only told Miss Chen that he was going to attend a railway workers' meeting.

Fortunately, workers are in charge these days, and outstanding workers often go abroad for visits and inspections, so this excuse makes sense.

"Teacher Liu is going too. I'll prepare your luggage for you." Miss Chen stood up with the help of the table and prepared to get busy.

"Don't worry, I guess we won't leave until the end of the year."

Li Aiguo stopped Miss Chen.

There are still more than ten days left until the end of the year, and he can use this time to design the technical standards for automatic railway signals.

In the following days, Li Aiguo was busy driving and formulating technical standards, and he also had to participate in overseas training organized by the foreign affairs department.

This time, attending the Iron Group meeting is different from visiting the Russians. We are attending a formal international conference, and every move will affect the country's image.

During the process of placing the international student Dasha, Li Aiguo had dealt with comrades from the foreign affairs department before, so he was familiar with the process when participating in training.

While Li Aiguo was preparing to attend the Iron Group's meeting, Yan Jiecheng, who was far away at the Yesi Switch Station, was squatting beside the gate, feeling bored.

As a switchman, my daily job was to lift the gate on time and perform some dispatching tasks.

The key is not having free time, the key is that life is too hard.

In the past, when the grass-cutting campaign was underway, Yan Jiecheng could still join the grass-cutting team and get some white rice at the Yexi Station.

Now that we have lawn mowers, one person driving an old ox can do the work of more than a dozen people. Yexi Station will no longer accept people like Yan Jiecheng.

Every day we just bake steamed buns and cook noodles with two grams of flour. We don’t even have any vegetables, and can only sprinkle some salt on them.

"Brother Jie Cheng, don't worry. When my father calms down, I will definitely bring you a few more big radishes." Zhang Guifang squatted on the ground, writing with a tree branch and whispered.

Speaking of this matter, Yan Jiecheng became extremely depressed again.

Ever since Zhang Jinsheng came back from the capital, his attitude towards him seemed less friendly, even a little stingy.

In the past, Zhang Guifang secretly brought some sweet potatoes and radishes, and Zhang Jinsheng just pretended not to see it.

Now the women's director and the militia captain were asked to keep an eye on Zhang Guifang and strictly forbid her to take the commune's food out and give it to others.

Yan Jiecheng also wanted to sneak into his fellow villager’s vegetable field at night.

I gave up the idea just by thinking about it. If I was caught by Zhang Jinsheng, I would be skinned alive.

"It's okay. Hey, you wrote this word wrong." Yan Jiecheng reached out and took the branch from Zhang Guifang and drew two lines on the ground.

Zhang Guifang's hand was rubbed and her face turned red, but Yan Jiecheng didn't notice it.

"Look, the character 'hui' in fennel beans has the grass radical, not the bamboo radical."

"Yeah, Brother Jie Cheng, you really know a lot." Zhang Guifang nodded her little head repeatedly.

Yan Jiecheng felt like something was wrong, but he couldn't put his finger on it.

At this time, there was a sound of wheels hitting the rails in the distance.

Yan Jiecheng asked Zhang Guifang to hide in the shack, picked up the dispatch book and took a look. The train arriving at this time should be the coal train No. 761 from Beijing.

Seeing the coal truck coming, Yan Jiecheng checked the train number and opened the gate.

The coal truck roared through the switchyard, dropping a dozen newspapers from the truck.

"Today is the day to send out newspapers!"

Yan Jiecheng became excited when he saw the newspaper. In this boring place, reading newspaper was one of the few entertainment activities.

He walked over and picked up the newspaper.

Zhang Guifang also came over, her dark eyes looking at the newspaper: "Brother Jie Cheng, what's the news in today's newspaper? Please read it to me."

Yan Jiecheng squatted on the ground and picked up the newspaper: "Comrade Li Aiguo, a train driver of Qianmen Locomotive Depot, sacrificed himself to help his fellow workers." The content of the news was very simple, recording the incident of the last wolf meat banquet, but it made Yan Jiecheng frown.

The newspaper in his hand was the Railway News, which had a status in the railway system similar to that of the Renren Daily.

Normally the news published on the front page are major domestic events or railway events. Li Aiguo only donated two wolves, so how could he be on this page?

What surprised Yan Jiecheng even more was that the writer was not a reporter, but Huang Shuxian from the Education Office of Qianmen Locomotive Depot.

Manuscripts of this level are not bad at appearing on the blackboard of Qianmen Locomotive Depot.

"Something is wrong. It's really wrong."

"It's about driver Li distributing wolf meat. There's nothing wrong with that. Wolf meat is delicious. I admired driver Li very much at that time." Zhang Guifang said with eyes wide open.

Yan Jiecheng frowned: "It's just a little wolf meat, is it enough for you to admire it?"

Zhang Guifang said, "Brother Jiecheng, let me ask you, if Duan Li called on you to donate 200 cows, would you donate?"

"Of course I will donate! It's an honorable thing to do."

"Then I ask you to donate five kilograms of flour. Will you donate it?"

"That won't do. I really have five kilograms of flour!"

Yan Jiecheng blurted out, and his expression suddenly changed.

Yan Jiecheng seemed to understand why such a small matter could make the front page of the Railway News.

"Brother Aiguo is really lucky. If I had known earlier, I would have killed two wild wolves and sent them over. Wouldn't they be in the newspapers now?"

Zhang Guifang's eyes widened: "Brother Jie Cheng, didn't you say a few days ago that driver Li was a fool for sharing the meat he got with others?"

Yan Jiecheng: "."

He felt that this female student was becoming less and less respectful of teachers and education.

Huang Shuxian from the Education Department was also surprised that her manuscript was selected by the Railway News.

She originally wrote the manuscript just to practice, and submitted it to complete the "performance" of the Education Department.

How did it make it to the newspaper, and even the front page?
"Maybe the superiors attach importance to Driver Li's matter." Huang Shuxian felt a little excited as she looked at the manuscript.

This was the first time a newspaper published her article.

Deputy Director Wang of the trade union, who was flipping through newspapers from various places, frowned and made a rustling sound as he turned the pages.

"Xiao Huang, you are too self-deprecating. Driver Li only donated a little wolf meat, which is not a big deal. Your article is still well written."

Huang Shuxian had heard that Deputy Director Wang had had a conflict with Li Aiguo in the past, and she was too lazy to argue with him, so she carefully put the newspaper into her canvas bag.

She wanted to take the newspaper back home to show her parents-in-law.

Zhou Tiehu will definitely be happy with the article she wrote about the story of Brother Aiguo.

Looking at Huang Shuxian's joyful back, Deputy Director Zhang's face darkened and he put down the newspaper.

During this period, he contacted several activists in the section and also got in touch with several enthusiastic leaders in the department.

I originally thought that as long as I had the chance, I would find an excuse to take Li Aiguo down.

But the appearance of this newspaper disrupted his plans.

No one in the Qianmen Locomotive Depot knows better than Deputy Director Zhang what it means to have his name appear on the insurance headlines of the Railway News.

It means the leadership’s attention.

It means recognition from superiors.

"Old Huang, don't scare yourself. This might just be a coincidence." Deputy Director Wang became more and more frightened the more he thought about it.

Li Aiguo had already learned from Liu Guozhang that his superiors might want to publicize him, so he was not particularly surprised that the article appeared on the front page of the Railway News.

After reading the newspaper, Section Chief Xing turned down the task of inspecting the branch station and invited Li Aiguo to his office.

"Aiguo, this incident is unusual. Does your teacher have anything to say?" Duanchang Xing handed Li Aiguo a cigarette.

Li Aiguo took the cigarette and smiled: "Duanzhang, you know that Teacher Liu is an old-fashioned person. How could he tell me these things?"

"That's right, Director Guozhang, please come and strictly demand yourself." Director Xing sat down, took out a piece of paper from the drawer, wrote and drew on it, stamped it with a red stamp and handed it to Li Aiguo.

"Go to the logistics department now to get a new set of work clothes."

Li Aiguo felt a little strange: "Section Chief, according to regulations, our locomotive section issues one set of summer clothes and one set of winter clothes every two years. I can only get clothes next year."

"It probably won't be long before you have to give speeches in various work sections. Put on your new work clothes and don't let our maintenance section people down." said Section Chief Xing.

Li Aiguo finally understood what Chief Xing meant and handed the note back: "Chief, if I really want to give a speech, I will do so as a worker. It seems inappropriate for a worker to wear spotless clothes. I cannot accept this new uniform."

"That's right. You've thought it through more carefully than I have." Xing Duanchang took back the note and suddenly said, "In fact, you can just accept the new work clothes and keep them at home first."

Li Aiguo's eyes widened suddenly: "Duanzhang, can I change my mind?"

"No!" Director Xing Duan finally gained the upper hand, how could he let Li Aiguo succeed.

Well, I just gave up the opportunity to get something for free.

Although it was decided that Li Aiguo should wear old work clothes, Section Chief Xing still asked Li Aiguo to suspend his work and asked Director She to personally train Li Aiguo so that he would not be unable to speak the truth when he went to the sister unit.

Deputy Director Wang was still reading major newspapers across the country for free in the Education Office. When he saw Director She invite Li Aiguo to his office, his face was so gloomy that ink could drip out.

"Just be happy. It's almost the end of the year now. The higher-ups won't make a big fuss over a press release."

He asked some old friends last night and learned that the most important task in the department now is to attend the Iron Group Conference, so he felt relieved.

While secretly rejoicing, Deputy Director Wang picked up today's "Railway News". Just one glance at it and his face turned pale.

On the front page of the newspaper, there was an article titled "Learn the spirit of unity and mutual assistance from Comrade Li Aiguo!"

The content of the article was still related to donating wolf meat, but the writer was Zheng Tie from the editorial office of Railway News.

Zheng Tie is a senior editor of the newspaper and now he seldom writes articles himself.

Now the department has actually asked Zhang Tie to take action. Deputy Director Wang's forehead was covered with sweat.

Doing publicity work is similar to cooking a dish, it requires a step-by-step approach.

It was obvious that the propaganda officer in the ministry had reached the level of perfection. In the following few days, news releases were published in the Railway News one after another.

The content of the press release also changed from simply donating wolf meat to advocating solidarity and mutual assistance.

The final interpretation is a call for railway workers to learn from Li Aiguo's spirit of unity, mutual assistance and selflessness.

Each step is closely linked to the next, and progresses step by step.

Even after reading these press releases, Deputy Director Wang couldn't help but sigh: "Li Aiguo is indeed worthy of learning for ordinary employees."

Afterwards, train drivers and railway workers from locomotive depots across the country wrote to the Ministry of Railways, requesting that this spirit be vigorously promoted.

The whole thing started from top to bottom, causing resonance at the grassroots level.

Then pour it from the bottom up, causing vibration inside the body.

As the railway workers' articles were published in the Railway News, a pot of delicious dishes was officially ready.

The Ministry of Railways held a meeting to discuss and pass a resolution to publicize Li Aiguo's spirit of helping his fellow workers and sacrificing himself for others.

A vigorous publicity campaign came to the fore from behind the scenes.

Early in the morning, Li Aiguo rode his bicycle to the locomotive depot, ready to attend the driving meeting.

The driver, Bai, said enthusiastically, "Aiguo, you don't have to drive today."

"No need to drive?"

"Not just today, I guess you won't have time to drive the train for the next half month."

As he spoke, Captain Bai felt both depressed and excited.

The frustrating thing is that it is almost the end of the year, and the 131 crew is short of a driver, so it is inevitable that something unexpected will happen.

What makes people excited is that Li Aiguo is a train driver of the 131st crew. This time he went to various places to give lectures, he also represented the 131st crew.

Cao Wenzhi walked up to Li Aiguo and patted him on the shoulder: "Aiguo, don't embarrass our 131 driver team this time when you go out of town. Let them see what it means to be a train driver in the capital."

"Don't worry, Master."

Li Aiguo was then invited to the education room.

The propaganda officer from the department first read out the department's resolution, and then took out a list.

"Driver Li, we have received invitations from twelve locomotive depots across the country. Please go and give a presentation. Take a look. If there are no problems, we can set off early tomorrow morning."

Even though Li Aiguo had understood the railway department's swift and decisive style, he was still shocked.

No wonder Commander Xing asked him to prepare early, it turned out that he had already anticipated this situation.

"Don't worry, I can leave at any time."

In the evening, Li Aiguo rode his bicycle back home and told Miss Chen about his trip to preach.

Miss Chen originally planned to spend some quality time with Li Aiguo before he went abroad.

Now Li Aiguo had to go to a local area to give a speech, and Miss Chen felt empty for a moment.

Miss Chen felt that Li Aiguo's kite was flying higher and higher, and she had no way of holding on to the thin kite string.

If possible, Miss Chen hopes that Li Aiguo can go to get off work and get off work on time every day like an ordinary person.
As the night deepened, Miss Chen sorted out her confused mood, stood up and got busy.

"I'll go and help you pack your luggage. By the way, when you're away from home, be careful when you eat. Don't always eat cold food. The weather is cold now, and it's not good for your stomach.

"This time, the propaganda officer from the ministry will be with us, and the local locomotive depot will be in charge of the reception. Don't worry."

"There are a lot of young girls in the area. You are a role model, so you should be aware of your status."

"."

Under the dim light, listening to Miss Chen chattering away, Li Aiguo drank his tea comfortably.

This is real life.

(End of this chapter)