When Chen Xin, Qin Lan, and Mo Qingyan arrived at what used to be the train station of Lin City, they were t with a ravine resembling a canyon and a snowfield completely buried in snow, with almost no trace of the buildings that once stood there.
The ravine was once a railway. Although it was also covered with so snow, trains frequently passed through, leaving not much snow on the tracks, resulting in a gash-like mark in the snowfield.
Before the disaster in Fla Country, Lin City’s train station was classified as a fourth-class station, only one level above the lowest grade stations, which served as passing and waiting stations for trains.
The station itself was just a one-story flat building, even shorter than the surrounding residential houses. Naturally, it was completely buried by snowstorms, with no trace remaining.
After all, it was a small station with only five trains passing by each day before the disaster, so there was no need for a larger space.
Although there were plans to expand the train station and build loading and unloading facilities before the disaster, it was clear that this work was not completed.
Beside the ravine caused by train passages, traces of the previously built loading and unloading facilities were still visible, as Lin City still needed to use this area to load and unload supplies brought by trains.
However, the surrounding snow was over ten ters deep, and standing beside the ravine looking down was akin to looking down from the top of a four-story building, making one reflect on how insignificant human civilization’s creations are in the face of nature’s power.
The snow here was deep, but a large section had been dug out, forming a fairly gentle slope.
Clearly, this was used by Lin City for loading and unloading supplies; otherwise, jumping down from the top of the four-story-high snow to the tracks below every ti would not have been an easy task.
Even if falling onto the snow wouldn’t kill, transporting supplies from below to the top without digging out a slope would be impossible.
"Ah Xin, how are you planning to dig out the train station? Although the station isn’t big, with this much snow, even if you have enough manpower, it would still take several days to dig out, wouldn’t it?" Qin Lan stood beside Chen Xin, cautiously glancing at the tracks below and asked him.
Chen Xin shook his head, feeling sowhat helpless about Qin Lan’s question, he said, "Several days? Ah Lan, you’re underestimating the workload. Even with 200 people, it would take at least ten days to half a month to dig out the train station, and that’s only after equipping them with Exoskeleton Protective Suits; otherwise, it might take a month or two to reach the original roof of the train station."
"Huh? In that case, how are you going to dig out the train station?" Qin Lan was sowhat puzzled by what Chen Xin was thinking.
They were supposed to co for an on-site inspection to figure out how to dig out the train station for more efficient freight handling, but now he was saying that even with enough manpower, it wouldn’t be possible to clear out the train station in a short ti. Isn’t this contradictory?
"Of course, not by hand; that would be too inefficient, and there isn’t enough manpower for that." Chen Xin walked towards the slope ahead and slid down, adding as he went, "I’m here to see if there’s a more effective thod to clear the snow without needing much manpower; it would be fine even if it takes a bit longer."
"Have you thought of a thod then?" Qin Lan followed Chen Xin in sliding down, both of them wearing Power Armor, which made sliding down more convenient than walking.
Standing at the bottom of the ravine, they looked up, gaining a more direct sense of the snow’s thickness. Chen Xin activated the asuring function of the chanical arm and asured. Finding the snow to be 10.12 ters thick, he realized that digging it out by hand to clear out this section of the train station was a massive project.
Even with the help of engineering machinery, it would not be an easy task.
As for simply clearing a platform to facilitate unloading, that could be done, but the current issue was that Lin City could not spare the manpower for such work.
So now, they either had to wait for Lin City’s situation to improve, with patients recovering from minor symptoms to provide enough labor, or they had to hope the city could find a way to send new reinforcents, or Chen Xin had to co up with a way to directly evaporate the more than ten ters of snow before him.
Evaporation was actually a feasible idea: as long as a big enough heat source could be created, raising the temperature within the train station’s range above zero degrees, lting the snow, it would only take a few days to clear the snow.
But the problem was that in the current environnt, creating a heat source large enough—never mind where the energy would co from—and ensuring the heat could be distributed across the entire train station was also a challenge.
The fourth-class train station might only be a few hundred ters long and look small, but using a single heat source to maintain enough heat to evaporate the snow over such an area reminded Chen Xin of the heat supply fields created by the Energy Tower and heating hubs in the ga "Frostpunk."
Fortunately, for Chen Xin, this was not entirely impossible, as he had been considering this very problem before. However, instead of using the Energy Tower to build a greenhouse, this ti it would be used to dig out the train station first.
However, building an Energy Tower required not just a large amount of materials but also a sufficiently deep geothermal well.
The issue of materials was easy to solve. With his electromagnetic tallurgy furnace, Chen Xin could completely recycle waste tal from within Lin City to acquire the materials needed to construct an Energy Tower.
But drilling a deep enough geothermal well not only required specialized equipnt but also professional drilling personnel.
At this point, Chen Xin realized there was a drilling expert in Lin City, wasn’t there?
So he quickly asked Qin Lan, "Ah Lan, how did it go when you guys visited the ’expert’ yesterday? How’s he doing?"
"The ’expert’s’ situation? He’s doing quite well. When he drilled a well for himself, he hit a hot spring, and with that, he’s been living quite comfortably. Why are you asking, Ah Xin? Do you need his help with sothing?" Qin Lan asked, sensing that Chen Xin seed to need sothing from the "drilling expert."
Chen Xin nodded and said to Qin Lan, "Then let’s go find the ’expert.’ I need him to help drill a well."
"Drill a well? But Ah Xin, weren’t you just talking about clearing the snow from the train station? What does drilling a well have to do with that?" Qin Lan was confused by Chen Xin and didn’t understand how drilling a well was related to clearing snow.
With a confident smirk, Chen Xin explained to Qin Lan, "Didn’t you yourself ntion the answer just now? The ’expert’ found a hot spring, so he could rely on that to fend off the cold. So I need him to help drill a deep well to utilize geothermal heat to evaporate the snow here."
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