Electrification Era

When it came to the train locomotive, Li Qingsong had initially considered building one powered by steam.

After all, the thing was simple and straightforward, and he had sufficient technical expertise.

But after giving it much thought, Li Qingsong ultimately abandoned that plan. He decided to do it in one step and directly build an electric locomotive.

The reason was simple. An electric locomotive had greater hauling capacity, higher efficiency, and could run a little faster.

Compared to a steam locomotive, it had countless advantages.

But that was not the only reason Li Qingsong decided to launch the electric locomotive project.

Another reason was that since he would need to transport various minerals on a large scale in the future, not only did consumption need to be scaled up, but production needed to be scaled up as well.

Relying on the previous manual methods to gather minerals was absolutely impossible. Even working the clones to death would not be enough.

He had to introduce all kinds of mining machinery to extract sufficient minerals.

This meant that Iron Mine No. 1, the Oxygen Ore mine, and the Tholin Mine would also need large amounts of machinery and electricity.

So, build a Power Plant at each location?

Li Qingsong rejected that plan.

At this stage, rather than constructing more small Power Plants, it would be better to focus all efforts on building one large Power Plant, then supply electricity to each base separately.

That made building transmission lines inevitable. And once the lines were in place, the train's power supply issue would be solved along with it.

The second reason was that Li Qingsong's future plans centered on large-scale mechanization.

Only mechanization could truly drive his technological development. Relying on manual labor would, at best, result in nothing more than a handicraft workshop.

Earth's mechanization had been achieved through coal and oil.

But Luoshen Star had none of those fossil fuels.

To achieve mechanization, the only option was to skip the fossil fuel era entirely and enter the Electrification Era directly.

And since he had already decided to use electrification to achieve large-scale mechanization in the future, while electric locomotives had so many advantages at this stage, why not use them?

There was another relatively important factor as well, one that was extremely favorable to electrification.

For humans in Earth's era, this factor had been something they could only dream of.

Superconductivity.

Because of Luoshen Star's extremely low temperatures, it naturally possessed a superconducting environment without any need for special arrangements. Li Qingsong only needed to put a little effort into cable materials to manufacture superconducting lines on a large scale and achieve lossless power transmission across the grid.

That would make efficiency even higher.

Taking all these factors into account, Li Qingsong finally made his decision.

Inside Mechanical Factory No. 1, more than twenty clones continuously handcrafted components, assembled them by hand, and performed repeated tests.

They were researching how to manufacture an electric locomotive.

Throughout the process, their brains ran at high speed, constantly combining theory with real conditions, repeatedly making mistakes and trying again. Piece after piece of knowledge was formed in their minds, becoming knowledge that belonged to Li Qingsong.

Knowledge from those different sources converged in Li Qingsong's mind, where it was integrated and then fed back in real time to every clone.

The more than twenty clones worked silently, without the slightest communication between them. Yet if one clone learned through experimentation that certain Connectors could not undergo an acid-dipping process or their strength would become insufficient, that piece of knowledge would immediately synchronize to every clone's mind.

There was no need to communicate or inform anyone. Whenever the other clones handled such parts, they would all avoid that mistake.

If another clone made a different discovery, it would likewise immediately synchronize to the minds of the others.

Every clone's progress brought progress to the entire group.

Under such circumstances, manufacturing the electric locomotive proceeded extremely smoothly. After all, Li Qingsong's requirements were not high at the moment. It did not need to be especially intelligent, nor did its performance need to be exceptional.

When half the railway had been laid, the first experimental locomotive was completed.

Li Qingsong controlled it onto the tracks, carefully connected the cable with the pantograph, and pressed the button. In an instant, surging electricity drove the motor into motion, distributing power to the wheels.

Amid the friction against the rails, the long train began to move, dragging thirty carriages behind it, loaded with three thousand tons of cargo and stretching more than six hundred meters in total.

It was slow at first, but quickly accelerated, eventually reaching a top speed of forty kilometers per hour.

It was even faster than an unloaded tractor's top speed!

"Not bad."

Li Qingsong's heart was filled with gratification.

Now that he had an electric locomotive, not only had the cargo transportation problem been solved, but the groundwork had also been laid for his leap into the Electrification Era.

If I can build an electric locomotive for a Heavy-Load Train, would making electrically powered crushers, Mining Cars, ore concentrators, excavators, bulldozers, and the like really be a problem?

It really was a problem.

Fixed equipment such as crushers and ore concentrators could be connected directly to the circuit. That was not an issue.

But mobile machinery such as Mining Cars, trucks, and bulldozers could not be connected directly to transmission lines.

Still, it did not matter. Li Qingsong had long since come up with a solution.

If they could not be connected to the lines, then batteries would do!

Simple Lead-acid Batteries did not actually involve much technology. Li Qingsong could manufacture them even with his current level of technology.

Compared to Earth, the only differences were slightly lower energy density, greater weight, poorer safety, and slower charging rates.

But it did not matter. As always, as long as they worked, that was enough.

There was an even more important point.

In Earth's era, environmental regulations prohibited the addition of many toxic and harmful additives that could improve battery performance.

For example, metallic cadmium.

But here on Luoshen Star, Li Qingsong did not care about any of that.

Could it improve performance? Then add it.

With such reckless abandon, Li Qingsong discovered that the first battery he had produced in the laboratory through almost entirely hand-customized manufacturing actually possessed roughly half the overall performance of this type of battery from Earth's era.

It had to be said that Li Qingsong's overall technological level was nowhere close to Earth's. Yet even under those circumstances, its performance had still reached half that level!

This delighted Li Qingsong immensely.

"For now, we'll make a batch by hand and make do with it. Once the Steel Factory reaches full capacity, we'll also need to build a dedicated Battery Factory."

Li Qingsong made up his mind.

Railway construction continued in full swing.

By now, another year had passed, and railway construction was more than eighty percent complete.

The remaining work no longer required so much manpower. So, together with the four hundred new clones born over the past year, Li Qingsong redeployed a total of six hundred clones to three mining sites.

He was going to build three Branch Bases!