Chapter Nineteen: The Age of Electrification

At first, Li Qingsong also considered building a steam-powered locomotive for the train. After all, it was simple and straightforward, and he had enough technical experience. But after much thought, he ultimately abandoned this plan, deciding instead to leap directly to constructing an electrified locomotive.

The reason was simple: electrified locomotives offered greater hauling capacity, higher efficiency, and slightly faster speeds. Compared to steam engines, they had many advantages.

However, Li Qingsong’s decision to adopt electrification was not based solely on these benefits. Another reason was that, since large-scale transportation of various minerals would be necessary in the future, not only the consumption side but also the production side needed to be scaled up. Relying on manual labor to extract minerals was absolutely unfeasible—no matter how hard the clones worked, it couldn’t be done. The deployment of mining machinery was essential to extract sufficient minerals.

This meant that extensive machinery and power were also required at the Number One Iron Mine, Oxygen Mine, and Torin Mine. Should they build separate power plants at each location? Li Qingsong rejected this idea. At this stage, rather than constructing multiple small power plants, it was better to focus on building a single large power station to supply electricity to all the bases. This made building power lines inevitable. And with these lines in place, powering the trains would be effortlessly solved.

The second reason was Li Qingsong’s vision for large-scale mechanization in the future. Only through mechanization could true technological progress be driven. Manual labor would at best yield a small workshop.

In the Earth era, mechanization relied on coal and petroleum. But on Roshan Planet, there were no fossil fuels. To achieve mechanization, the only option was to bypass the fossil fuel age entirely and enter the electrical age directly.

Since it was decided that large-scale mechanization would be electrified, and since electrified locomotives had so many advantages at this stage, why not use them?

Beyond these, there was another crucial factor favoring electrification. For humanity in the Earth era, this factor was a long-held dream.

Superconductivity.

Because of Roshan Planet’s extremely low temperatures, a superconducting environment existed naturally without special effort. Li Qingsong only needed to refine the cable materials slightly to mass-produce superconducting lines, enabling lossless power transmission across the grid.

This made the system even more efficient.

Taking all these reasons together, Li Qingsong made his decision.

Inside the Number One Machinery Factory, over twenty clones were continuously fabricating parts by hand, assembling them, and conducting repeated tests. They were studying how to build an electrified locomotive.

During this process, their minds worked rapidly, integrating real-world conditions, trial and error, and experimentation. Knowledge was generated in their brains, becoming unique to Li Qingsong.

This diverse knowledge converged in Li Qingsong’s mind, where it was synthesized and immediately fed back to every clone.

The twenty-plus clones worked silently, without any verbal communication. Yet, when one clone uncovered a fact—such as certain connectors being unsuitable for acid immersion because it weakened their strength—that insight was instantly shared with all clones.

No communication or notification was needed; the others would automatically avoid this mistake when handling similar parts.

If another clone made a new discovery, it was immediately synced to the rest.

Each individual’s progress propelled the whole group forward.

Under these conditions, the manufacture of the electrified locomotive proceeded smoothly. Li Qingsong’s requirements were not yet demanding; the locomotive did not need to be highly intelligent or extremely powerful.

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

Li Qingsong carefully placed it onto the rails, connected the pantograph cable, and pressed the button. Instantly, surging electrical energy powered the motor, which distributed force to the wheels.

With the friction against the rails, the long train—pulling 30 fully loaded cars carrying 3,000 tons of cargo and stretching over 600 meters—began to move.

At first, it was slow, but soon it accelerated, reaching a top speed of 40 kilometers per hour.

Faster than even an unloaded tractor!

“Not bad,” Li Qingsong felt deeply gratified.

Now, with the electrified locomotive, not only was the cargo transport problem solved, but the foundation was laid for his leap into the electrical era.

If I can build an electrified locomotive capable of hauling heavy loads, then making electrically powered crushers, ore cars, concentrators, excavators, and bulldozers—what problem could there be?

Yet, there were indeed challenges.

Some stationary equipment, like crushers and concentrators, could be directly connected to power lines without issue.

But mobile machinery—such as ore cars, trucks, and bulldozers—could not be tethered to cables.

No matter, Li Qingsong already had a solution.

If they couldn’t connect to lines, then use batteries!

Simple lead-acid batteries were technically straightforward; even with his current technology, Li Qingsong could manufacture them.

Compared to Earth, the main differences were slightly lower energy density, greater weight, somewhat reduced safety, and slower charging rates.

But that didn’t matter. As always, functionality was key.

More importantly, during the Earth era, environmental concerns prevented the use of many toxic but performance-enhancing additives in batteries—like cadmium.

On Roshan Planet, Li Qingsong didn’t care about such constraints.

If it improved performance, he added it without hesitation.

This reckless approach led Li Qingsong to discover that the very first hand-crafted battery produced in his lab reached about half the performance of similar batteries from the Earth era.

Considering his overall technology lagged far behind Earth’s, achieving half the performance was extraordinarily promising.

Li Qingsong was thrilled.

“For now, we’ll hand-produce a batch and make do. Once the steel factory is at full capacity, we’ll build a specialized battery factory.”

He made this firm decision.

The railway construction continued at a feverish pace.

After another year, more than 80% of the railway was complete.

With less manpower needed in the following stages—and bolstered by 400 newly created clones that year—Li Qingsong dispatched a total of 600 clones to the three mining sites.

He was determined to establish three branch bases!