作者：CHINADAILY
编者：关沐
本文预计阅读时长：10min
* A train leaves Harbin West Station in late January. When the Beijing-Harbin high-speed railway came into operation, the journey time between the two cities was reduced by 100 minutes to less than five hours.
一辆列车在一月末驶离哈尔滨西站。当北京开往哈尔滨的高铁开始运行，这两座城市间的行程时间缩短了100分钟，仅仅不到五个小时。
Technological improvements and know-howensure safe operations in Northeast China's frequent subzero temperatures.
科技改善和专业技术确保了高铁在中国东北频发的极寒气温下安全运作。
Although most regions of China have recently started embracing spring breezes, snowstorms still frequently hit Cong Liyan's home in thenortheastern province of Heilongjiang.
尽管中国的大部分地区最近已经开始拥抱春风，风雪天气依旧时常侵袭着丛丽艳在东北黑龙江的家乡。
In Cong's memory, winter travel has always been difficult and unpleasant. "Trains were slow and often canceled or delayed by storms, and driving was even harder," recalled the 51-year-old native of Harbin, the provincial capital.
在丛的印象里，在冬天出行总是困难且让人不愉快的。“列车开得很慢，而且总是因为大雪取消或者推迟，因为大雪，列车开得更加艰难了。”这个51岁生活在哈尔滨省会的当地人回忆道。
Members of her family and relatives live across Heilongjiang and the neighboring provinces of Liaoning and Jilin. Whenever the family gathered for Spring Festival, there were complaints about travel difficulties.
她的家人和亲戚生活在黑龙江和邻近的吉林和辽宁省。当一家人为了春节聚在一起时，就会有人抱怨旅途的艰辛。
"There was always someone trapped in the trafficand unable to arrive on time," Cong said.
“总是有人被交通拖住，不能按时抵达。”丛说。
In Heilongjiang, China's coldest province, the mercurycan easily drop as low as-20 C, and sometimes even-30 C, during winter.
黑龙江，中国最冷的省，在冬天，气温会很容易地降到零下二十摄氏度，有时甚至会降到零下三十度。
"That's why we call spending the winter maodong, 'hidden in the winter' in the local dialect," she said, adding that like most people, she tried to avoidmaking, or at least reduce the frequency of, journeys during winter.
“这就是为什么我们称过冬为‘猫冬’，这是用东北方言说‘在冬天里藏着’”丛说，另外和大多数人一样，她试图避免，或者至少减少在冬天旅行的频率。
*Rapid changes
However, things have changed in the past decadethanks to the development of the region's high-speed railway network.
然而，由于东北地区高速铁路网的快速发展，这样的情况在过去十年里有所改观。
Before this year's Spring Festival, Cong took a five-hour trip on the bullet trainfrom Beijing to Harbin, a journey that used to take more than 10 hours. Her son, who works in Shenyang, Liaoning's capital, also took a bullet train home, a trip of about two hours.
今年春节前夕，一段从前花费十多个小时的旅程，丛乘坐着从北京到哈尔滨的高铁只用了五小时就完成了。她在辽宁省省会沈阳工作的儿子，也搭乘着高铁回家，花了大概两个小时。
"The journeys are short, and the trains are always on time. The onboardenvironment is nice and clean," Cong said.
旅途很短，而且列车总是准时到达。乘坐的环境非常好，也很干净。
The expanding high-speed railway network in China's northeastern region has benefitedmillions of people like Cong and her family.
在中国东北地区扩散的高速铁路网已经使像丛和她家人这样的数百万人受益。
The three provinces that comprise Northeast China－Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang－are generally the coldest parts of the country, which poseschallenges for the construction of the high-speed rail network.
三个省构成了中国东北——辽宁，吉林，黑龙江——他们通常是全国最冷的省，这对高铁网的建设提出了挑战。
In 2012, four years after the country's first high-speed railway was put into operation, the first high-speed line to operate in extremely cold weather was opened. It connectsHarbin with Dalian in Liaoning and links the capitals of the three provinces: Liaoning's Shenyang; Jilin's Changchun; and Heilongjiang's Harbin.
2012年，全国第一批高铁投入运营的四年后，第一条将在极端寒冷天气下运营的高速铁路线开通了。它连接了哈尔滨和辽宁大连还连接了三个省的省会：辽宁沈阳；吉林长春；黑龙江哈尔滨。
Now, Heilongjiang, the most northeasterly province, has five highspeed lines. They connect major cities such as Beijing, the three provincial capitals, and Qiqihar and Mudanjiang in Heilongjiang.
现在，最东北面的省，黑龙江，已经有了五条高铁线路。他们连接着主要的城市，如北京，三省会城市以及黑龙江的齐齐哈尔和牡丹江。
Two of the five lines are China's northernmost and easternmost highspeed railways: the Harbin-Qiqihar and the Mudanjiang-Jiamusi lines.
这五条线路中有两条是中国最北端和最东端的高速铁路：哈尔滨-齐齐哈尔线和牡丹江-佳木斯线。
China Railway Harbin Group, the operator of the regional railway, said the number of high-speed railway stations in Heilongjiang has risen from two in 2012 to 25, while the network has extended to more than 1,400 kilometers from 94 km.
中铁哈尔滨集团，这个区域高铁的运营者，表示在黑龙江的高铁站数量从2012年的两站增长至25站，高铁网从94公里扩展到1400多公里。
Transformed, expanded
Yang Xingqiang, head of Daqing East Railway Station, has witnessedthe quiet, small facility turn into a busy, modern bullet train station.
杨兴强，大庆东站的负责人，见证了这个安静渺小的站点蜕变成一个繁忙，现代化的高铁站。
Before the Harbin-Qiqihar line opened in 2015, Daqing East Railway Station, was called Longfeng Railway Station.
在2015年哈尔滨到齐齐哈尔线开通之前，大庆东站被叫做龙凤火车站。
At the time, it had about 30 staff members and two platforms on its roughly 200 square meters, and it handledseven trains a day, with a total of about 1,100 passenger trips.
当时，它在约为200平方米的占地上拥有大概30名员工以及两个站台，一天吞吐七辆列车，总载客约1100人次。
Since the facility has been expanded and become a bullet train station, it handles 56 arrivals and departures－both bullet trains and regular services－and nearly 7,000 passenger trips every day. The station has expanded to 14,999 square meters, and the customer service departmentalone employs 140 staff members.
自从这个车站被扩建，并且成为一个高铁站，它每天处理56次进出站——包括高铁和常规列车服务——载客将近7000人次。车站已扩大到14999平方米，仅客服部就有140名员工。
"Work was much quieter before. We handled seven services a day, which meant that the intervalsbetween services were quite long. We usually undertooksome training and cleaned up the station during that downtime. Now, though, we handle trains every 20 to 30 minutes, which is quite intense and busy," Yang said.
“以前的工作安静得多。我们一天只处理7次服务，这意味着每次服务的间隔时间很长。我们经常进行一些训练，在工作空闲期间清理车站。不过现在，我们每20到30分钟接纳一列列车，这非常地紧张繁忙。”杨道。
Work starts at about 5:30 am, and the first thing Yang does every day is check the equipment and infrastructure.
工作在早上5点半左右开始，杨每天做的第一件事就是检查设备和基础设施。
"In the past, there was not much equipment and infrastructure to examine, such as that related to the platform and ticket sales counters. Now, I have to check much more equipment and infrastructure, such as screens, elevators, hanging banners, computers and other items," he said.
“过去，没有太多的设备和基础设施需要检查，比如与平台以及售票台相关的计数设备。现在，我必须检查更多的设备和设施，比如屏幕、电梯、横幅、电脑和其他器械。”
The station's traffic peak occurred during the National Day holidayin October 2019, a few months before the COVID-19 outbreak, when it handled 160,000 passengers, a record for the facility.
该站的交通顶峰发生在2019年10月的国庆假期，就在新冠肺炎疫情爆发前几个月，当时它吞吐了约16万名乘客，这创下了该站的人流量记录。
"During holidays, staff members have to be on site to ensure the safety of passengers and operations. The requirements have risen due tothe increased number of passengers. It makes more work for us. For example, some passengers require special services, such as wheelchair services," Yang said.
在节假日期间，工作人员必须在现场确保乘客和运作的安全。由于乘客数量的增加，所有要求都必须提高。这让我们更加忙碌了。例如，一些乘客需要特殊的服务，比如轮椅服务。”杨道。
He has also seen the changes the station has brought to the neighborhood. "It used to be a wasteland, with shabby houses andcollapse-prone single-story buildingssurrounding the old station. The environment has changed, with the station square and commercialandresidentialbuildings standing next to the station," he said.
他看到了这个车站给附近地区带来的变化。“旧车站附近曾经是一片只有破旧房屋和易倒塌的平房的荒地。（现在）环境变了，车站广场、商业和住宅建筑就伫立在车站四周。”
As a local, Yang has also noticed that more people are choosing rail travel over driving.
作为一个当地人，杨也注意到越来越多的人选择用铁路旅行代替自驾游。
"People prefer to take the bullet train to big cities, such as Harbin. The bullet train has boostedpeople-to-people exchanges," he said, noting that the journey from Daqing to Harbin now takes just 40 minutes.
“人们更喜欢坐着高铁去哈尔滨这样的大城市。”他说，从大庆到哈尔滨的旅程现在只需要40分钟。
* Technology and safety
Technology has been adoptedin the design of the railways and their operation, making China one of the global leaders in the construction of high-speed railways in extremely cold conditions.
科技被已经铁路设计和运营吸取，这使中国成为在极端寒冷条件下建设高铁的全球领导者之一。
An image-collection-and-analysis systemhas been introducedto help monitor bullet train operations. Cameras have been installedalong the tracks to collect images during operation, and they are compared with database imagesto identify safety hazards. Technologies, including three-dimensional imagingand image recognition, are applied during the process, said Tian He from China Harbin Railway Group's bullet train department.
一种图像采集和分析系统被引入来帮助监测高铁的操作。沿着轨道安装了（专用）摄像头，以此在（列车）运行期间收集图像，并与数据库图像进行比较，来识别安全隐患。中国哈尔滨铁路集团高铁部门的田和表示，在此过程中应用了三维成像和图像识别等技术。
The system assignsimages to analysts for examination, which they are required to assessin regular checks, reporting malfunctionsif required and calling the on-site workers to handle the problem within 15 minutes of it being noticed.
系统将图像分配给分析师进行核查，他们被要求进行定期检查，在必要时报告故障，并在发现问题后15分钟内呼叫现场工作人员处理问题。
The average age of the team's analysts is 30, and most of them have bachelor's degrees.
团队的分析师平均年龄为30岁，并且大多数人拥有学士学位。
The designers, who have a decade of experience in building high-speed railways, have carried out innovationsand gained positive results to ensure that the lines run safely in such low temperatures.
这些有着数十年建设高铁经验的设计师，他们不断创新，并取得了积极的成果，以确保高铁线路在如此低温下安全运行。
The first challenge in designing a high-speed railway in such conditions is to tacklethe problems caused by the constant freezingand thawing of water on the tracks and surrounding areas, according to China Railway Design Corp.
中铁设计公司表示，在这种情况下设计高铁的第一个挑战是解决轨道及周边地区水资源不断冻融所造成的问题。
The trackbedfreezes, thaws and refreezes repeatedly according to the weather, which can cause it to become unevenand potentially pose a safety hazard. Other issues, such as the resilience of concretewhen exposed to extremely cold weather, have also been taken into consideration.
轨道床会根据天气结冰、解冻然后再像这样反复结冰，从而导致其变得平坦，就构成了潜在的安全隐患。其他问题，比如混凝土暴露在极端寒冷天气中时的弹性也被考虑在内。
The company's engineers have designed and provided consultationservices for several high-speed railways in extremely cold areas, such as the line that connects Mudanjiang and Jiamusi.
公司的工程师已经设计了极寒地区的多条高铁并为他们提供咨询服务，例如连接牡丹江和佳木斯的线路。
China's technology for building high-speed railways in extremely cold weather is ranked in thetop-tier globally, which allows passengers to enjoy high-quality journeys and underlines the nation's ability to build similar projects overseas, the company said.
公司表示，中国在极寒冷天气下建设高速铁路的技术在全球范围内是排在顶级的，这让乘客们享受到了高品质的旅程，并提高了中国在海外建设类似项目的能力。
It added that the country has established a comprehensive technology standardfor building high-speed railways in extremely cold areas.
公司补充道，中国已经建立了一套在极寒地区建设高速铁路的综合技术标准。
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