Precision workers leave their mark for world to see

Sun Binbin's family has worked for three generations for China's first railway factory, now owned by Tangshan Railway Vehicle Co, a subsidiary of CNR Corp. The factory is about 150 kilometers from Beijing in Hebei province.

"My grandfather would be more than 90 years old if he was still alive. My father retired from the same factory, and I work here, too," says Sun, 37.

But Sun is unlike the older generations of factory workers. She was one of the first female technicians with a high-level certification to train technicians who weld aluminum alloy.

She earned the certificate in Germany after several months of overseas study. Since then, she has trained more than 500 technicians.

Sun and her students work on the bodies of multiple high-speed electronic train units. The work involves high-precision manual welding of nearly 100 types of sheet metal with a minimum thickness of 2 mm. The aluminum alloy car bodies have been exported to Europe and many other parts of the world.

The predecessor of the company that Sun works for was founded in 1881 as a locomotive and rolling stock factory. The plant in Tangshan has reshaped itself into a global supplier.

High-speed trains covering the Beijing-Tianjin, Beijing-Guangzhou and Guangzhou-Shenzhen routes, which travel as fast as 394 kph, were made in the factory. Its products have been exported to more than 20 countries.

Assembly, including wiring, is another step that demands precision. There are more than 100,000 wires and cables in one train car to control functions such as traction, control and communications.

As in ancient China, when some craftsmen carved their names in a corner of their handiwork, the workers' names are included on small yellow plates on cables inside the high-speed trains assembled at the factory.

Hao Shuqing, a company executive, says thousands of such plates travel around the world with the trains. "We require our workers to mark their name on all critical places. It's a kind of credit to them, and the information is input into a computer so we can track it if there's any problem."

Parent company CNR, one of the world's largest suppliers of railway transportation equipment, has exported its products to more than 84 countries and regions. CNR's exports were valued at $3 billion (2.73 billion euros) last year, up 68.6 percent year-on-year.

With 27 subsidiaries, CNR has a production capacity of 1,000 units of electric and diesel locomotives; 4,000 high-speed train cars, metro cars and multiple units; and 30,000 freight wagons and other kind of wagons.

lanlan@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 04/10/2015 page16)