Mater 2 - 10 by Hwang Sok-yong (Translated by Sora Kim-Russell & Youngjae Josephine Bae)

Author:Hwang Sok-yong (Translated by Sora Kim-Russell & Youngjae Josephine Bae)
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC000000, FIC019000, FIC008000, FIC109000, FIC014000, FIC051000
Publisher: Scribe Publications
Published: 2023-05-11T00:00:00+00:00

10

One early winter day, Ilcheol noticed that his name was missing from the freight-train schedule at the Yongsan Station central office. Flustered, he asked a staff member at the carriage division, who shuffled through the papers on his desk in confusion.

‘Oh, here you are. Go to Namdaemun Station. You’ve been reassigned to the Gyeongui Line.’ The staff member pulled out a paper to show Ilcheol, and asked, ‘Isn’t Hayashi Taoro-san the engineer you work with?’

‘That’s right.’

‘He was notified a few days ago. I guess he forgot to tell you.’

Ilcheol went to the tracks and waved down the first freight train he saw bound for Namdaemun Station, one stop to the north. The station’s name was actually Gyeongseong Station, but the employees still called it by its old name, Namdaemun Station. It wouldn’t come to be called Seoul Station until after Liberation. Ilcheol went to the central office at Namdaemun Station and confirmed that he had indeed been reassigned to a Gyeongui Line freight train along with Hayashi. Luckily, he wasn’t late for his shift: the rule was to clock in two and a half hours ahead of departure. He went straight to the platform where the freight trains were parked. When he opened the door to the engineers’ waiting room, Hayashi was nowhere in sight. As he stepped inside, feeling out of place, a middle-aged man sitting with a couple of other engineers asked him, ‘Are you Yi-san? On Hayashi’s team?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I’m the engineer of the route you’ll be taking over.’

‘Pleased to meet you, sir.’

‘Hayashi-san is a seasoned engineer, I’m sure he’ll do a good job. I heard you graduated from the Government-General’s railway academy. Which line did you ride?’

‘The Gyeongin and Gyeongbu Lines, sir.’

‘Well, with that much experience, you might as well be an engineer yourself!’

Maeda was kind and gentle, perhaps because he was older. About half an hour later, Hayashi walked into the waiting room.

‘Oh, I’m sorry, Yi-san. I should’ve told you about the reassignment at the end of our shift the day before yesterday. I guess you’ve already met Maeda-san?’

The three men went out to the freight-train platform and headed to a locomotive standing by. What awaited them was a Tehoi, a large tender-tank locomotive, instead of a Mikado. The Mikado that Hayashi and Ilcheol used to drive on the Gyeongbu Line weighed fifty tonnes. The tender-tanks that pulled the majority of freight trains along the Gyeongui Line weighed up to eighty-eight tonnes, though their hauling capacities were little more than that of the Mikado. The Tehoi, along with the Mater, or ‘Mountain’, that was later put into service, was a large locomotive fit for long-distance transport along mountainous routes. Both types had an automatic coupler, air brake, and air pump. Most large tender-tank locomotives also had an automatic firebox door and reversing lever, which kept the engine crew safe and reduced their workload while greatly improving the safety and precision of the drive. The automatic coal feeder was a new feature that eliminated the need for a stoker to stand watch and manually shovel coal.

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