Chapter 76 Chapter 11 The Unheard Sound of the Waves

In 1966, the Railway Bureau suddenly dispatched Yuchang to the General Management Office in Taipei to participate in the national ten major construction projects and the railway electrification plan.In the second year, we left Taichung, where we had lived for seventeen years, and moved to Taipei.The two sons who are in high school have to take the transfer exam, and the youngest son has just graduated from elementary school and faces the highly competitive Taipei junior high school entrance exam. From then until 1979, Yuchang devoted all its energy to electrification engineering.The railway is modernized in an all-round way, and trains that do not burn coal and emit no smoke will run on electrified tracks! This is a matter of government supervision and the attention of the people of the whole country.He has just entered the TV of all households, and reports its progress almost every day. As the person in charge of the project, he often has to make it clear on the spot - the life he and his family lived in those years was not easy! The titles range from Director of Electricity Affairs to Chief Engineering Department to Deputy Director, and they are just titles for coordinating work.The railway bureau with 30,000 employees is an old-fashioned "yamen" with strict hierarchy, no hierarchy, and no chance to speak (I think it is a very warm place).However, Yuchang is indifferent by nature and has no interest in seeking fame and wealth. It is an affirmation of his ability to carry out such a large project.He concentrated on using delicate and meticulous thinking in the lines, diagrams, and systems one after another, watching them build into reality one after another.The satisfaction he got from seeing the train running on the new track was the greatest reward.From the central train control signal project in the 1950s to the electrified railway, it can be said that it was a vigorous day for engineers.

But unexpectedly, at this busiest time, the intelligence agency's "two-way case" spread over. As far as I know, the "Two Road Case" was an interrogation of some senior technicians of the Highway Bureau and Railway Bureau by the Bureau of Investigation during the period of isolation between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait from 1970 to 1980.It started when the Taiwan Veterans Engineering Office was repairing roads in Thailand and Indonesia. Several engineers wrote letters to their family members in their hometowns in the mainland, causing the mainland transportation sector to shout at the Taiwanese engineers, calling them to return to the motherland to serve, which caused the relevant units to suspect them. "Loyalty" to the country; those who were arrested, interrogated, and sentenced were all students of the transport personnel training class who came to Taiwan on the same ship as Yuchang in 1946, about 40 people.At that time, the electrification project was under intensive construction. Dong Ping, the successor director of the railway, went to the police headquarters to ensure that there was no possibility of him being involved, and said that at this stage, the executive director could not be lost.The Bureau of Investigation agreed to let Yuchang write a detailed confession of his whereabouts, work, family, and contacts after coming to Taiwan, and then discuss it after submitting it.

I remember those weeks, watching him drag himself home exhausted, writing at the dinner table until midnight.After the first fourteen pages were handed over from the white book, I was ordered to add more materials....He once suffered from otitis media in his youth, which recurred when he was overworked and lacked sleep.During the day, I could only go to the railway hospital for anti-inflammatory injections, and there was really no time for further treatment.In 1979, the electrified railway modernization project was brilliantly completed, and the opening ceremony marked the great success of the ten construction projects.He was awarded the fifth-class King Star Medal and was hired as a researcher of the National Construction Research Institute.But he only has half of his hearing left. He tried his best to complete the expansion project of the North Circuit and South Circuit Railway, and saw the direct traffic from Taipei to Hualien, but he could no longer hear the sound of the beautiful coast and the waves hitting the shore.When I retired in 1985, my hearing was only one-tenth or two-tenths.When he talked with me about things, he mostly relied on writing. After retirement, it was difficult for him to communicate with others. Apart from being indifferent, he became even more silent.