On February 2, the first day of the Spring Festival travel rush, the mountains of southern Yunnan province gradually awoke in the morning light. At Mohan Railway Station on the China-Laos Railway, milky white mist gently enveloped the site, resembling a tranquil ink painting. Not far away, at the entrance of the Friendship Tunnel connecting China and Laos, two beams of golden light pierced through the dense fog as a white cross-border freight train fully loaded with goods, carrying the morning dew of Laos, slowly entered China. At the train inspection yard beside Platform 3 of Mohan Railway Station, freight trains loaded with cross-border goods waited quietly for inspection.

　　A single freight train consists of more than 30 cars, over 1,000 inspection checkpoints and tens of thousands of key components, while the allotted “inspection time” is only 35 minutes. Technological advancement has empowered traditional craftsmanship. A total of 41 sets of ST monitoring equipment, functioning like “clairvoyant eyes”, are deployed along the entire China-Laos Railway line. Wheel temperature monitoring, acoustic diagnosis and big data early warning systems corroborate the expertise of veteran inspectors wielding their inspection hammers, forming a comprehensive three-dimensional safety network.

　　Since its opening more than four years ago, the over-1,000-kilometer steel corridor has transported more than 76 million tons of cargo. From Tonghai vegetables to Thai durians, from Lao beer to electronic goods, behind the daily inspection volume of more than 700 railcars lies an efficiency revolution that has reduced technical inspection time from 42.9 minutes to 31.3 minutes. The working method summarized at the Mohan operation yard — “two must-checks, three must-pries and four must-replacements” — has been integrated into every step and every hammer strike of the inspectors, embedded into every minute and every second of border railway inspection operations.