Chapter 3234 It’s better to come early than to come by chance

The endless stream of freight trains did not stop until it got dark.

Ye Chen and Li Yalin observed their operating rules. Generally, after a diesel locomotive pulls an entire train of freight cars into the freight yard at the dock, it will unhook them at the freight yard, then turn around via another line and pull away another train of cars.

The carriages filled with goods left in the freight yard will be towed by dispatching locomotives to a factory built on multiple rails for unloading. After unloading, the goods will undergo customs inspection and then be transported by freight trucks in the port to the bulk cargo loading and unloading terminal for loading.

To the southeast of the freight yard, there is also a large-scale railway marshalling yard. If the goods imported into the port of Casablanca need to be transported by rail, they will be assembled into trains here after completing the customs clearance procedures and then towed to the destination by locomotives.

This means that the freight train itself is isolated from the interior of the port. The goods delivered here have not yet gone through the customs clearance process, while the goods waiting for transshipment here have already completed the customs clearance procedures, so the management of the freight train yard is relatively lax.

After nightfall, Ye Chen and Li Yalin had dinner at the hotel. In the restaurant, Ye Chen saw a young waiter from China, so he asked him, "Young man, do you know which language the locals use more often?"

The waiter said, "Sir, most people here speak Arabic, while government officials and school staff mostly speak French."

Ye Chen nodded. Morocco was under French colonial rule for a long time, and this might be the reason why French is so popular in the government and education system.

However, Ye Chen doesn't know much French. His parents taught him some when he was a child, but he learned it in a short time and it has been a long time since then, so Ye Chen's understanding of French is limited to some basic terms.

So he thanked the waiter, and after the waiter left, he asked Li Yalin, "Does Inspector Li speak French?"

Li Yalin nodded and said, "Because I have been dealing with people from neighboring countries and European countries for many years, I have learned French and Spanish and am quite proficient in them."

Ye Chen breathed a sigh of relief: "That's good, otherwise I would have to find a translator now."

Li Yalin hurriedly said: "Mr. Ye, I don't know anything about Arabic."

Ye Chen said: "It's okay. Tonight we are going to meet the port staff. The port is particularly important to Casablanca. The management positions there should have received local elite education since childhood, and French must be their first language."

Li Yalin nodded and said, "If they speak French, there will be no problem."

After dinner, the two took a taxi to the management office of the port railway, which is responsible for the transportation dispatch of the entire port railway.

Li Yalin looked at the door of the management office and asked Ye Chen with some doubt: "Mr. Ye, are we going in directly like this?"

Ye Chen nodded. He had just used his spiritual energy to investigate the situation inside the entire management office. At this time, in addition to a security guard in charge of security work outside the management office, there were a total of nine people working inside. Six of them were in the largest room on the second floor, which should be their dispatch room. The remaining three were in different offices.

Ye Chen’s idea was very simple. He would directly use psychological hints to control the security outside the door, ask him who the highest person in charge here is, and then let him take the two of them to find the other party.

So he said to Li Yalin: "Inspector Li, when you see me tapping the man on the shoulder, just ask him in French who is in charge here, and then ask him to take us there."

“Okay.” Li Yalin nodded. He knew that Ye Chen had great powers, so there was no need for him to ask any more questions. He could only do as he was told.

The two of them arrived at the door of the management office. The security guard outside the door saw that they were two Asians and shouted to them in broken English: "Leave! Leave!"

Seeing the security guards drive the two away, Ye Chen smiled and said in English: “Brother, don’t you remember me?”

As he spoke, he used a stream of spiritual energy to pass into the other person's brain, then walked forward and patted the other person's shoulder like an old friend.

Li Yalin stepped forward and asked him in French: "Where is the top person in charge here?"

The other party answered truthfully: "Our deputy manager is working the night shift in the office."

Li Yalin nodded: "Take us to see him."

The other party immediately said: "Please follow me."

After saying that, the other party immediately turned around, walked in, and went to the second floor.

Ye Chen and Li Yalin followed behind him and came to the second office at the end of the corridor on the second floor.

The man pointed to the office door. Li Yalin walked up and knocked twice. Someone inside also said in French: "Come in."

Li Yalin pushed the door open and walked in, followed by Ye Chen. The man saw the two of them and asked in surprise, "Who are you?"

As soon as he finished speaking, Ye Chen also gave him a psychological hint.

Then Ye Chen said to Li Yalin: "Inspector Li, ask him to introduce us to the operation mode here, as well as Duke Mining's freight records. It would be even better if there were train driving records."

Li Yalin immediately asked the other party in French, and then the other party immediately introduced the general situation here to the two of them.

Morocco mines nearly 40 million tons of phosphate every year, of which more than 10 million tons are exported, and the rest are used to make 20 million tons of phosphate derivatives for export, mainly fertilizers. Most of these more than 30 million tons of goods are exported to all parts of the world. Part of the exports are consumed by other African countries, and the rest are basically exported to the world from the port of Casablanca. Therefore, the railway transportation here is very busy, with at least 20 to 30 freight trains loaded with goods arriving at the station every day.

The trains in and out of the port do not operate 24 hours a day, but fourteen hours a day, from a.m. to p.m. Tonight, two freight trains will arrive at the station within half an hour. After these two trains arrive, there will be no more trains arriving tonight and the management office can go off work, leaving only two people on daily duty.

However, the freight yard operates 24 hours a day. Trains that come in at night have to be unloaded overnight, and many goods that are to be shipped out early the next morning also have to be loaded at night.

Morocco's main railway lines are basically owned by the Moroccan National Railways Administration, also known as the Moroccan National Railways.

However, since this is a supporting facility of the port, the internal terminal is under the responsibility of the port's own transportation management office.

As for all trains, train-related drivers and maintenance personnel, they are employees of the Moroccan National Railways.

The operation plans of freight trains are also dispatched by the Moroccan National Railways, which is only responsible for receiving the plans, arranging the order and time of cargo loading and unloading according to the train operation plans, and arranging trains to stop at designated locations and load and unload cargo at designated times.

The area where Duke Mining is located is in the core phosphate producing area of ​​Morocco, about 200 kilometers away from here, and happens to be on the dedicated railway belt for phosphate transportation.

The phosphate-dedicated railway line is invested and built by the Moroccan National Railway Administration. Every phosphate enterprise of a certain scale along the route can pay the Moroccan National Railway, and the Moroccan National Railway will build a branch line directly into the enterprise to facilitate train passage and reduce transportation costs.

In addition to paying a construction fee to the Moroccan National Railways, the company must also pay threshold fees and transportation costs incurred by specific transportation to the national railways on a regular basis after connecting to the trunk line.

However, even so, the company's unit transportation cost is much cheaper than transportation by car.

Although Duke Mining is not the largest phosphate company here, it is of medium to large scale, with an annual phosphate output of about one million tons. Duke Mining does not engage in the production of derivatives, and all phosphate produced is exported, so they have a train loaded with phosphate departing from Duke Mining and arriving at the port almost every day.

Coincidentally, the two also learned from each other that the last freight train scheduled to arrive at the port tonight was from Duke Mining.

This train is expected to arrive at the station around 8:45, and tomorrow's freight train schedule includes a train to Duke Mining, which means that a batch of imported goods from Duke Mining has arrived at the port and will be loaded and shipped back tomorrow.

As for the driving video that Ye Chen wanted to see, the management office was not qualified to retrieve it, but he could wait for the train to arrive at the station and find a way to check inside the locomotive.

After hearing the news, Ye Chen immediately said to Li Yalin: "It is better to arrive at the right time than to arrive early. Let's check out this freight train today and find out what Duke Mining will transport back tomorrow!"