The world's first freight train scanner system was formally put into operation Monday at the customs of Manzhouli, a Chinese city on the Sino-Russian border.
The system, formally named "Co-60 Freight Train Scanner System," is especially designed to combat smuggling activities on the railway line.
According to its inventor, Professor Ma Jigang with Tsinghua University in Beijing, the system can easily detect materials in the coaches when the train passes beside it and reflect their images on a screen, hence, no drugs, weapons and explosives will escape the eyes of customs officials.
The system is a renovation of a similar scanner system for containers, jointly developed by the Nuclear Design and Research Institute of Tsinghua University and the China Energy-Saving Investment Company. Both products filled international vacancies.
Two sets of the container scanner system have been put into service at customs in Urumqi and Fuzhou cities, leading to the discovery of smuggled goods worth of over 10 million yuan, said Ma Jigang.
The freight train scanner system, manufactured by the Beijing Huali Technology Development Company, was put into trial operation in the city of Manzhouli in Inner Mongolia last December.
The system can handle 4,000 freight trains, or 5 million tons of cargo a year, experts said.
(Xinhua 03/27/2001)
