Chapter 3 — Heir to the Little Station

The station closing notice is posted on the light pole, next to the resort advertisement. The railway company cited three reasons: low ticket numbers, high maintenance costs and the route is no longer suitable.

Mai read the last sentence and then asked Tung who measured maintenance costs.

“Planning department in the province.”

“Have they ever been to the station?”

Tung shook his head. He only receives new flight schedules via email: reduces one trip per week and does not accept fruit and vegetable shipments outside of scheduled hours.

Mrs. Ly was angry because her restaurant delivered meals to the ship. Mr. Sau Van, the railway manager, has retired and said nothing. He bent down to pick up the notice, folded it along the crease and put it in his pocket.

Mai calls a meeting at the waiting room. People came bringing old tickets, grocery bills and lists of students taking the train. Khoa also came, saying the resort could create jobs and open new roads if the station was replaced with a bus station.

One person asked if the resort would pick up patients when the road collapsed. Khoa does not promise.

Mai does not take sides. She asked the railway company to provide the “inefficient” calculation and survey time. The automatic email response said the application was under review.

After the meeting, Mr. Sau Van called her to the end of the station. He pointed to the iron bridge across the valley. "If they decide to close it, they will find every reason. But that bridge is what they have to tell the truth about."

Mai asked what was wrong with the bridge. He said the last repair did not replace the beams, only the warning signs.

The afternoon train passes over the bridge. Mai stood watching the iron wheels vibrate slightly on the tracks and realized for the first time that holding the throttle could mean taking responsibility for the entire bridge.

That night, Mai called the provincial planning department using the phone number on the notice. The listener introduced himself as Mr. Dung, the specialist in charge of the branch line. He said Da Trang station has been on the review list for a long time, not because someone just suddenly decided to do so.

“What criteria is the review list based on?” Mai asked.

“Traffic, maintenance costs, population density and road alternatives.”

“Is it weighted?”

“Yes. But the system calculates itself.”

“Who checks the input data?”

Dung was silent for a few seconds. "The station sends the monthly report. The transfer department enters it into the system."

Mai wrote down the room name, date and time of the call. She asked for the original data set, he said there must be an official document. She asked for a sample letter, he sent an internal link that couldn't be opened on the phone. Tomorrow add that to the list tomorrow morning.

After the call, she returned home to wait. The meeting with the people has not yet ended. A man named Sang carried a set of plum weighing slips, saying his goods had to be turned around because they were not received outside the time frame. A teacher gave a list of eighteen students to take the train, including three children from villages without buses. A nurse recounted the days on emergency duty when she had to ask a motorbike driver for her because the last trip left the station too early.

Khoa sat at the end of the table, not interrupting. When someone asked him how much compensation the resort would pay to each household, he showed him an estimate. The table includes land prices, resettlement costs and vocational training allowances. There is no column for hospital trips, but there is also no word that the project will solve everything.

Mai pointed to the "new jobs" line. “How many locals?”

“Sixty percent expected.”

“Expected in how many years?”

“Operation phase.”

“When did that phase begin?”

Khoa frowned slightly. “After construction is completed.”

A mother said her child needs to go to school next month and cannot wait three years. Khoa did not object. He said he would propose a shuttle during construction, but did not know if it would be approved.

Mai realized she couldn't turn the meeting into a battle between the station and the resort. People want to sell land for a real reason: they need money to repair their house, pay off debt, and send their children to the district. Those who want to keep their foot on the gas can't just offer up memories, either. If the line must continue, it needs a cost-paying model that cannot rely on sympathy.

Mr. Sau Van pulled Mai to the bridge after the meeting. He pointed to the steel bars below. Many places have been covered with a new layer of paint, but inside the joints there are reddish brown rust streaks.

“It's not like you just knock on it and it's broken,” he said. “But it's not considered normal.”

“Why didn't the beams be replaced during the last repair?”

"Because the records say the girder is still in use. The signer was not standing under the bridge when the train passed."

Mai asked him if he had proof. He pointed to the notebook. "The proof is the blank line here. They didn't record the inspection, but still recorded the repair completed."

Mai asked to take a photo of the book page. Mr. Sau Van shook his head.

"If you need to use it, copy it down. Don't take the whole book away."

“I'm the station's heir.”

“Gas is not something that is inherited with the same rights as others.”

The statement made Mai uncomfortable, but she wrote down each line, clearly stating the owner of the book and the date she saw it. Mr. Sau watched her write, then asked her what profession she was studying.

"Architecture."

“So you know a drawing that can cover a crack by changing the perspective.”

“I know. But I also know you can't fix a bridge with drawings.”

He nodded, seemingly accepting the answer.

That night, Mai set up three separate tables. Table one is inheritance rights and rail corridors. Table two is the actual operation of the station: tickets, lines, users, costs. Table three are the risks that need to be inspected: bridges, rails, warehouses and signals. She doesn't combine them into one "effective" number because each table answers a different question.

Khoa sent an email to apologize for not clearly stating that the red piles were in the survey phase and not construction piles. He attached a diagram, in which a new line cuts through the station entrance. Mai replied that even though the construction has not yet been completed, the piles have made people think the decision has been made. She suggested that the project remove the piles until there is a public announcement. The faculty will review the response and will not promise immediately.

At the restaurant, Mrs. Ly listened to Mai's story and placed a stack of receipts on the table. She kept it for many years because she used to give money to train passengers. Some people pay in tea, some pay after the corn season, some cannot pay. She never called it bad debt.

“If the station closes, are you planning on including this?”

“I don't know yet.”

"So don't count it as revenue. But remember there are people who live because others can still pass through here."

Mai returned to her room and saw the station closing notice next to the resort advertisement. One side uses dry words about costs, the other uses swimming pool photos and the word "new opportunity". Neither said the valley-side bridge was being held up by beams that had not been inspected for a long time.

She sent her first dispatch to the railway company, requesting bridge survey records, revenue allocation data, and grounds for replacement by road. She knew the answer could take days. But from now on, every train day must have a written request.

Mai herself brought the dispatch to the post office district because staff said emails were not receptive enough. The road from the station is downhill, passing through a rock slide and a wooden bridge that can only accommodate motorbikes. In the car, Khoa sat one seat away from her and did not talk about land prices. He just asked her if she needed a road map to attach.

“I need a version with a survey date and someone to measure it,” Mai replied.

“I will ask.”

“Please don't mean you definitely have.”

"I know."

At the post office, she received a dispatch code and took a photo of the receipt. Khoa stood outside the door waiting. He said the resort also had a document returned by an agency because it lacked the signature of a person who was no longer working. Mai asked if the project saves document editing history. Khoa said old files were scattered on his personal computer. She said that before talking about smart cities, you should clean up the data warehouse.

Khoa burst out laughing. “You talk like your grandfather.”

“My grandfather doesn't know software.”

“But I know people often use the phrase ‘do-it-yourself system’ to avoid responsibility.”

On the way back, they stopped at the point where they saw the bridge. A group of children are fishing in the stream. Mai asked them if they knew what the ship was carrying. A boy said the train was carrying passengers and "the smell of tea". He didn't know the station was about to close. Mai did not tell the news; She just asked if there was no train, how would he go to school? He pointed to the steep road and laughed as if it were obvious.

In the afternoon, the teacher sent a list of students signed by parents. Mai asked permission to keep it separately, only taking the total number by village. The teacher said the school had proposed buses, but the budget was not enough because the road to the district was long and often damaged. Tomorrow adds the cost of teachers having to accompany young students to the unmeasured portion.

At night, an automatic email responded to the dispatch. The file has been transferred to the unit "considering the possibility of route optimization". No person's name, no response date. Tomorrow print the email, circle the phrase "optimize" and write the question: optimize for whom, according to what goal.

Mrs. Ly told her not to let abstract words cause insomnia. Mai said those words often precede specific decisions. Mrs. Ly gave her a bowl of hot soup, telling her that if she wanted to ask more questions, she should ask after eating.

Mai finished the bowl of soup. She realized the station had more than just big questions about sell or keep. It has small tasks that force people to sit back: taking names, waiting for mail, keeping records, counting children going to school and asking people standing under the bridge if they feel the vibration or not.

Before locking the room, she posted the dispatch on the "pending work" board, writing the due date for her response. Anyone who passes by can see it. A land seller asked her if she did that to put pressure on her. Mai said so that everyone would know what she asked and not have to trust her memory.

Mr. Sau Van looked at the board and pointed to an item: "Bridge maintenance records". He told more people to be responsible for providing it. Mai called the railway department and asked for the name of the department. This time she didn't wait for the system to answer itself.