Situated at an altitude of over 3,000 meters, the Shandan Horse Ranch(马场)station is located in Shandan county in the city of Zhangye along the Lanzhou-Xinjiang high-speed railway line.

The expansion project of the station, where there were no passenger transport services before, started construction in March, 2021. A passenger terminal building covering an area of 1,080 square meters, two platforms and other facilities were built     1     part of the project.

Eight trains,       2     (head)for several cities including Lanzhou, Xi'an and Urumqi, will now stop over at the station     3     (pick)up passengers.

Yang Yifeng took the train eastward to Tianshui, Gansu, a trip of five and a half hours now.

“We used to take normal trains and then travel by bus from Tianshui to the horse ranch, with the journey lasting more than 10 hours. Now the trip is very     4     (convenience)," said Yang, one of the first batch of passengers.

Shandan Horse Ranch,       5     is under the foot of the Qilian Mountains, is one of the oldest horse ranches in the world. Horses     6     (raise)here since the Han Dynasty(202 B.C.-A.D. 220), and the tradition of horse breeding has continued for thousands of years. During the Tang Dynasty(618-907)reign,       7     number of horses in Shandan exceeded 70,000.

In recent years, with great     8     (achieve)in the ecological protection of the Qilian Mountains, Shandan Horse Ranch began to     9     (active)develop tourism.

Chen Jin, deputy head of Shandan county, said that with the opening of the station,     10     (tourist)from all over the country can come to visit the ranch more easily via the high-speed railway.

4 . The Model T, created by Henry Ford, changed the way Americans live, work and travel. On October 1, 1908, the Ford Motor Company introduced the Model T. The car came only in black. But at $850, it cost about half as much as other cars on the market. Henry Ford’s great improvement in an automobile assembly line (汽车装配线) made the Model T the first car to be affordable for most Americans. For the first time car ownership became a reality for normal American workers, not just the wealthy.

Assembly-line production allowed the price of the touring car to be lowered from $850 in 1908 to less than $300 in 1925. At that time half of all the cars in the United States were Model Ts. Even before it lost favour to larger and more powerful cars, the Model T, known as the “Tin Lizzie,” had become an American symbol, basically realizing Ford’s goal to “democratize the automobile.”

Henry Ford founded the Ford Motor Company in 1903. At first, Ford built only a few cars a day. Because demand (需求) for Model Ts was so high, Ford developed a way to make more of them without increasing cost. In 1913, he invented a moving assembly line. Workers stood in front of a conveyor belt (传送带), and each completed one step in putting the cars together.

Ford’s method of mass production changed life in the U.S. More people could travel. Highways grew.The Ford Motor Company stopped making the Model T in 1927. But the automotive lifestyle had taken hold of America. Today, the race is on to make cars more efficient and to find green energy to power them. Will inventors with Ford’s creativity bring the next revolution?

6 . The COVID-19 pandemic(新冠疫情) has had one positive result: millions more Europeans have discovered the joy of cycling. ‘‘Cycling is easy,” says Tanja Jamnik. “Sitting on a bike, I feel very free.” The 57-year-old accountant from Slovenia is convinced of the health benefits. “Cycling is great for the whole body.” And there are advantages for mental health. “If I cycle alone, I switch my mind off and all the bad things go out of it. If I cycle with a friend, we talk so much that it’s like therapy(治疗)!” While Tanja and her husband, Andrej, have long enjoyed cycling, there are many newcomers to the activity.

She ascribes the recent rise in biking in her country to two factors. One is Slovenia’s extremely attractive performance in the 2020 Tour de France. The other, of course, is the COVID-19 pandemic. Last year when public transport was cancelled, and schools, sports facilities, restaurants and shops were shut, many more Slovenians discovered — or rediscovered — cycling.

“By the beginning of July, cycle shops in Slovenia were almost out of mountain bikes and expedition bikes.” Tanja and Andrej often tour their home country by bike, plus most years they have had cycling holidays in other places, too.

In fact, the whole of Europe has seen a surprising growth in cycling. Bike use was already high in some European countries, but numbers are increasing all across the continent as people get on their bikes for fitness, commuting(通勤) and leisure. In Finland, bicycle sales were up by 34 percent in 2020, and in January 2021 alone, the growth was a surprising 49 percent, according to the Finnish Cyclists Federation.

7 . A small but shining silver lining: The corona-virus has quickened the shift to pedal power in Europe. The German Cycling Association (ADFC) reports that Germans across the country are spending twice as much time biking as they were before the COVID-19. There is growing demand for bikes and shared-bike subscriptions, and now even shortages throughout bicycle supply chain. For bike shops it's an unexpected boom. So much so that it requires cities to improve their biking facilities.

In unimagined numbers, bikes are starting to take the place of cars in our cities. It has increased 930 miles of new bike lanes (车道) in Europe, “muscling aside cars on Europe’s city streets,” according to European Cyclists Federation. Belgium, Denmark, and the Netherlands are pioneering fast lanes for riders. “Pop-up lanes” are being used for bikes in Berlin and Paris; Rome has painted new bike lanes, in each case taking away lanes from cars.

Women riders are reportedly another big factor in the biking transformation. E-bikes are, too. E-bikes use an onboard battery to boost power when the rider is going up a hill, or just needs a rest. E-bikes have removed “the sweat factor”. Who wants to show up to work or a party sweaty?

The European Cyclists’ Federation states that bikes are also strongly supported by European governments to cut carbon and increase the quality of their cities. European countries provide direct financial stimulation for cyclists.

At the end of April, France announced a 20 million Euro plan to promote cycling after the end of the lockdown. The plan includes 50 Euro vouchers (代金券) for the repair of a bike. Italy worked on a regulation for Covid recovery, by means of which 120 million Euro was set aside to cover 70% and up to 500 Euro of the price of conventional, muscle-powered and electric bikes.