1.
Rail transport
–
Rail transport is a means of conveyance of passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, also known as tracks. It is also referred to as train transport. In contrast to road transport, where vehicles run on a flat surface. Tracks usually consist of rails, installed on ties and ballast, on which the rolling stock, usually fitted with metal wheels. Other variations are possible, such as slab track, where the rails are fastened to a concrete foundation resting on a prepared subsurface. Rolling stock in a transport system generally encounters lower frictional resistance than road vehicles, so passenger. The operation is carried out by a company, providing transport between train stations or freight customer facilities. Power is provided by locomotives which either draw electric power from a railway system or produce their own power. Most tracks are accompanied by a signalling system, Railways are a safe land transport system when compared to other forms of transport. The oldest, man-hauled railways date back to the 6th century BC, with Periander, one of the Seven Sages of Greece, Rail transport blossomed after the British development of the steam locomotive as a viable source of power in the 19th centuries. With steam engines, one could construct mainline railways, which were a key component of the Industrial Revolution, also, railways reduced the costs of shipping, and allowed for fewer lost goods, compared with water transport, which faced occasional sinking of ships. The change from canals to railways allowed for markets in which prices varied very little from city to city. In the 1880s, electrified trains were introduced, and also the first tramways, starting during the 1940s, the non-electrified railways in most countries had their steam locomotives replaced by diesel-electric locomotives, with the process being almost complete by 2000. During the 1960s, electrified high-speed railway systems were introduced in Japan, other forms of guided ground transport outside the traditional railway definitions, such as monorail or maglev, have been tried but have seen limited use. The history of the growth, decline and restoration to use of transport can be divided up into several discrete periods defined by the principal means of motive power used. The earliest evidence of a railway was a 6-kilometre Diolkos wagonway, trucks pushed by slaves ran in grooves in limestone, which provided the track element. The Diolkos operated for over 600 years, Railways began reappearing in Europe after the Dark Ages. The earliest known record of a railway in Europe from this period is a window in the Minster of Freiburg im Breisgau in Germany
2.
Webb C. Ball
–
Webster Clay Ball was a jeweler and watchmaker born in Fredericktown, Ohio who founded the Ball Watch Company. When Standard Time was adopted in 1883, he was the first jeweler to use signals from the United States Naval Observatory. After a two-year apprenticeship to a jeweler, Ball settled in Cleveland, in 1891 there was a collision between Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway trains at Kipton, Ohio, which occurred because an engineers watch had stopped. The railroad officials commissioned Webb C. Ball as their Chief Time Inspector, in order to establish precision standards, when a train arrived precisely on time, trainmasters would say That guys on the Ball and thus an American idiom was born. His original jewelry business in Cleveland grew into the Ball Watch Company, Ball Watch Company also ordered watches complete from other watch companies. Ball used movements from the top American manufacturers, Elgin, Hamilton, and Waltham, illinois, Seth Thomas, later on joined by some Swiss watch manufacturers, Audemars Piguet, Gallet, Longines, Record Watch, Vacheron Constantin. Webb C. Ball became the president of the Hamilton Watch Company. Stone, at this afternoon session Webb C Ball was introduced, he made a speech, and a resolution was passed unanimously, and he was made an Honorary Member of the Brotherhood. They were the first wrist watch allowed to be used on the Railroads, followed quickly by the first American made wrist watch on the roads, the firm was family owned by direct descendants until the 1990s when the right to use the name was sold. The new firm continues the tradition, using Swiss-made movements and making watches for sportsmen and even for some small railroads, at the end of his career, Webb C. Ball was overseeing over 125,000 miles of rail tracks in the U. S. A. Mexico & Canada, having contributed to the safety of all railroad systems. The Horological Institute of America celebrated his efforts on October 20,1921, born on a farm in Knox County, Ohio, Webb C. Ball was married in 1879 to Florence I. They had one son, Sidney Y, Ball, and three daughters, Wilma Ball, Florence Ball, and Alice Ball Andrews. He was the son of Aaron Taylor Ball and Sidney Ann Clay and his grandparents were Zenas Ball and Sarah Taylor. He died at his home in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, his wife & children lived past him, owney Railway signalling Official website History of Ball Watch Company and Online Museum North American Distributor Elgin Serial Numbers Waltham Serial Numbers
3.
James J. Hill
–
James Jerome Hill, was a Canadian-American railroad executive. He was the executive officer of a family of lines headed by the Great Northern Railway, which served a substantial area of the Upper Midwest, the northern Great Plains. Because of the size of this region and the economic dominance exerted by the Hill lines, Hill was born in Eramosa Township, Wellington County, Upper Canada. A childhood accident with a bow and arrow blinded him in the right eye and he had nine years of formal schooling. He attended the Rockwood Academy for a short while, where the head gave him free tuition and he was forced to leave school in 1852 due to the death of his father. By the time he had finished, he was adept at algebra, geometry, land surveying and his particular talents for English and mathematics would be critical later in his life. After working as a clerk in Kentucky, Hill decided to move to the United States and settled in St. Paul, Minnesota. His first job in St. Paul was with a steamboat company, by 1860, he was working for wholesale grocers, for whom he handled freight transfers, especially dealing with railroads and steamboats. Through this work, he learned all aspects of the freight, during this period, Hill began to work for himself for the first time. During the winter months when the Mississippi River was frozen and steamboats could not run, Hill started bidding on other contracts, because of his previous experiences in shipping and fuel supply, Hill was able to enter both the coal and steamboat businesses. In 1870, he and his partners started the Red River Transportation Company, by 1879 he had a local monopoly by merging. In 1867, Hill entered the business, and by 1879 it had expanded five times over. During this same period, Hill also entered banking and quickly managed to become member of several major banks boards of directors. He also bought out bankrupt businesses, built them up again, Hill noted that the secret to his success was work, hard work, intelligent work, and then more work. During the Panic of 1873, a number of railroads, including the St. Paul, the StP&P in particular was caught in an almost hopeless legal muddle. For James Hill it was a golden opportunity, for three years, Hill researched the StP&P and finally concluded that it would be possible to make a good deal of money off of the StP&P, provided that the initial capital could be found. Hill teamed up with Norman Kittson, Donald Smith, George Stephen, together they not only bought the railroad, they also vastly expanded it by bargaining for trackage rights with Northern Pacific Railway. In May 1879, the St. Paul, Minneapolis, and his first goal was to expand and upgrade even more
4.
Transcontinental railroad
–
A transcontinental railroad is a contiguous network of railroad trackage that crosses a continental land mass with terminals at different oceans or continental borders. Such networks can be via the tracks of either a single railroad, although Europe is crisscrossed by railways, the railroads within Europe are usually not considered transcontinental, with the possible exception of the historic Orient Express. Transcontinental railroads helped open up unpopulated interior regions of continents to exploration, in many cases they also formed the backbones of cross-country passenger and freight transportation networks. In the United States of America, a series of railroads built over the last third of the 19th century created a nationwide transportation network that united the country by rail. Its construction was possible by the US Government under Pacific Railroad Acts of 1862,1864 and 1867. A transcontinental railroad in the United States is any continuous rail line connecting a location on the U. S, Pacific coast with one or more of the railroads of the nations eastern trunk line rail systems operating between the Missouri or Mississippi Rivers and the U. S. The first concrete plan for a railroad in the United States was presented to Congress by Asa Whitney in 1845. The worlds First Transcontinental Railroad was built between 1863 and 1869 to join the eastern and western halves of the United States, begun just before the American Civil War, its construction was considered to be one of the greatest American technological feats of the 19th century. Known as the Pacific Railroad when it opened, this served as a link for trade, commerce. Shipping and commerce could thrive away from navigable watercourses for the first time since the beginning of the nation, much of this line is currently used by Amtraks California Zephyr, although some parts were rerouted or abandoned. The transcontinental railroad provided fast, safe, and cheap travel, the fare for a one-week trip from Omaha to San Francisco on an emigrant sleeping car was about $65 for an adult. It replaced most of the far slower and more hazardous stagecoach lines, the number of emigrants taking the Oregon and California Trail declined dramatically. The sale of the land grant lands and the transport provided for timber. The Central Pacific Railroad faced a shortage in the more sparsely-settled West. It recruited Cantonese laborers in China, who did prodigious work building the line over and through the Sierra Nevada mountains, the Southern Pacific Railroad was completed in 1881. The Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 authorized land grants for new lines that would aid in the construction of a railroad, although through train service was in operation as of that date, the road was not deemed to have been officially completed until November 6,1869. This distinction existed until March 25,1873, when the Union Pacific Missouri River Bridge at Omaha was opened,1881 or 1882, the SP meets the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway at Deming, New Mexico, connecting Atchison, Kansas to Los Angeles. January 12,1883, the SP completes its own section, meeting the subsidiary Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway at the Pecos River in Texas
5.
Great Northern Railway (U.S.)
–
The Great Northern Railway was an American Class I railroad. Running from Saint Paul, Minnesota, to Seattle, Washington, the Great Northerns route was the northernmost transcontinental railroad route in the U. S. The Great Northern was the privately funded – and successfully built – transcontinental railroad in U. S. history. No federal land grants were used during its construction, unlike all other transcontinental railroads, the Great Northern was built in stages, slowly to create profitable lines, before extending the road further into the undeveloped Western territories. In a series of the earliest public relations campaigns, contests were held to promote interest in the railroad, fred J. Adams used promotional incentives such as feed and seed donations to farmers getting started along the line. Contests were all-inclusive, from largest farm animals to largest freight carload capacity and were promoted heavily to immigrants & newcomers from the East. The earliest predecessor railroad to the GN was the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad, James Jerome Hill convinced John S. Kennedy, Norman Kittson, Donald Smith, George Stephen, and others to invest $5.5 million in purchasing the railroad. On March 13,1878, the roads creditors formally signed an agreement transferring their bonds, on September 18,1889, Hill changed the name of the Minneapolis and St. Cloud Railway to the Great Northern Railway. On February 1,1890, he transferred ownership of the StPM&M, Montana Central Railway, the Great Northern had branches that ran north to the Canada–US border in Minnesota, North Dakota, and Montana. It also had branches that ran to Superior, Wisconsin, and Butte, Montana, connecting with the mining fields of Minnesota. In 1898 Hill purchased control of parts of the Messabe Range iron mining district in Minnesota. The Great Northern began large-scale shipment of ore to the mills of the Midwest. At its height, Great Northern operated over 8,000 miles, the railroad’s best known engineer,1889 to 1903, was John Frank Stevens. Stevens earned wide acclaim in 1889 when he explored Marias Pass, Montana, Stevens was an efficient administrator with remarkable technical skills and imagination. He discovered Stevens Pass through the Cascade Mountains, set railroad construction standards in the Mesabi Range of northern Minnesota and he then became the chief engineer in charge of building the Panama Canal. The logo of the railroad, a Rocky Mountain goat, was based on a goat William Kenney, the mainline began at Saint Paul, Minnesota, heading west and topping the bluffs of the Mississippi River, crossing the river to Minneapolis on a massive multi-piered stone bridge. The Stone Arch Bridge stands in Minneapolis, near the Saint Anthony Falls, the mainline headed northwest from the Twin Cities, across North Dakota and eastern Montana. The line then crossed the Rocky Mountains at Marias Pass, and then followed the Flathead River and then Kootenai River to Athol, Idaho and Spokane, the main line west of Marias Pass has been relocated twice
6.
Pacific Northwest
–
The Pacific Northwest, sometimes referred to as Cascadia, is a geographic region in western North America bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and loosely, by the Rocky Mountains on the east. Though no agreed boundary exists, a common conception includes the U. S. states of Oregon and Washington and the Canadian province of British Columbia. Broader conceptions reach north into Alaska and Yukon, south into far northern California and east to the Continental Divide, thus including Idaho, Western Montana, narrower conceptions may be limited to the northwestern US or to the coastal areas west of the Cascade and Coast mountains. The variety of definitions can be attributed to partially overlapping commonalities of the history, geography, society. The Northwest Coast is the region of the Pacific Northwest. The term Pacific Northwest should not be confused with the Northwest Territory or the Northwest Territories of Canada. The border — in two sections, along the 49th parallel south of British Columbia and the Alaska Panhandle west of northern British Columbia — has had an effect on the region. According to Canadian historian Ken Coates, the border has not merely influenced the Pacific Northwest—rather, definitions of the Pacific Northwest region vary, and there is no commonly agreed-upon boundary, even among Pacific Northwesterners. A common conception of the Pacific Northwest includes the U. S. states of Oregon and Washington as well as the Canadian province of British Columbia. Broader definitions of the region may include the U. S. state of Alaska, the Canadian territory of Yukon, the portion of the state of California. Definitions based on the historic Oregon Country reach east to the Continental Divide, thus including all of Idaho and parts of western Montana. Sometimes the Pacific Northwest is defined as being the Northwestern United States, often these definitions are made by government agencies whose scope is limited to the United States. Some definitions include, in addition to Washington, Oregon, Idaho and British Columbia, Southeast Alaska, western Montana, the coast of northern California, the Pacific Northwest has been occupied by a diverse array of indigenous peoples for millennia. The Pacific Coast is seen by scholars as a major coastal migration route in the settlement of the Americas by late Pleistocene peoples moving from northeast Asia into the Americas. Other evidence for human occupation dating back as much as 14,500 years ago is emerging from Paisley Caves in south-central Oregon, however, despite such research, the coastal migration hypothesis is still subject to considerable debate. Due in part to the richness of Pacific Northwest Coast and river fisheries, in the interior of the Pacific Northwest, the indigenous peoples, at the time of European contact, had a diversity of cultures and societies. Some areas were home to mobile and egalitarian societies, others, especially along major rivers such as the Columbia and Fraser, had very complex, affluent, sedentary societies rivaling those of the coast. In British Columbia and Southeast Alaska, the Tlingit and Haida erected large, throughout the Pacific Northwest, thousands of indigenous people live, and some continue to practice their rich cultural traditions, organizing their societies around cedar and salmon
7.
Liverpool Overhead Railway
–
The Liverpool Overhead Railway was an overhead railway in Liverpool which operated along the Liverpool Docks and opened in 1893 with lightweight electric multiple units. It was also the second oldest electric metro in the world being preceded by the 1890 City, in the early 1900s electric trains ran on the electrified Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway to Southport and Aintree. Special trains to Aintree for the race meetings ran twice a year after regular services were withdrawn. Being a local railway it was not nationalised in 1948, originally spanning 5 miles from Alexandra Dock to Herculaneum Dock, the railway was extended at both ends over the years of operation, as far south as Dingle and north to Seaforth & Litherland. A number of stations opened and closed during the operation owing to relative popularity and damage. At its peak almost 20 million people used the railway every year, in 1955, a report into the structure of the many viaducts showed major repairs were needed that the company could not afford. The railway closed at the end of 1956 and despite public protests the structures were dismantled in the following year, as a result of the massive amount of traffic, congestion, and overcrowding of the dock roads, resulted in many proposals for transport solutions. Rails had appeared in the Liverpool Docks in 1852, linking the warehouses and docks, from 1859, adapted horse omnibuses ran for passengers on these rails, they had wheel flanges that could be retracted to allow the vehicle to leave the rails and overtake a goods train. By the 1880s, there was a service every five minutes. An elevated railway was first suggested in 1852, and in 1878 the Mersey Docks, the MD&HB applied to the Board of Trade based on this plan, but it was rejected and there was no further progress. The Liverpool Overhead Railway Company was formed in 1888 and obtained permission for double-track railway in the same year, engineers Sir Douglas Fox and James Henry Greathead were commissioned to design the railway. Steam traction was considered and the structure floored to prevent ash falling to the street below, Sir William Forwood, the Chairman of the Liverpool Overhead Railway, had studied American electric railways, and in 1891 electric traction was chosen. The works commenced in 1889, and were completed in January 1893, the structure was to be made of wrought iron girders a nominal 16 ft above the roadway. A total of 567 spans were erected, most being 50 ft long, the standard gauge railway was laid on longitudinal timbers on the elevated sections. Four bridges were constructed to cross wider streets, hydraulic lifting sections were provided at Brunswick, Sandon and Langton Docks to allow goods access to the docks. To allow shipping access to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, at Stanley Dock a bridge was replaced by a combined lifting and swing bridge, at Bramley-Moore Dock, the railway dropped to road level to pass under the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway coal tip branch. As the gradient was 1 in 40 this was known as the switchback, originally the conductor rail was placed between the rails, energised at 500-525V DC. The power was supplied by a station at Bramley-Moore Dock that received its coal directly from the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway branch line which passed above
