1.
1907 in rail transport
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This article lists events related to rail transport that occurred in 1907. February - Great Western Railway of England begins production of Star Class 4-6-0 locomotives at its Swindon Works, page is named president of the newly formed Virginian Railway. May 18 - The Ravenswood branch of the old Northwestern Elevated system of the Chicago L, june 22 - Opening of the Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway in London, a deep tube railway which now forms part of the London Undergrounds Northern line. July 1 - All New York Central Railroad services into and out of Grand Central Terminal in New York City are electrically hauled, august 29 - Due to faulty design, the cantilever bridge over the St. Lawrence River at Quebec City collapses while being built. Between 70 and 84 workers are killed and it will take 10 years to rebuild and complete the project. October 1 - Pacific Fruit Express begins operation with a fleet of 6,600 refrigerator cars, october 1 - The Empire of Japan completes the nationalization of nationwide 17 private railroads. October 27 - Union Station in Washington, DC, although still unfinished, november 7 - Jesús García Corona is blown up driving a burning dynamite train away from a populated area of Nacozari, Sonora. December 14 - The Ravenswood extension on what is now the Brown Line opens between Western Avenue and the current terminal at Kimball and Lawrence Avenues in Albany Park, government of India purchases most major railway companies and leases them back to private operators. The Deepwater Railway and the Tidewater Railway combine to form the Virginian Railway, stearns Manufacturing Company is reorganized as Heisler Locomotive Works. The Apalachicola Northern Railroad runs its first train northward from Apalachicola, E. H. Harriman removes Stuyvesant Fish from the presidency of the Illinois Central. Pennsylvania Railroad builds its third experimental electric locomotive, number 10003, the Lackawanna Railroad opens its Beaux Arts station in Hoboken, NJ, which is still in use today. June 2 - Eric Treacy, British Anglican bishop and railway photographer, november 1 - Terence Cuneo, British railway artist. May 19 - Benjamin Baker, British civil engineer, designer of the Forth Railway Bridge, october 3 – Jacob Nash Victor, oversaw construction for the California Southern Railroad from San Diego through Cajon Pass to Barstow, California
2.
1909 in rail transport
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This article lists events related to rail transport that occurred in 1909. January 1 - The Chemins de fer de lOuest in France is incorporated into the state-owned Chemins de fer de lÉtat. January 26 - The Jamestown, Franklin and Clearfield Railroad, a predecessor of the Lake Shore, january 29 - The final spike is driven in the construction of the Virginian Railway at Glen Lyn, Virginia. March 7 - The Winona Interurban Electric Railway is forced by its major creditor to begin operations on Sundays, april 1 - Great Central Railway places turbine steamships on its Grimsby-Rotterdam service. April 4 - Passenger service begins on the Chicago, Lake Shore, april 12 - Gary, Indiana, United States, a westbound Chicago, Lake Shore and South Bend Railroad train runs past a meet point and causes a head-on collision with an eastbound train, killing twelve. May 17 - Firemen on the Georgia Railroad strike to protest the hiring of African-Americans, june - George Whale retires as Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London and North Western Railway, he is succeeded by Charles Bowen-Cooke. June 19 - Shadyside, Indiana, United States, an eastbound Chicago South Shore & South Bend Railroad train runs past a meet point and causes a head-on collision with a westbound train. July 10 - The Great Northern Railway electrifies the 2. 5-mile original Cascade Tunnel and this first system and General Electric-built boxcabs are the only three-phase AC railway electrification implementation ever to be used in North America. July 25 - Opening of Tauern Railway Line in Austria, august 30 - Great Western Railway begins using its Fishguard terminus in Wales for boat trains in connection with the Cunard steamships on Atlantic routes as a first port of call. August - Canadian Pacific Railway opens the Spiral Tunnels to traffic on the line through Kicking Horse Pass, september - Robert S. Lovett succeeds E. H. Harriman as president of the Southern Pacific Company, parent company of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Lovett also assumes the position of Chairman of the Executive Committee for the railroad, september 17 - Beyer, Peacock and Company of Manchester, England, steam the first Garratt articulated steam locomotive built to the design of Herbert William Garratt, K Class No. K1 for the Tasmanian Government Railways’ North East Dundas Tramway, october 9 - The Alaska Northern Railroad Company purchases the assets of the bankrupt Alaska Central Railway and subsequently extends the line northward another 34 km. October - Blue Nile Road and Railway Bridge completed at Khartoum in Sudan, november 1 - A Golden Spike ceremony is held on the Western Pacific Railroad. As no company officials were present, the local track foreman drove the last spike, november 3 - The Lethbridge Viaduct, one of the largest railway structures in Canada on the Canadian Pacific Railway near Lethbridge, Alberta, opens. November 10 - Louis Brennan successfully demonstrates his gyroscopically-balanced monorail system, november 21 – Kagoshima Line, Mojiko of Kitakyushu, via Hakata of Fukuoka, Kumamoto, Hitoyoshi to Kagoshima route officially completed in Kyushu Island, Japan. December 1 - The London, Brighton and South Coast Railway publicly inaugurates Englands first suburban surface railway electrification system on its South London line, december 20 - Henry Fowler is appointed Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Midland Railway of England, succeeding Richard Deeley. The Nickel Plate Road begins a massive grade separation project in Cleveland, Ohio, albert Hunt invents the wigwag grade crossing protection signal for the Pacific Electric in Los Angeles, California. Opening of the Jingzhang railway connecting Beijing with Zhangjiakou, first section of the Jingbao railway in northwestern China, august 4 – Isabel Benham, American railroad financial expert, is born
3.
Rail transport
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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
4.
Train wreck
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A train wreck or train crash is a type of disaster involving one or more trains. Train wrecks have often been covered in popular media and in folklore. A head-on collision between two trains is called a cornfield meet in the US. Because train wrecks usually cause widespread property damage as well as injury or death, for example, in the U. S. state of California, the penalty for intentionally causing a non-fatal train wreck is life imprisonment with the possibility of parole. For a fatal train wreck, the legal consequences are either life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The willful wrecking of a train is punishable by death or life imprisonment without parole by the United States federal government, the unusual harshness of Californias train wrecking statute has been expressly recognized by its appellate courts. The Supreme Court of California explained in 1972 that train wrecking is one of only eight crimes in the California Codes for which a sentence is authorized. Death Rode the Rails, American Railroad Accidents and Safety, 1828-1965 excerpt BBC News, a voice from the signal-box, or, railway accidents and their causes
5.
Derailment
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A derailment is said to take place when a vehicle such as a train runs off its rails. This does not necessarily mean that it leaves its track, although many derailments are minor, all result in temporary disruption of the proper operation of the railway system, and they are potentially seriously hazardous to human health and safety. In emergency situations, deliberate derailment with derails or catch points is used to prevent a more serious accident. During the 19th century derailments were commonplace, but progressively improved safety measures have resulted in a lower level of such incidents. In the US, derailments have dropped dramatically since 1980 from over 3,000 annually to 1,000 or so in 1986, a traditional track structure consists of two rails, fixed at a designated distance apart, and supported on transverse sleepers. Some advanced track structures support the rails on a concrete or asphalt slab, the running surface of the rails is required to be practically continuous and of the proper geometrical layout. 170 broken rails were reported on Network Rail in the UK in 2008, in jointed track, rails are usually connected with bolted fishplates. The web of the rail experiences large shear forces and these are enhanced around the bolt hole, where track maintenance is poor, metallurgical fatigue can result in the propagation of star cracking from the bolthole. In extreme situations this can lead to a piece of rail at the joint becoming detached. Local embrittlement of the parent metal may take place due to wheel spin, the fishplates in jointed track may fail, allowing the rails to pull apart in extremely cold weather, this is usually associated with uncorrected rail creep. Derailment may take place due to excessive gauge widening, in which the sleepers or other fastenings fail to maintain the proper gauge, the crabbing effect referred to above is more marked in dry conditions, when the coefficient of friction at the wheel to rail interface is high. The running gear — wheelsets, bogies, and suspension — may fail, modern technologies have reduced the incidence of these failures considerably, both by design and intervention. The last condition applies if the suspension springing has a stiffness optimised for the condition, or for a compromise loading condition. The vehicle wheelsets become momentarily unloaded vertically so that the guidance required from the flanges or wheel tread contact is inadequate, a special case is heat related buckling, in hot weather the rail steel expands. This is managed by stressing continuously welded rails and by providing proper expansion gaps at joints, in addition, lateral restraint is provided by an adequate ballast shoulder. If any of these measures are inadequate, the track may buckle, a large lateral distortion takes place, junctions and other changes of routing on railways are generally made by means of points. In the early days of railways these were moved independently by local staff, accidents — usually collisions — took place when staff forgot which route the points were set for, or overlooked the approach of a train on a conflicting route. If the points were not correctly set for either route — set in mid-stroke — it is possible for a passing to derail
6.
PATH (rail system)
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The PATH is operated by, and named after, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. PATH trains run 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, the system has a route length of 13.8 miles, not including any route overlap. As of October 2016, PATH had a weekday ridership of 276,417. PATH trains only use tunnels in Manhattan, Hoboken and downtown Jersey City, the tracks cross the Hudson River through century-old cast iron tubes that rest on the river bottom under a thin layer of silt. PATHs route from Grove Street in Jersey City west to Newark runs in open cuts, at grade level, PATH does accept the same pay-per-ride MetroCard used by the New York City Transit system, but it does not accept unlimited ride, reduced fare, or EasyPay MetroCards. The history of PATH predates the New York City Subways first underground line, PATH was originally known as the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad. Although the railroad was first planned in 1874, existing technologies could not safely tunnel under the Hudson River, construction began on the existing tunnels in 1890, but stopped shortly thereafter when funding ran out. Construction resumed in 1900 under the direction of William Gibbs McAdoo, McAdoo later became president of what was known, for many years, as the H&M, Hudson Tubes or McAdoo Tunnels. Haskins plan was to excavate the tunnel, then fill it with compressed air to expel the water and to hold the iron plate lining in place. When the New York & Jersey Tunnel Company resumed construction on the tunnels in 1902, an enormous mechanical shield was pushed through the silt at the bottom of the river. The displaced mud was placed into a chamber, where it was later shoveled into small cars that hauled it to the surface. In some cases, the silt was baked with kerosene torches to facilitate removal of the mud. The southern tunnel of the pair was constructed using the tubular cast iron method. Construction of the tunnels was completed in 1906. A second pair of tunnels was built about 1 1⁄4 miles south of the first pair, construction began in 1906 and was completed in 1909, also using the tubular cast iron method. Each track enjoys its own tunnel, which enables a better ventilation via the piston effect. By contrast, the ends of the tunnels, located underneath Manhattan, employed cut. On July 19,1909, service began between the Hudson Terminal in Lower Manhattan and Exchange Place in Jersey City, through the downtown tubes, the connection between Exchange Place and the junction near Hoboken Terminal opened on August 2,1909
7.
Hoboken, New Jersey
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Hoboken is a city in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. Hoboken is part of the New York metropolitan area and is the site of Hoboken Terminal, Hoboken was first settled as part of the Pavonia, New Netherland colony in the 17th century. During the early 19th century the city was developed by Colonel John Stevens, first as a resort and it became a township in 1849 and was incorporated as a city in 1855. Hoboken is the location of the first recorded game of baseball and of the Stevens Institute of Technology, located on the Hudson Waterfront, the city was an integral part of the Port of New York and New Jersey and home to major industries for most of the 20th century. The character of the city has changed from a blue collar town to one of upscale shops, the name Hoboken was chosen by Colonel John Stevens when he bought land, on a part of which the city still sits. Like Weehawken, its neighbor to the north, Communipaw and Harsimus to the south, Hoebuck, old Dutch for high bluff and likely referring to Castle Point, was used during the colonial era and later spelled as Hobuck, Hobock, Hobuk and Hoboocken. The origin of Hobokens name was not related to the Hoboken district of Antwerp, however, in the nineteenth century, a folk etymology had emerged linking the town of to the similarly-named Flemish town. Hoboken was originally an island, surrounded by the Hudson River on the east and it was a seasonal campsite in the territory of the Hackensack, a phratry of the Lenni Lenape, who used the serpentine rock found there to carve pipes. Soon after it part of the province of New Netherland. Three Lenape sold the land that was to become Hoboken for 80 fathoms of wampum,20 fathoms of cloth,12 kettles, six guns and these transactions, variously dated as July 12,1630 and November 22,1630, represent the earliest known conveyance for the area. Pauw failed to settle the land, and he was obliged to sell his holdings back to the Company in 1633 and it was later acquired by Hendrick Van Vorst, who leased part of the land to Aert Van Putten, a farmer. In 1643, north of what would be known as Castle Point, Van Putten built a house. In series of Indian and Dutch raids and reprisals, Van Putten was killed and his buildings destroyed, deteriorating relations with the Lenape, its isolation as an island, or relatively long distance from New Amsterdam may have discouraged more settlement. In 1664, the English took possession of New Amsterdam with little or no resistance, english-speaking settlers interspersed with the Dutch, but it remained scarcely populated and agrarian. At the end of the Revolutionary War, Bayards property was confiscated by the Revolutionary Government of New Jersey, in 1784, the land described as William Bayards farm at Hoebuck was bought at auction by Colonel John Stevens for £18,360. In the early 19th century, Colonel John Stevens developed the waterfront as a resort for Manhattanites, on October 11,1811, Stevens ship the Juliana, began to operate as a ferry between Manhattan and Hoboken, making it the worlds first commercial steam ferry. In 1825, he designed and built a locomotive capable of hauling several passenger cars at his estate. Sybils Cave, a cave with a spring, was opened in 1832
8.
Manhattan
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Manhattan is the most densely populated borough of New York City, its economic and administrative center, and the citys historical birthplace. The borough is coextensive with New York County, founded on November 1,1683, Manhattan is often described as the cultural and financial capital of the world and hosts the United Nations Headquarters. Many multinational media conglomerates are based in the borough and it is historically documented to have been purchased by Dutch colonists from Native Americans in 1626 for 60 guilders which equals US$1062 today. New York County is the United States second-smallest county by land area, on business days, the influx of commuters increases that number to over 3.9 million, or more than 170,000 people per square mile. Manhattan has the third-largest population of New York Citys five boroughs, after Brooklyn and Queens, the City of New York was founded at the southern tip of Manhattan, and the borough houses New York City Hall, the seat of the citys government. The name Manhattan derives from the word Manna-hata, as written in the 1609 logbook of Robert Juet, a 1610 map depicts the name as Manna-hata, twice, on both the west and east sides of the Mauritius River. The word Manhattan has been translated as island of hills from the Lenape language. The United States Postal Service prefers that mail addressed to Manhattan use New York, NY rather than Manhattan, the area that is now Manhattan was long inhabited by the Lenape Native Americans. In 1524, Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano – sailing in service of King Francis I of France – was the first European to visit the area that would become New York City. It was not until the voyage of Henry Hudson, an Englishman who worked for the Dutch East India Company, a permanent European presence in New Netherland began in 1624 with the founding of a Dutch fur trading settlement on Governors Island. In 1625, construction was started on the citadel of Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan Island, later called New Amsterdam, the 1625 establishment of Fort Amsterdam at the southern tip of Manhattan Island is recognized as the birth of New York City. In 1846, New York historian John Romeyn Brodhead converted the figure of Fl 60 to US$23, variable-rate myth being a contradiction in terms, the purchase price remains forever frozen at twenty-four dollars, as Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace remarked in their history of New York. Sixty guilders in 1626 was valued at approximately $1,000 in 2006, based on the price of silver, Straight Dope author Cecil Adams calculated an equivalent of $72 in 1992. In 1647, Peter Stuyvesant was appointed as the last Dutch Director General of the colony, New Amsterdam was formally incorporated as a city on February 2,1653. In 1664, the English conquered New Netherland and renamed it New York after the English Duke of York and Albany, the Dutch Republic regained it in August 1673 with a fleet of 21 ships, renaming the city New Orange. Manhattan was at the heart of the New York Campaign, a series of battles in the early American Revolutionary War. The Continental Army was forced to abandon Manhattan after the Battle of Fort Washington on November 16,1776. The city, greatly damaged by the Great Fire of New York during the campaign, became the British political, British occupation lasted until November 25,1783, when George Washington returned to Manhattan, as the last British forces left the city
