Tay Rail Bridge
The Tay Bridge carries the main-line railway across the Firth of Tay in Scotland, between the city of Dundee and the suburb of Wormit in Fife. The present structure is the one on its site. From about 1854, there had been plans for a Tay crossing, the first bridge, opened in 1878, was a single-track lattice design, notable for lightness and low cost. Its sudden collapse in a high wind on 28 December 1879 was one of the great engineering disasters of history, the second bridge was a double-track construction of iron and steel, opened in 1887 and still in service. In 2003, a strengthening and refurbishing project was recognised by an award for the scale. The original Tay Bridge was designed by noted railway engineer Thomas Bouch and it was a lattice-grid design, combining cast and wrought iron. The design was known, having been used first by Kennard in the Crumlin Viaduct in South Wales in 1858. However, the Crystal Palace was not as loaded as a railway bridge. A previous cast iron design, the Dee bridge which collapsed in 1847, Gustave Eiffel used a similar design to create several large viaducts in the Massif Central.
Proposals for constructing a bridge across the Tay date back to at least 1854, the North British Railway Act received the Royal Assent on 15 July 1870 and the foundation stone was laid on 22 July 1871. The original design was for lattice girders supported by brick piers resting on bedrock shown by trial borings to lie at no great depth under the river. At either end of the bridge the single track ran on top of the bridge girder. In the centre section of the bridge the railway ran inside the bridge girder, to accommodate thermal expansion there were few rigid connections between girders and piers. As the bridge extended out into the river, it clear that the bedrock really lay much deeper. Bouch redesigned it quickly to reduce the number of piers and correspondingly increase the span of the girders, to reduce the weight the ground under the caissons would have to support, the brick piers were replaced by open lattice iron skeleton piers. Bouch’s pier design set 6 columns in a hexagon, this maximised the pier width, the engineering details on the Tay Bridge were considerably simpler and cheaper than on the earlier viaducts.
On these the machined base of each column section docked securely into an enlarged section of the top of the section below. The joint was secured by bolts through matching holes on lugs or flanges on the two sections and this spigot and faucet configuration was used on some Tay Bridge pier columns, but on some the bolts were relied upon to ensure correct alignment
Manhattan
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, 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
Order of the Bath
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the medieval ceremony for appointing a knight. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath, George I erected the Knights of the Bath into a regular Military Order. Prior to 1815, the order had only a class, Knight Companion. Recipients of the Order are now usually senior officers or senior civil servants. Commonwealth citizens who are not subjects of the Queen and foreign nationals may be made Honorary Members, in the Middle Ages, knighthood was often conferred with elaborate ceremonies. These usually involved the taking a bath during which he was instructed in the duties of knighthood by more senior knights. He was put to bed to dry, clothed in a special robe, he was led with music to the chapel where he spent the night in a vigil. At dawn he made confession and attended Mass, retired to his bed to sleep until it was fully daylight, in the early medieval period the difference seems to have been that the full ceremonies were used for men from more prominent families.
Knights Bachelor continued to be created with the form of ceremony. The last occasion on which Knights of the Bath were created was the coronation of Charles II in 1661. From at least 1625, and possibly from the reign of James I, Knights of the Bath were using the motto Tria iuncta in uno, and wearing as a badge three crowns within a plain gold oval. These were both adopted by the Order of the Bath, a similar design of badge is still worn by members of the Civil Division. Their symbolism however is not entirely clear, the three joined in one may be a reference to the kingdoms of England and either France or Ireland, which were held by English and, British monarchs. This would correspond to the three crowns in the badge, another explanation of the motto is that it refers to the Holy Trinity. The prime mover in the establishment of the Order of the Bath was John Anstis, Garter King of Arms, the Court remained the centre of the political world. The King was limited in that he had to choose Ministers who could command a majority in Parliament, the leader of an administration still had to command the Kings personal confidence and approval.
A strong following in Parliament depended on being able to supply places, the attraction of the new Order for Walpole was that it would provide a source of such favours to strengthen his political position
Elevated railway
An elevated railway is a rapid transit railway with the tracks above street level on a viaduct or other elevated structure. The railway may be standard gauge, narrow gauge, light rail, Elevated railways are usually used in urban areas where there would otherwise be a large number of level crossings. Most of the time, the tracks of elevated railways that run on steel viaducts can be seen from street level, the earliest elevated railway was the London and Greenwich Railway on a brick viaduct of 878 arches, built between 1836 and 1838. The first 2.5 miles of the London and Blackwall Railway was on a viaduct, during the 1840s there were other schemes for elevated railways in London which did not come to fruition. From the late 1860s elevated railways became popular in US cities, the New York West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway operated with cable cars from 1868 to 1870, thereafter locomotive-hauled. This was followed by the Manhattan Railway in 1875, the South Side Elevated Railroad, the Chicago transit system itself is known as L, short for elevated.
The Berlin Stadtbahn is mainly elevated, the first electric elevated railway was the Liverpool Overhead Railway, which operated through Liverpool docks from 1893 until 1956. In London, the Docklands Light Railway is an elevated railway that opened in 1987 and. The trains are driverless and automatic, another modern elevated railway is Tokyos driverless Yurikamome line, opened in 1995. Most monorails are elevated railways, such as the Disneyland Monorail System, the Tokyo Monorail, the Sydney Monorail, the KL Monorail, the Las Vegas Monorail, many maglev railways are elevated. During the 1890s there was some interest in railways, particularly in Germany, with the Schwebebahn Dresden. H-Bahn suspension railways were built in Dortmund and Düsseldorf airport,1975, the Memphis Suspension Railway opened in 1982. Shonan Monorail and Chiba Urban Monorail in Japan, despite their names, are suspension railways too, People mover or automated people mover is a type of driverless grade-separated, mass-transit system.
The term is used only to describe systems that serve as loops or feeder systems. Similar to monorails, Bombardier Innovia APM technology uses only one rail to guide the vehicle along the guideway, aPMs are common at airports and effective at helping passengers quickly reach their gates. Elevator Grade separation Monorail Railway Rapid transit People mover Trackless
Aswan Low Dam
The Aswan Low Dam or Old Aswan Dam is a gravity masonry buttress dam on the Nile River in Aswan, Egypt. The dam was built at the former first cataract of the Nile, when initially constructed between 1899 and 1902, nothing of its scale had ever been attempted, on completion, it was the largest masonry dam in the world. The dam was designed to provide storage of floodwater and augment dry season flows to support greater irrigation development. These heightenings still did not meet demands and in 1946 it was nearly over-topped in an effort to maximize pool elevation. This led to the investigation and construction of the Aswan High Dam 6 kilometres upstream, after his field work convinced him of the impracticality of this scheme, and fearing the Caliphs anger, he feigned madness. He was kept under house arrest from 1011 until al-Hakims death in 1021, following their 1882 invasion and occupation of Egypt, the British began construction of the first dam across the Nile in 1898. Construction lasted until 1902, and it was opened on 10 December 1902, by HRH the Duke of Connaught and financing were furnished by Ernest Cassel.
The dam was constructed of masonry and faced with red ashlar granite. When constructed, the Old Aswan Dam was the largest masonry dam in the world, at the time of its construction, nothing of such scale had ever been attempted. The first phase was supervised by Sir Benjamin Baker, though much of the work was undertaken by Murdoch MacDonald. With its final raising, the dam is 1,950 metres in length, with a crest level 36 metres above the original riverbed, the dam provides the main route for traffic between the city and the airport. With the construction of the High Dam upstream, the Old Dams ability to pass the floods sediments was lost, the previous Old Dam reservoir level was lowered and now provides control of tailwater for the High Dam. The Aswan Low Dam supports two hydroelectric plants, Aswan I and Aswan II. Aswan I contains 7 X40 megawatts generators with Kaplan turbines for a capacity of 280 megawatts and is located west of the dam. Aswan II contains 4 x 67.5 megawatts generators for a capacity of 270 megawatts and is located at the toe of the dam.
Perennial irrigation and flood protection for Egypt, reports of the Technical Commission on Reservoirs with a note by W. E. Garstin, under Secretary of State, Public Works Department, sidney Peel, The Binding of the Nile and the new Soudan, Oxford 1904. Discusses Assouan Dam and Nile River development, the Assuan Dam, Journal of the Royal African Society, Vol.12, No
Tay Bridge disaster
The Tay Bridge disaster occurred during a violent storm on 28 December 1879 when the first Tay Rail Bridge collapsed while a train was passing over it from Wormit to Dundee, killing all aboard. The bridge—designed by Sir Thomas Bouch—used lattice girders supported by piers, with cast iron columns. The piers were narrower and their cross-bracing was less extensive and robust than on similar designs by Bouch. There were other flaws in detailed design, in maintenance, and in quality control of castings, all of which were, at least in part, Bouch died within the year, with his reputation as an engineer ruined. Future British bridge designs had to allow for wind loadings of up to 56 pounds per square foot, Bouchs design for the Forth Bridge was not used. Construction began in 1871 of a bridge to be supported by brick piers resting on bedrock, trial borings had shown the bedrock to lie at no great depth under the river. At either end of the bridge, the girders were deck trusses. However, in the section of the bridge the bridge girders ran as through trusses above the pier tops in order to give the required clearance to allow passage of sailing ships to Perth.
The bedrock actually lay much deeper than the trial borings had shown, the pier foundations were now constructed by sinking brick-lined wrought-iron caissons onto the riverbed, and filling these with concrete. To reduce the weight these had to support, Bouch used open-lattice iron skeleton piers, wrought iron horizontal braces and diagonal tiebars linked the columns in each pier to provide rigidity and stability. The basic concept was known, but for the Tay Bridge. For the higher portion of the bridge, there were 13 girder spans, in order to accommodate thermal expansion, at only 3 of their 14 piers was there a fixed connection from the pier to the girders. There were therefore 3 divisions of linked high girder spans, the spans in each division being structurally connected to each other, the southern and central divisions were nearly level, but the northern division descended towards Dundee at gradients of up to 1 in 73. The bridge was built by Hopkin Gilkes and Company, a Middlesbrough company which had worked previously with Bouch on iron viaducts.
Gilkes, having first intended to produce all ironwork on Teesside, used a foundry at Wormit to produce the cast-iron components, Gilkes were in some financial difficulty, they ceased trading in 1880, but had begun liquidation in May 1879, before the disaster. The change in design increased cost and necessitated delay, intensified after two of the high girders fell when being lifted into place in February 1877, the first engine crossed the bridge in September,1877. A Board of Trade inspection was conducted three days of good weather in February 1878, the bridge was passed for use by passenger traffic. The bridge was opened for services on 1 June 1878
Egypt
Egypt, officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia by a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. Egypt is a Mediterranean country bordered by the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Gulf of Aqaba to the east, the Red Sea to the east and south, Sudan to the south, and Libya to the west. Across the Gulf of Aqaba lies Jordan, and across from the Sinai Peninsula lies Saudi Arabia, although Jordan and it is the worlds only contiguous Afrasian nation. Egypt has among the longest histories of any country, emerging as one of the worlds first nation states in the tenth millennium BC. Considered a cradle of civilisation, Ancient Egypt experienced some of the earliest developments of writing, urbanisation, organised religion and central government. One of the earliest centres of Christianity, Egypt was Islamised in the century and remains a predominantly Muslim country. With over 92 million inhabitants, Egypt is the most populous country in North Africa and the Arab world, the third-most populous in Africa, and the fifteenth-most populous in the world.
The great majority of its people live near the banks of the Nile River, an area of about 40,000 square kilometres, the large regions of the Sahara desert, which constitute most of Egypts territory, are sparsely inhabited. About half of Egypts residents live in areas, with most spread across the densely populated centres of greater Cairo, Alexandria. Modern Egypt is considered to be a regional and middle power, with significant cultural and military influence in North Africa, the Middle East and the Muslim world. Egypts economy is one of the largest and most diversified in the Middle East, Egypt is a member of the United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, Arab League, African Union, and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. Miṣr is the Classical Quranic Arabic and modern name of Egypt. The name is of Semitic origin, directly cognate with other Semitic words for Egypt such as the Hebrew מִצְרַיִם, the oldest attestation of this name for Egypt is the Akkadian
Rail transport in Great Britain
The railway system in Great Britain is the oldest in the world, the worlds first locomotive-hauled public railway opened in 1825. Most of the track is managed by Network Rail, which in 2016 had a network of 15,799 kilometres of standard-gauge lines. These lines range from single to quadruple track or more, in addition, some cities have separate rail-based mass transit systems. There are several private railways, which are primarily short tourist lines, the British railway network is connected with that of continental Europe by an undersea rail link, the Channel Tunnel, opened in 1994. The United Kingdom is a member of the International Union of Railways, the UIC Country Code for United Kingdom is 70. The UK has the 17th largest railway network in the world, in 2016, there were 1.718 billion journeys on the National Rail network, making the British network the fifth most used in the world. Unlike a number of countries, rail travel in the United Kingdom has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years.
This has coincided with the privatisation of British Rail, but the effect of this is disputed, the growth is partly attributed to a shift away from private motoring due to growing road congestion and increasing petrol prices, but to the overall increase in travel due to affluence. However passenger journeys have grown much more quickly than in countries such as France. The early railways were a patchwork of local lines operated by private railway companies. Over the course of the 19th and early 20th centuries, these amalgamated or were bought by competitors until only a handful of companies remained. The entire network was brought under government control during the First World War, the government resisted calls for the nationalisation of the network. The Big Four were joint-stock public companies and they continued to run the system until 31 December 1947. The growth in road transport during the 1920s and 1930s greatly reduced revenue for the rail companies, Rail companies accused the government of favouring road haulage through the subsidised construction of roads.
The railways entered a decline owing to a lack of investment and changes in transport policy. During the Second World War the companies joined together, effectively forming one company. A maintenance backlog developed during the war and the sector only had two years to deal with this after the war ended. After 1945, for practical and ideological reasons, the government decided to bring the rail service into the public sector
Edward VII
Edward VII was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. The eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, before his accession to the throne, he served as heir apparent and held the title of Prince of Wales for longer than any of his predecessors. During the long reign of his mother, he was excluded from political power. He travelled throughout Britain performing ceremonial duties, and represented Britain on visits abroad. His tours of North America in 1860 and the Indian subcontinent in 1875 were popular successes, as king, Edward played a role in the modernisation of the British Home Fleet and the reorganisation of the British Army after the Second Boer War. He reinstituted traditional ceremonies as public displays and broadened the range of people with whom royalty socialised and he died in 1910 in the midst of a constitutional crisis that was resolved the following year by the Parliament Act 1911, which restricted the power of the unelected House of Lords.
Edward was born at 10,48 in the morning on 9 November 1841 in Buckingham Palace and he was the eldest son and second child of Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. He was christened Albert Edward at St Georges Chapel, Windsor Castle and he was named Albert after his father and Edward after his maternal grandfather Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn. He was known as Bertie to the family throughout his life. As the eldest son of the British sovereign, he was automatically Duke of Cornwall, as a son of Prince Albert, he held the titles of Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Duke of Saxony. He was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester on 8 December 1841, Earl of Dublin on 17 January 1850, a Knight of the Garter on 9 November 1858, and a Knight of the Thistle on 24 May 1867. In 1863, he renounced his rights to the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in favour of his younger brother. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were determined that their eldest son should have an education that would prepare him to be a constitutional monarch.
At age seven, Edward embarked on an educational programme devised by Prince Albert. Unlike his elder sister Victoria, Edward did not excel in his studies and he tried to meet the expectations of his parents, but to no avail. Although Edward was not a diligent student—his true talents were those of charm and tact—Benjamin Disraeli described him as informed, after the completion of his secondary-level studies, his tutor was replaced by a personal governor, Robert Bruce. After an educational trip to Rome, undertaken in the first few months of 1859, he spent the summer of that year studying at the University of Edinburgh under, among others, in October, he matriculated as an undergraduate at Christ Church, Oxford. Now released from the strictures imposed by his parents, he enjoyed studying for the first time
Order of St Michael and St George
It is named in honour of two military saints, St Michael and St George. People are appointed to the Order rather than awarded it, British Ambassadors to foreign nations are regularly appointed as KCMGs or CMGs. It is the award for members of the FCO. The Orders motto is Auspicium melioris ævi and its patron saints, as the name suggests, are St. Michael the Archangel, and St. George, patron saint of England. One of its symbols is that of St Michael trampling over. The third of the aforementioned Orders—which relates to Ireland, no longer fully a part of the United Kingdom—still exists but is in disuse, the last of the Orders on the list, related to India, has been in disuse since that countrys independence in 1947. In 1864, the protectorate ended and the Ionian Islands became a part of Greece, numerous Governors-General and Governors feature as recipients of awards in the order. In 1965, the order was open for women, with Evelyn Bark becoming the first CMG, the British Sovereign is the Sovereign of the Order and appoints all other members of the Order.
The next-most senior member is the Grand Master, the office was formerly filled by the Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands, however, Grand Masters are chosen by the Sovereign. Members of the Royal Family who are appointed to the Order do not count towards the limit, the Orders King of Arms is not a member of the College of Arms, like many other heraldic officers. The Usher of the Order is known as the Gentleman Usher of the Blue Rod, he not, unlike his Order of the Garter equivalent. On the left side is a representation of the star, the mantle is bound with two large tassels. The collar, worn only by Knights and Dames Grand Cross, is made of gold and it consists of depictions of crowned lions, Maltese Crosses, and the cyphers SM and SG, all alternately. In the centre are two winged lions, each holding a book and seven arrows, at less important occasions, simpler insignia are used, The star is an insignia used only by Knights and Dames Grand Cross and Knights and Dames Commanders. It is worn pinned to the left breast, the Knight and Dame Grand Cross star includes seven-armed, silver-rayed Maltese Asterisk, with a gold ray in between each pair of arms.
The Knight and Dame Commanders star is a slightly smaller eight-pointed silver figure formed by two Maltese Crosses, it does not include any gold rays, in each case, the star bears a red cross of St George. In the centre of the star is a blue ring bearing the motto of the Order. Within the ring is a representation of St Michael trampling on Satan, the badge is the only insignia used by all members of the Order, it is suspended on a blue-crimson-blue ribbon
Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh judges to be eminently distinguished in their subject. Around 50 new fellows are elected each year in March, as of 2016 there are around 1650 Fellows, including 71 Honorary Fellows and 76 Corresponding Fellows. Fellows are entitled to use the post-nominal letters FRSE, examples of fellows include Peter Higgs and Jocelyn Bell Burnell. Previous fellows have included Melvin Calvin and Benjamin Franklin, see the Category, Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh for more examples
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). 