1.
0-4-0
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Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 0-4-0 represents one of the simplest possible types, that with two axles and four coupled wheels, all of which are driven. The wheels on the earliest four-coupled locomotives were connected by a gear wheel. The notation 0-4-0T indicates a locomotive of this wheel arrangement on which its water and fuel is carried on board the engine itself. In Britain, the Whyte notation of wheel arrangement was often used for the classification of electric and diesel-electric locomotives with side-rod-coupled driving wheels. The UICs Bo classification for electric and diesel-electric locomotives indicates that the axles are independently motored, the term Four-coupled is often used for 0-4-0 locomotives. Four-wheeled is also used, but this term can also encompass other wheel arrangements. 0-4-0 locomotives were built as tank locomotives as well as tender locomotives, the former was more common in Europe and the latter in the United States, except in the tightest of situations such as that of a shop switcher, where overall length was a concern. The earliest 0-4-0 locomotives were tender engines and appeared as early as c, 0-4-0 tank engines were introduced in the early 1850s. The type was found to be so useful in locations that they continued to be built for more than a century. Richard Trevithicks Coalbrookedale, Pen-y-Darren and Newcastle locomotives were of the 0-4-0 type, the first 0-4-0 to use coupling rods was Locomotion No. 1, built by Robert Stephenson and Company for the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1825, Stephenson also built the Lancashire Witch in 1828, and Timothy Hackworth built Sans Pareil which ran at the Rainhill Trials in 1829. The latter two later worked on the Bolton and Leigh Railway. A four-wheeled configuration, where all the wheels are driving wheels, the type was therefore mainly used for switchers and shunters. Because of the lack of stability, tender engines of type were only built for a few decades in the United Kingdom. They were built for a period in the United States. The possible tractive effort of an 0-4-0 within normal axle load limits was not enough to large loads. By 1900, they had largely been superseded for most purposes by locomotives with more complex wheel arrangements. They nevertheless continued to be used in situations where tighter radius curves existed or the length was an advantage
2.
Track gauge
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In rail transport, track gauge is the spacing of the rails on a railway track and is measured between the inner faces of the load-bearing rails. All vehicles on a network must have running gear that is compatible with the track gauge, as the dominant parameter determining interoperability, it is still frequently used as a descriptor of a route or network. There is a distinction between the gauge and actual gauge at some locality, due to divergence of track components from the nominal. Railway engineers use a device, like a caliper, to measure the actual gauge, the nominal track gauge is the distance between the inner faces of the rails. In current practice, it is specified at a distance below the rail head as the inner faces of the rail head are not necessarily vertical. In some cases in the earliest days of railways, the company saw itself as an infrastructure provider only. Colloquially the wagons might be referred to as four-foot gauge wagons, say and this nominal value does not equate to the flange spacing, as some freedom is allowed for. An infrastructure manager might specify new or replacement track components at a variation from the nominal gauge for pragmatic reasons. Track is defined in old Imperial units or in universally accepted metric units or SI units, Imperial units were established in United Kingdom by The Weights and Measures Act of 1824. In addition, there are constraints, such as the load-carrying capacity of axles. Narrow gauge railways usually cost less to build because they are lighter in construction, using smaller cars and locomotives, as well as smaller bridges, smaller tunnels. Narrow gauge is often used in mountainous terrain, where the savings in civil engineering work can be substantial. Broader gauge railways are generally expensive to build and require wider curves. There is no single perfect gauge, because different environments and economic considerations come into play, a narrow gauge is superior if ones main considerations are economy and tight curvature. For direct, unimpeded routes with high traffic, a broad gauge may be preferable, the Standard, Russian, and 46 gauges are designed to strike a reasonable balance between these factors. In addition to the general trade-off, another important factor is standardization, once a standard has been chosen, and equipment, infrastructure, and training calibrated to that standard, conversion becomes difficult and expensive. This also makes it easier to adopt an existing standard than to invent a new one and this is true of many technologies, including railroad gauges. The reduced cost, greater efficiency, and greater economic opportunity offered by the use of a common standard explains why a number of gauges predominate worldwide
3.
3 ft 6 in gauge railways
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Railways with a track gauge of 3 ft 6 in/1,067 mm were first constructed as horse-drawn wagonways. From the mid-nineteenth century, the 3 ft 6 in gauge became widespread in the British Empire, there are approximately 112,000 kilometres of 1,067 mm gauge track in the world. 1795 One of the first railways to use 3 ft 6 in gauge was the Little Eaton Gangway in England, other 3 ft 6 in gauge wagonways in England and Wales were also built in the early nineteenth century. 1862 In 1862 the Norwegian engineer Carl Abraham Pihl constructed the first 3 ft 6 in gauge railway in Norway,1865 In 1865 the Queensland Railways were constructed. Its 3 ft 6 in gauge was promoted by the Irish engineer Abraham Fitzgibbon,1868 In 1868 Charles Fox asks civil engineer Edmund Wragge to survey a 3 ft 6 in railway in Costa Rica. 1871 In 1871 the Canadian Toronto, Grey and Bruce Railway,1872 In January 1872 Robert Fairlie advocated the use of 3 ft 6 in gauge in his book Railways Or No Railways, Narrow Gauge, Economy with Efficiency v. Broad Gauge, Costliness with Extravagance. 1872 also saw the opening of the first 3 ft 6 in gauge railway in Japan,1873 On 1 January 1873, the first 3 ft 6 in gauge railway was opened in New Zealand, constructed by the British firm John Brogden and Sons. Earlier built 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in and broad gauge railways were converted to the narrower gauge. Also in 1873 the Cape Colony adopted the 3 ft 6 in gauge, after conducting several studies in southern Europe, the Molteno Government selected the gauge as being the most economically suited for traversing steep mountain ranges. Beginning in 1873, under supervision of Railway engineer of the Colony William Brounger, the Cape Government Railways rapidly expanded and the gauge became the standard for southern Africa. 1876 Natal also converted its short 10 kilometres long Durban network from 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in broad gauge prior to commencing with construction of a network across the colony in 1876. Other new railways in Southern Africa, notably Mozambique, Bechuanaland, after 1876 In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century numerous 3 ft 6 in gauge tram systems were built in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. In Sweden, the gauge was nicknamed Blekinge gauge, as most of the railways in the province of Blekinge had this gauge. An alternate name for this gauge, Cape gauge, is named after the Cape Colony in what is now South Africa, the term Cape Gauge is used in other languages, such as the Dutch kaapspoor, German Kapspur, Norwegian kappspor and French voie cape. After metrication in the 1960s, the gauge was referred to in official South African Railways publications as 1065 mm instead of 1067 mm, the gauge is sometimes referred to as CAP gauge, after C. A. The gauge name Colonial Gauge was used in New Zealand, in Australia the imperial term 3 foot 6 inch is used. In some Australian publications the term medium gauge is also used, in Japan 1,067 mm gauge is referred to as kyōki, which directly translates as narrow gauge. It is defined in metric units, Cape Government Railways Heritage railway List of track gauges Norwegian gauge controversy South African Trains – A Pictorial Encyclopaedia Why Did Japan Choose the 36 Narrow Gauge
4.
Valve gear
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It can also serve as a reversing gear. It is sometimes referred to as the motion, in the simple case, this can be a relatively simple task as in the internal combustion engine in which the valves always open and close at the same points. A further benefit may be obtained by admitting the steam to the cylinder slightly before front or back dead centre and this advanced admission assists in cushioning the inertia of the motion at high speed. Instead, a system of eccentrics, cranks and levers is used to control a D slide valve or piston valve from the motion. Generally, two simple harmonic motions with different fixed phase angles are added in varying proportions to provide a motion that is variable in phase. A variety of mechanisms have been devised over the years. Both slide and piston valves have the limitation that intake and exhaust events are fixed in relation to each other, lap is provided on steam edges of the valve, so that although the valve stroke reduces as cutoff is advanced, the valve is always fully opened to exhaust. However, as cutoff is shortened, the exhaust events also advance, the exhaust release point occurs earlier in the power stroke and compression earlier in the exhaust stroke. Early release wastes some energy in the steam, and early closure also wastes energy in compressing an otherwise unnecessarily large quantity of steam and these inefficiencies drove the widespread experimentation in poppet valve gears for locomotives. Intake and exhaust poppet valves could be moved and controlled independently of each other, a very late British design, the SR Leader class, used sleeve valves adapted from internal combustion engines, but this class was not a success. In stationary steam engines, traction engines and marine engine practice, in stationary engines trip valves were also extensively used. Valve gear was a field of invention, with probably several hundred variations devised over the years. However, only a number of these saw any widespread use. They can be divided into those that drove the standard reciprocating valves, those used with poppet valves, slip-eccentric - This gear is now confined to model steam engines, and low power hobby applications such as steam launch engines, ranging to a few horsepower. The eccentric is loose on the crankshaft but there are stops to limit its rotation relative to the crankshaft, the engine is pushed forwards to put the eccentric in the forward gear position and backwards to put it in the backward gear position. There is no control of cutoff. These included the Teutonic, Greater Britain and John Hick classes, gab or hook gear - used on earliest locomotives. Allowed reversing but no control of cutoff, one component of the motion comes from a crank or eccentric
5.
Railway coupling
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A coupling is a mechanism for connecting rolling stock in a train. The design of the coupler is standard, and is almost as important as the gauge, since flexibility. The equipment that connects the couplings to the stock is known as the draft gear. The different types of coupling do not always have formal or official names and these couplings followed earlier tramway practice but were made more regular. The vehicles are coupled by hand using a hook and links with a turnbuckle that draws the vehicles together, in Britain, this is called a screw coupling. Vehicles have buffers, one at each corner on the ends and this arrangement limits the slack in trains and lessens shocks. The earliest buffers were fixed extensions of the frames. This coupling is still the standard in European countries, the link-and-pin coupling was the original style of coupling used on North American railways. After most railroads converted to semi-automatic Janney couplers, the link-and-pin survived on forestry railways, while simple in principle, the system suffered from a lack of standardisation regarding size and height of the links, and the size and height of the pockets. The link-and-pin coupler consisted of a body that received an oblong link. During coupling, a worker had to stand between the cars as they came together and guide the link into the coupler pocket. Once the cars were joined, the employee inserted a pin into a hole a few inches from the end of the tube to hold the link in place. This procedure was exceptionally dangerous and many brakemen lost fingers or entire hands when they did not get out of the way of the coupler pockets in time. Many more were killed as a result of being crushed between cars or dragged under cars that were coupled too quickly, brakemen were issued with heavy clubs that could be used to hold the link in position, but many brakemen would not use the club, and risked injury. The link-and-pin coupler proved unsatisfactory because, It made a connection between the cars, with too much slack action. There was no design, and train crews often spent hours trying to match pins. Crew members had to go between moving cars during coupling, and were injured and sometimes killed. The links and pins were often pilfered due to their value as scrap metal, john H. White suggests that the railroads considered this to be more important than the safety issue at the time
6.
Cape Government Railways
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The Cape Government Railways was the government-owned railway operator in the Cape Colony from 1874 until the creation of the South African Railways in 1910. The first railways at the Cape were privately owned, the Cape Town Railway and Dock Company started construction from Cape Town in 1859, reaching Eerste River by 1862 and Wellington by 1863. Meanwhile, by 1864 the Wynberg Railway Company had connected Cape Town, for the moment, railway development at the Cape did not continue eastwards beyond Wellington because of the barrier presented by the mountains of the Cape Fold Belt. The discovery of diamonds, and the consequent rush to Kimberley that started in 1871, in his very first speech to the Cape Parliament he announced the purchase of all existing lines and the founding of the Cape Government Railways. The announced expansion was to see the construction of a network over ten times more extensive than the length of railway that existed in the whole of southern Africa at the time. This gauge went on to become the standard for all railways in southern, the government planned for lines to strike northwards, from the three ports of Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and East London, towards Kimberley and the developing hinterland. These three lines became known as the Cape Western, Cape Midland and Cape Eastern lines respectively, the Cape Western Line was charted by the Prime Minister himself. The Cape Midland Line only began when the Cape Government took over the rudimentary and incomplete line of the Port Elizabeth, however building accelerated massively over the next few years, with twin lines reaching northwards to Graaff-Reinet, and eastwards to Grahamstown. These connected with the Cape Western Line at De Aar and thus to Kimberley, the Cape Eastern Line was built partially to serve the frontier, and its network of military forts. The port of East London was likewise chosen partly for strategic reasons, the line was begun in 1873, when the Prime Minister turning the first spades for both the East London harbour and the Eastern Railway Line on 20 August 1873. Though frontier wars disrupted construction from time to time, the line reached Queenstown in 1880, from an initial total of 92 kilometres in 1872, the Cape was now criss-crossed with over 2,000 kilometres of railway. In 1886 gold was discovered in the South African Republic, setting off the Witwatersrand Gold Rush and this line reached Bloemfontein in 1890, and the first trains operated from Cape Town to Johannesburg in 1892. In 1897 the OFS government took control of its portion of the line. The Cape railway network played a significant role in supporting and supplying the British forces during the Second Boer War, Cape Gauge Rail transport in South Africa Kleingeld, Christo. Locomotives of the South African Railways, ISBN 0-86977-211-2 Burman, Jose, Early Railways at the Cape, Cape Town, Human & Rousseau, ISBN 0-7981-1760-5
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