1.
Bungendore
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Bungendore is a town in the Queanbeyan Region of New South Wales, Australia, in Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council. It is on the Kings Highway near Lake George, the Molonglo River Valley and it has become a major tourist centre in recent years, popular with visitors from Canberra and some of it has heritage protection. It has expanded rapidly in recent years as a suburb of Canberra. Prior to European settlement, the area was occupied by the Ngarigo people, the first Europeans in the vicinity were members of the exploratory party of Dr Charles Throsby in 1820, who, along with Hamilton Hume, also originally explored the Braidwood area. In 1824, explorer Allan Cunningham passed through Bungendore, a year later, the first European settlers arrived. The mail service to Bungendore was introduced in 1837, enhancing the importance of the village, by 1848,30 people populated the seven buildings in the town of Bungendore. When the railway arrived on 4 March 1885, the town began to more quickly. New buildings appeared rapidly, such as churches, the courthouse/police station, the first post office was built in Bungendore in 1840, an Anglican church c 1843, and the Bungendore Inn in 1847. The latter became a Cobb and Co staging post, by 1851, the population was 63. The 1850s saw at least two other hotels established, a flour mill was built in 1861, St Marys Roman Catholic Church and two denominational schools in 1862, the courthouse in 1864 and a public school in 1868. In 1866, local crops grown were recorded as being wheat, oats, barley, tourism is now a major contributor to the economy. The town remained a railhead from 1885 until the line reached Queanbeyan in 1887, partly because of the coming railway, the 1880s proved a boom period for the town and the population increased from 270 in 1881, to 700 by 1885. By then, Queanbeyan was emerging as the town in the area. In 1894, gold was discovered at Bywong, in 1901, Lake George and Bungendore were proposed as sites for the nations capital city. This did not eventuate, as the drawcard of Lake George failed to impress the visiting Commissioners of the time, by 1909 rabbit trapping had become an extremely valuable industry in the area around Bungendore. The town itself had a plant that employed 14 workers. In the year ending 31 July 1909, over 1.5 million rabbits were frozen at Bungendore, in 1992 journalist Ian McPhedran wrote that Bungendores locals and business sector had developed a method of community cooperation superior to most other Australian small towns. Bungendore is quite near a known as Gibraltar Hill
2.
Railroad switch
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A railroad switch, turnout or points is a mechanical installation enabling railway trains to be guided from one track to another, such as at a railway junction or where a spur or siding branches off. The switch consists of the pair of linked tapering rails, known as points and these points can be moved laterally into one of two positions to direct a train coming from the point blades toward the straight path or the diverging path. A train moving from the end toward the point blades is said to be executing a facing-point movement. Passage through a switch in this direction is known as a trailing-point movement, a switch generally has a straight through track and a diverging route. The handedness of the installation is described by the side that the track leaves. Right-hand switches have a path to the right of the straight track, when coming from the point blades. In many cases, such as yards, many switches can be found in a short section of track. Sometimes a switch merely divides one track into two, at others, it serves as a connection between two or more tracks, allowing a train to switch between them. A straight track is not always present, for example, both tracks may curve, one to the left and one to the right, or both tracks may curve, with differing radii, while still in the same direction. A railroad cars wheels are guided along the tracks by coning of the wheels, only in extreme cases does it rely on the flanges located on the insides of the wheels. When the wheels reach the switch, the wheels are guided along the route determined by which of the two points is connected to the track facing the switch. In the illustration, if the point is connected, the left wheel will be guided along the rail of that point. If the right point is connected, the right wheels flange will be guided along the rail of that point, and the train will continue along the straight track. Only one of the points may be connected to the track at any time. A mechanism is provided to move the points from one position to the other, historically, this would require a lever to be moved by a human operator, and some switches are still controlled this way. However, most are now operated by a remotely controlled electric motor or by pneumatic or hydraulic actuation and this both allows for remote control and for stiffer, strong switches that would be too difficult to move by hand, yet allow for higher speeds. In a trailing-point movement, the flanges on the wheels will force the points to the proper position and this is sometimes known as running through the switch. Some switches are designed to be forced to the position without damage
3.
Australian Rail Track Corporation
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The Australian Rail Track Corporation is a Government of Australia owned statutory corporation, established in July 1998, that manages most of Australias interstate rail network. The ARTC was incorporated in February 1998, with starting in July 1998 when the lines managed by Australian Nationals Track Australia were transferred to it. These were the lines from Kalgoorlie to Port Augusta, Tarcoola to Alice Springs, Port Augusta to Whyalla, Adelaide to Broken Hill and Adelaide to Serviceton, and the Outer Harbor line in Adelaide. In 2000, the Tarcoola to Alice Springs line was leased to the Asia Pacific Transport Consortium as part of the project to extend the line to Darwin. In 1999, ARTC signed a deal with VicTrack, the rail manager for the Victorian government. This was later extended for another 10 years, and in May 2008 for another 45 years, included was construction of the five-kilometre Wodonga Rail Bypass which eliminated 11 level crossings in that city. In July 2008 it was announced the standard gauge track from Maroona to Portland would be leased to ARTC for 50 years, the line was handed over in March 2009. In September 2004, the Government of New South Wales-owned Rail Infrastructure Corporation leased its interstate, $186 million to upgrade the Main South line from Macarthur to Albury. The investment will improve signalling, extend the length of crossing loops and it will assist in reducing the transit times for freight trains between Sydney and Melbourne by three hours. $119 million for the North Coast line from Maitland to Border Loop including replacement of the 1920s signalling system between Casino and Border Loop, the investment will assist in reducing the travel time for freight trains between Sydney and Brisbane by up to 3.5 hours. $21 million for the Broken Hill line between Parkes and Broken Hill, including funds to raise height clearances allowing the passage of double-stacked container trains, the then NSW Rail Infrastructure Corporation also contracted operational responsibility of the remainder of its country branch lines to ARTC from September 2004. From January 2012 this was transferred to the John Holland Group, in July 2011, responsibility for the Werris Creek to North Star line was transferred from the Country Rail Infrastructure Authority. In August 2012, the Government of New South Wales owned RailCorp leased its Sydney Metropolitan Freight Network line from Port Botany to Sefton to ARTC for 50 years. In January 2010, the Government of Queensland leased its standard gauge line from Border Loop on the New South Wales border to Acacia Ridge, in February 2014, the Australian Government and Queensland Government agreed to investigate further incorporating Queensland into the national rail network. ARTC does not operate any trains, but provides and maintains the infrastructure for train operators to run on, the tracks controlled by ARTC are located in five states, and were previously run by six separate state railways in an uncoordinated fashion that gave an advantage to road transport. By combining the infrastructure under one corporation it was expected that an integrated and coordinated one-stop-shop would be created. It provides its own reporting numbers to trains that operate on its network, ARTC does not control any of the narrow gauge track in Queensland or South Australia, nor broad gauge track in Victoria. However it does control the Albion to Jacana freight line which has been converted to dual gauge for use as a passing lane
4.
Infrastructure
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Infrastructure refers to the fundamental facilities and systems serving a country, city, or area, including the services and facilities necessary for its economy to function. The word was imported from French, where it means subgrade, the word is a combination of the Latin prefix infra, meaning below, and structure. The military use of the term achieved currency in the United States after the formation of NATO in the 1940s and this crisis discussion contributed to an increase in infrastructure asset management and maintenance planning in the US. Public-policy discussions have been hampered by lack of a definition for infrastructure. A1987 US National Research Council panel adopted the public works infrastructure. The OECD also classifies communications as a part of infrastructure, the American Society of Civil Engineers has not defined the term, though issuing a US Infrastructure Report Card every 2-4 years. Hard infrastructure refers to the physical networks necessary for the functioning of an industrial nation. The term critical infrastructure distinguishes those infrastructure elements that, if damaged or destroyed. Similarly, a booking system might be critical infrastructure for an airline. These elements of infrastructure are the focus of efforts in the aftermath of natural disasters. The term infrastructure may be confused with the following overlapping or related concepts, service connections to municipal service and public utility networks would also be considered land improvements, not infrastructure. The term public works includes government-owned and operated infrastructure as well as buildings, such as schools. Public works generally refers to physical assets needed to deliver public services, public services include both infrastructure and services generally provided by government. Infrastructure may be owned and managed by governments or by private companies, generally, most roads, major ports and airports, water distribution systems and sewage networks are publicly owned, whereas most energy and telecommunications networks are privately owned. Publicly owned infrastructure may be paid for taxes, tolls, or metered user fees. Major investment projects are financed by the issuance of long-term bonds. Government owned and operated infrastructure may be developed and operated in the sector or in public-private partnerships. As of 2008 in the United States for example, public spending on infrastructure has varied between 2. 3% and 3. 6% of GDP since 1950, many financial institutions invest in infrastructure
5.
Track (rail transport)
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The track on a railway or railroad, also known as the permanent way, is the structure consisting of the rails, fasteners, railroad ties and ballast, plus the underlying subgrade. It enables trains to move by providing a surface for their wheels to roll upon. For clarity it is referred to as railway track or railroad track. Tracks where electric trains or electric trams run are equipped with a system such as an overhead electrical power line or an additional electrified rail. The term permanent way also refers to the track in addition to structures such as fences etc. Most railroads with heavy traffic use continuously welded rails supported by sleepers attached via baseplates that spread the load, a plastic or rubber pad is usually placed between the rail and the tieplate where concrete sleepers are used. The rail is held down to the sleeper with resilient fastenings. For much of the 20th century, rail track used softwood timber sleepers and jointed rails, jointed rails were used at first because contemporary technology did not offer any alternative. The joints also needed to be lubricated, and wear at the mating surfaces needed to be rectified by shimming. For this reason jointed track is not financially appropriate for heavily operated railroads, timber sleepers are of many available timbers, and are often treated with creosote, copper-chrome-arsenic, or other wood preservative. Pre-stressed concrete sleepers are used where timber is scarce and where tonnage or speeds are high. Steel is used in some applications, the track ballast is customarily crushed stone, and the purpose of this is to support the sleepers and allow some adjustment of their position, while allowing free drainage. A disadvantage of traditional track structures is the demand for maintenance, particularly surfacing and lining to restore the desired track geometry. Weakness of the subgrade and drainage deficiencies also lead to maintenance costs. This can be overcome by using ballastless track, in its simplest form this consists of a continuous slab of concrete with the rails supported directly on its upper surface. There are a number of systems, and variations include a continuous reinforced concrete slab. Many permutations of design have been put forward, however, ballastless track has a high initial cost, and in the case of existing railroads the upgrade to such requires closure of the route for a long period. Its whole-life cost can be lower because of the reduction in maintenance, some rubber-tyred metros use ballastless tracks
6.
Permanent way (history)
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The permanent way is the elements of railway lines, generally the pairs of rails typically laid on the sleepers embedded in ballast, intended to carry the ordinary trains of a railway. The earliest tracks consisted of wooden rails on wooden sleepers. Various developments followed, with cast iron laid on top of the wooden rails. Rails were also fixed to rows of stone blocks, without any cross ties to maintain correct separation. This system also led to problems, as the blocks could individually move, developments in manufacturing technologies has led to changes to the design, manufacture and installation of rails, sleepers and the means of attachments. Cast iron rails,4 feet long, began to be used in the 1790s, the first steel rails were made in 1857 and standard rail lengths increased over time from 30 to 60 feet. Rails were typically specified by units of weight per linear length, Railway sleepers were traditionally made of Creosote-treated hardwoods and this continued through to modern times. Continuous welded rail was introduced into Britain in the mid 1960s, the earliest use of a railway track seems to have been in connection with mining in Germany in the 12th century. Mine passageways were usually wet and muddy, and moving barrows of ore along them was extremely difficult, improvements were made by laying timber planks so that wheeled containers could be dragged along by manpower. By the 16th century, the difficulty of keeping the running straight had been solved by having a pin going into a gap between the planks. Georg Agricola describes box-shaped carts, called dogs, about half as large again as a wheelbarrow, fitted with a blunt vertical pin and wooden rollers running on iron axles. An Elizabethan era example of this has been discovered at Silvergill in Cumbria, England and this, probably a rope-hauled incline plane, had existed long before 1605. This probably preceded the Wollaton Wagonway of 1604, which has hitherto been regarded as the first, in Shropshire, the gauge was usually narrow, to enable the wagons to be taken underground in drift mines. However, by far the greatest number of wagonways were near Newcastle upon Tyne and these took coal from the pithead down to a staithe, where the coal was loaded into river boats called keels. Wear of the rails was a problem. They could be renewed by turning them over, but had to be regularly replaced, sometimes, the rail was made in two parts, so that the top portion could easily be replaced when worn out. The rails were held together by wooden sleepers, covered with ballast to provide a surface for the horse to walk on. Cast iron strips could be laid on top of timber rails, and the use of such materials probably occurred in 1738, but there are claims that this technology went back to 1716
7.
Baulk road
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Brunel sought an improved design for the railway track needed for the Great Western Railway, authorised by Act of Parliament in 1835 to link London and Bristol. He refused to accept received wisdom without challenge, to achieve this he needed a wider track gauge and he settled on a 7 ft broad gauge but it was soon eased slightly to 7 ft 1⁄4 in. His original intention to have the wheels outside the width of the bodies was abandoned, early locomotive-powered railways had used short cast iron rails carried on stone blocks. A few were trying timber sleepers to support the rails and to maintain the gauge between them and these rails were brittle and broke easily, and they gave a rough ride due to the difficulty of maintaining a smooth line between the blocks or sleepers. Wrought iron rails were being manufactured but they were of poor quality due to the difficulty of cooling them evenly during manufacture, brunel decided to use a continuously supported wrought iron rail, a bridge rail with a smaller rail section that cooled more evenly. This was a section with wide flanges that could be bolted to the timber bearer. The longitudinal baulks, and therefore the rails, were kept to gauge by transoms – transverse timber spacers –, the transom kept the longitudinals from getting too close together, the tie rods stopped them spreading too far apart. In later years the tie rods were replaced by strap bolts and these were bolted to the transoms and passed through a hole drilled through the longitudinal to a nut on the outside. He cut the piles away from the transoms and this solved the problem, the bridge rail for this line weighed 43 lb/yd but this was soon increased, generally to 62 lb/yd. The longitudinal baulks were around 12 in. wide and 5 in, deep or 10 by 7 in, but the sizes varied depending on the timber available and the weight of traffic to be carried. Transoms were around 6 by 9 in and initially spaced at 15 feet intervals, the GWR also used conventional cross-sleepered track, especially on 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in standard gauge lines. Although its last broad gauge track was replaced by standard gauge in 1892, converting broad gauge baulk road to standard was done by cutting the transoms and slewing the longitudinal and its rail to its new position. Between 1852 and 1892 an ever-increasing length of the Great Western Railway had been laid as mixed gauge that could be used by trains of either gauge. For baulk road this meant laying an additional longitudinal between the two, but this significantly increased the cost and complexity of the track compared to cross-sleepers. Vignoles rail was a section that today would be classed as flat-bottomed rail. In its original form it was only about 4 inches deep and was used on baulk road interchangeably with bridge rail, william Henry Barlow’s Barlow rail was patented in 1849 as a purely metal road. Deep rails with an inverted, curved V section were designed to be directly into the ballast. The rails weighed 93 lb/yd but this was increased to 99 lb/yd
