1.
Reporting mark
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A reporting mark is an alphabetic code of one to four letters used to identify owners or lessees of rolling stock and other equipment used on certain railroad networks. In North America the mark, which consists of an code of one to four letters, is stenciled on each piece of equipment. The Association of American Railroads assigns marks to all carriers, under authority granted by the U. S, surface Transportation Board, Transport Canada, and Mexican Government. Under current practice, the first letter must match the initial letter of the railroad name, as it also acts as a Standard Carrier Alpha Code, the reporting mark cannot conflict with codes in use by other nonrail carriers. In another example, the mark for state-funded Amtrak services in California is CDTX because the state transportation agency owns the equipment used in these services. This is why the reporting mark for CSX Transportation, which is a railroad, is CSXT instead of CSX. This often resulted in five-letter reporting marks, an option not otherwise allowed by the AAR, the standard ISO6346 covers identifiers for intermodal containers. When the owner of a mark is taken over by another company. For example, when the Union Pacific Railroad acquired the Chicago and North Western Railway in the 1990s, some companies own several marks that are used to identify different classes of cars, such as boxcars or gondolas. If the acquiring company discontinues the name or mark of the acquired company, occasionally, long-disused marks are suddenly revived by the companies which now own them. For example, in recent years, the Union Pacific Railroad has begun to use the mark CMO on newly built covered hoppers, gondolas, CMO originally belonged to a predecessor of the CNW, which passed it on to them, from which the UP inherited it. Some of these still retain their temporary NYC marks. Because of its size, this list has been split into subpages based on the first letter of the reporting mark, railinc, a subsidiary of the AAR, maintains the active reporting marks for the North American rail industry. Railinc offers a free online look-up of reporting marks and other industry reference files through the Railincs Freight Rail 411 website, a railway vehicle must be registered in a national vehicle register using a 12-digit number derived from the old UIC system of vehicle numbering. The number contains the country in the third and fourth digit. The VKM must not contain special signs or digits, the VKM is preceded by the code for the country, where the vehicle is registered and a hyphen. Some examples, When a vehicle is sold it does not normally be transferred to another register, the Czech railways bought large numbers of coaches from ÖBB. The number remained the same but the VKM changed from A-ÖBB to A-ČD, the UIC introduced a uniform numbering system for their members based on a 12-digit number, largely known as UIC number
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.
Pennsylvania
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Pennsylvania /ˌpɛnsᵻlˈveɪnjə/, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state located in the northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The Appalachian Mountains run through its middle, Pennsylvania is the 33rd largest, the 5th most populous, and the 9th most densely populated of the 50 United States. The states five most populous cities are Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Erie, the state capital, and its ninth-largest city, is Harrisburg. Pennsylvania has 140 miles of shoreline along Lake Erie and the Delaware Estuary. The state is one of the 13 original founding states of the United States, it came into being in 1681 as a result of a land grant to William Penn. Part of Pennsylvania, together with the present State of Delaware, had earlier been organized as the Colony of New Sweden and it was the second state to ratify the United States Constitution, on December 12,1787. Independence Hall, where the United States Declaration of Independence and United States Constitution were drafted, is located in the states largest city of Philadelphia, during the American Civil War, the Battle of Gettysburg, was fought in the south central region of the state. Valley Forge near Philadelphia was General Washingtons headquarters during the winter of 1777–78. Pennsylvania is 170 miles north to south and 283 miles east to west, of a total 46,055 square miles,44,817 square miles are land,490 square miles are inland waters, and 749 square miles are waters in Lake Erie. It is the 33rd largest state in the United States, Pennsylvania has 51 miles of coastline along Lake Erie and 57 miles of shoreline along the Delaware Estuary. Cities include Philadelphia, Reading, Lebanon and Lancaster in the southeast, Pittsburgh in the southwest, the tri-cities of Allentown, Bethlehem, the northeast includes the former anthracite coal mining communities of Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Pittston City, and Hazleton. Erie is located in the northwest, the state has 5 regions, namely the Allegheny Plateau, Ridge and Valley, Atlantic Coastal Plain, Piedmont, and the Erie Plain. Straddling two major zones, the majority of the state, with the exception of the corner, has a humid continental climate. The largest city, Philadelphia, has characteristics of the humid subtropical climate that covers much of Delaware. Moving toward the interior of the state, the winter climate becomes colder, the number of cloudy days increase. Western areas of the state, particularly locations near Lake Erie, can receive over 100 inches of snowfall annually, the state may be subject to severe weather from spring through summer into fall. Tornadoes occur annually in the state, sometimes in large numbers, the Tuscarora Nation took up temporary residence in the central portion of Pennsylvania ca. Both the Dutch and the English claimed both sides of the Delaware River as part of their lands in America
4.
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
5.
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
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The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad is one of the oldest railroads in the United States and the first common carrier railroad. At first this railroad was located entirely in the state of Maryland with a line from the port of Baltimore west to Sandy Hook. At this point to continue westward, it had to cross into Virginia over the Potomac River, adjacent to the confluence of the Potomac, from there it was extended to the Ohio River at Wheeling and a few years later also to Parkersburg, West Virginia. It is now part of the CSX Transportation network, and includes the oldest operational railroad bridge in the USA, the B&O also included the Leiper Railroad, the first permanent horse-drawn railroad in the U. S. In later years, B&O advertising carried the motto, Linking 13 Great States with the Nation, the B&O Warehouse at the Camden Yards rail junction in Baltimore now dominates the view over the right-field wall at the Baltimore Orioles current home, Oriole Park at Camden Yards. At the end of 1970 B&O operated 5552 miles of road and 10449 miles of track, not including the Staten Island Rapid Transit or the Reading and its subsidiaries. The fast-growing port city of Baltimore, Maryland faced economic stagnation unless it opened routes to the western states, as New York had done with the Erie Canal in 1820. In 1827, twenty-five merchants and bankers studied the best means of restoring that portion of the Western trade which has recently been diverted from it by the introduction of steam navigation and their answer was to build a railroad—one of the first commercial lines in the world. Two men — Philip E. Thomas and George Brown — were the pioneers of the railroad and they spent the year 1826 investigating railway enterprises in England, which were at that time being tested in a comprehensive fashion as commercial ventures. Their investigation completed, they held a meeting on February 12,1827, including about twenty-five citizens. Thomas was elected as the first president and Brown the treasurer, the capital of the proposed company was fixed at five million dollars, but the B&O was initially capitalized in 1827 with a three million dollar issue of stock. Virtually every citizen of Baltimore owned a share, as the offering was oversubscribed, construction began on July 4,1828, when Charles Carroll of Carrollton did the groundbreaking. The initial tracks were built with granite stringers topped by iron rails. The first section, from Baltimore west to Ellicotts Mills, opened on May 24,1830. Developers decided to follow the Patapsco River to a point near Parrs Ridge, a later compromise allowed the two companies to share the right of way. The State of Maryland granted the B&O a charter to build a line from Baltimore to Washington, D. C. in 1831, and the Washington Branch was opened in 1835. This line joined to the mainline at Relay, Maryland, crossing the Patapsco on the Thomas Viaduct. This line was funded by the state, and was operated separately until the 1870s
6.
Narrow-gauge railway
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A narrow-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge narrower than the 1,435 mm of standard gauge railways. Most existing narrow-gauge railways are between 600 mm and 1,067 mm, narrow-gauge railways also have specialized use in mines and other environments where a very small structure gauge makes a very small loading gauge necessary. Narrow-gauge railways also have general applications. Many narrow-gauge street tramways are used, particularly in Europe, where 1,000 mm metre gauge tramways are common, the earliest recorded railway is shown in the De re metallica of 1556, which shows a mine in Bohemia with a railway of about 2 ft gauge. During the 16th century, railways were mainly restricted to hand-pushed narrow-gauge lines in mines throughout Europe, during the 17th century, mine railways were extended to provide transportation above ground. These lines were industrial, connecting mines with nearby transportation points and these railways were usually built to the same narrow gauge as the mine railways from which they developed. The worlds first steam locomotive on rails, built in 1802 by Richard Trevithick for the Coalbrookdale Company, during the 1820s and 1830s, a number of industrial narrow-gauge railways in the United Kingdom used steam locomotives. In 1842, the first narrow-gauge steam locomotive outside the UK was built for the 1,100 mm gauge Antwerp-Ghent Railway in Belgium, historically, many narrow-gauge railways were built as part of specific industrial enterprises and were primarily industrial railways rather than general carriers. Some common uses for these industrial narrow-gauge railways were mining, logging, construction, tunnelling, quarrying, extensive narrow-gauge networks were constructed in many parts of the world for these purposes. For example, mountain logging operations in the 19th century often used narrow-gauge railways to transport logs from mill sites to market, significant sugarcane railways still operate in Cuba, Fiji, Java, the Philippines, and Queensland. Narrow-gauge railway equipment remains in use for the construction of tunnels. Extensive narrow-gauge railway systems served the front-line trenches of both sides in World War I and they were a short-lived military application, and after the end of the war, the surplus equipment from these created a small boom in narrow gauge railway building in Europe. 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. It is also used in populated areas where the potential demand is too low for broader gauge railways to be economically viable. This is the case in some of Australia and most of Southern Africa, the use of such railways has almost vanished due to the capabilities of modern trucks. In many countries, narrow gauge railways were built as feeder or branch lines to feed traffic to more important standard gauge lines, the choice was often not between a narrow-gauge railway and a standard gauge one, but between a narrow-gauge railway and none at all. Some bulk commodities, such as coal, ore, and gravel, can be transshipped, but this still incurs time penalties
7.
Conrail
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Conrail, formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. Conrail is a portmanteau of consolidated and rail from the name of the company, the Federal Government created Conrail to take over the potentially profitable lines of multiple bankrupt carriers, including the Penn Central Transportation Company and Erie Lackawanna Railway. With the benefit of regulatory requirements being reduced, Conrail began to turn a profit in the 1980s and was turned over to private investors in 1987. Following Surface Transportation Board approval, CSX and NS took control in August 1998, the old company remains a jointly-owned subsidiary, with CSX and NS owning respectively 42 percent and 58 percent of its stock, corresponding to how much of Conrails assets they acquired. Each parent, however, has a voting interest. The primary asset retained by Conrail is ownership of the three Shared Assets Areas in New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Detroit, both CSX and NS have the right to serve all shippers in these areas, paying Conrail for the cost of maintaining and improving trackage. They also make use of Conrail to perform switching and terminal services within the areas, Conrail also retains various support facilities including maintenance-of-way and training, as well as a 51 percent share in the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad. In the years leading to 1973, the railroad system of the United States was collapsing. Its largest Eastern railroad, the Penn Central Railroad, had declared bankruptcy in 1970, at its lowest point, PC was losing over $1 million a day and trains were becoming lost all over the railroad. In 1972, Hurricane Agnes damaged the rundown Northeast railway network and threatened the solvency of other railroads, in mid-1973, officials with the bankrupt Penn Central threatened to liquidate and cease operations by years end if they did not receive government aid by October 1. This threat to U. S. freight and passenger traffic galvanized the Congress to quickly create a bill to nationalize the bankrupt railroads, the Association of American Railroads, which opposed nationalization, submitted an alternate proposal for a government-funded private company. Judge Fullam forced the Penn Central to operate into 1974, when, on January 2, after threatening a veto, President Richard Nixon signed the Regional Rail Reorganization Act of 1973 into law. The 3R Act, as it was called, provided funding to the bankrupt railroads. The USRA was incorporated February 1,1974, and Edward G. Jordan, arthur D. Lewis of Eastern Air Lines was appointed chairman April 30, and the remainder of the board was named May 30 and sworn in July 11. Under the 3R Act, the USRA was to create a Final System Plan to decide which lines should be included in the new Consolidated Rail Corporation, unlike most railroad consolidations, only the designated lines were to be taken over. Other lines would be sold to Amtrak, various governments, transportation agencies. Controlled railroads and jointly owned railroads such as Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines, the EL had been formed in 1960 as a merger of the Erie Railroad and Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad. It too was bankrupt, but was somewhat stronger financially than the others and it was ruled reorganizable under Chapter 77 on April 30,1974, but on January 9,1975, with no end to its losses in sight, its trustees reconsidered and asked for inclusion
8.
New York Central Railroad
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The New York Central Railroad was a railroad operating in the Northeastern United States. NYCs Grand Central Terminal in New York City is one of its best known extant landmarks, in 1968 the NYC merged with its former rival, the Pennsylvania Railroad, to form Penn Central. That company went bankrupt in 1970 and was taken over by the federal government, Conrail was broken up in 1998, and portions of its system was transferred to the newly formed New York Central Lines LLC, a subsidiary leased to and eventually absorbed by CSX and Norfolk Southern. Those companies lines included the original New York Central main line, but outside that area it included lines that were never part of the New York Central system. At the end of 1925, the New York Central System operated 11,584 miles of road and 26,395 miles of track, at the end of 1967 the mileages were 9,696 miles and 18,454 miles. The Mohawk and Hudson opened on September 24,1831, and changed its name to the Albany, the Utica and Schenectady Railroad was chartered April 29,1833, as the railroad paralleled the Erie Canal it was prohibited from carrying freight. Revenue service began August 2,1836, extending the line of the Albany and Schenectady Railroad west from Schenectady along the side of the Mohawk River, opposite the Erie Canal. The Syracuse and Utica Railroad was chartered May 1,1836, the full line opened July 3,1839, extending the line further to Syracuse via Rome. This line was not direct, going out of its way to stay near the Erie Canal and serve Rome, nothing of that line was ever built, though the later West Shore Railroad, acquired by the NYC in 1885, served the same purpose. The Auburn and Syracuse Railroad was chartered May 1,1834, and opened mostly in 1838, a month later, with the opening of the Syracuse and Utica Railroad, this formed a complete line from Albany west via Syracuse to Auburn, about halfway to Geneva. The Auburn and Rochester Railroad was chartered May 13,1836, as an extension via Geneva and Canandaigua to Rochester. The two lines merged on August 1,1850, to form the rather indirect Rochester and Syracuse Railroad, to fix this, the Rochester and Syracuse Direct Railway was chartered and immediately merged into the Rochester and Syracuse Railroad on August 6,1850. That line opened June 1,1853, running more directly between those two cities, roughly parallel to the Erie Canal. The Tonawanda Railroad, to the west of Rochester, was chartered April 24,1832 to build from said city to Attica. The first section, from Rochester southwest to Batavia, opened May 5,1837, the Attica and Buffalo Railroad chartered in 1836 and opened on November 24,1842, running from Buffalo east to Attica. On March 19,1844, the Tonawanda Railroad was authorized to build the connection, the Albany and Schenectady Railroad bought all the baggage, mail and emigrant cars of the other railroads between Albany and Buffalo on February 17,1848, and began operating through cars. On December 7,1850, the Tonawanda Railroad and Attica and Buffalo Railroad merged to form the Buffalo and Rochester Railroad. A new direct line opened from Buffalo east to Batavia on April 26,1852, the line was added to the New York and Erie Railroad system and converted to the Eries 6 ft broad gauge
9.
Coal
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Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure. Coal is composed primarily of carbon, along with quantities of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen. A fossil fuel, coal forms when plant matter is converted into peat, which in turn is converted into lignite, then sub-bituminous coal, after that bituminous coal. This involves biological and geological processes that take place over time, throughout history, coal has been used as an energy resource, primarily burned for the production of electricity and heat, and is also used for industrial purposes, such as refining metals. Coal is the largest source of energy for the generation of electricity worldwide, the extraction of coal, its use in energy production and its byproducts are all associated with environmental and health effects including climate change. Coal is extracted from the ground by coal mining, since 1983, the worlds top coal producer has been China. In 2015 China produced 3,747 million tonnes of coal –47. 7% of 7,861 million tonnes world coal production, in 2015 other large producers were United States, India, European Union and Australia. The word originally took the col in Old English, from Proto-Germanic *kula. In Old Turkic languages, kül is ash, cinders, öčür is quench, the compound charcoal in Turkic is öčür kül, literally quenched ashes, cinders, coals with elided anlaut ö- and inflection affixes -ülmüş. At various times in the geologic past, the Earth had dense forests in low-lying wetland areas, due to natural processes such as flooding, these forests were buried underneath soil. As more and more soil deposited over them, they were compressed, the temperature also rose as they sank deeper and deeper. As the process continued the plant matter was protected from biodegradation and oxidation and this trapped the carbon in immense peat bogs that were eventually covered and deeply buried by sediments. Under high pressure and high temperature, dead vegetation was slowly converted to coal, as coal contains mainly carbon, the conversion of dead vegetation into coal is called carbonization. The wide, shallow seas of the Carboniferous Period provided ideal conditions for coal formation, the exception is the coal gap in the Permian–Triassic extinction event, where coal is rare. Coal is known from Precambrian strata, which predate land plants — this coal is presumed to have originated from residues of algae, in its dehydrated form, peat is a highly effective absorbent for fuel and oil spills on land and water. It is also used as a conditioner for soil to make it able to retain. Lignite, or brown coal, is the lowest rank of coal, jet, a compact form of lignite, is sometimes polished and has been used as an ornamental stone since the Upper Palaeolithic
10.
Erie Railroad
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It expanded west to Chicago with its 1941 merger with the former Atlantic and Great Western Railroad, also known as the New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio Railroad. Its mainline route proved influential in the development and economic growth of the Southern Tier, including such as Binghamton, Elmira. The Erie Railroad repair shops were located in Hornell, and were Hornells largest employer, Hornell was also where Eries main line split into two routes, one north to Buffalo and the other west to Cleveland. On October 17,1960, the Erie merged with the former rival Delaware, the Hornell repair shops were closed, and repair operations moved to the Lackawannas Scranton facility, this had a devastating effect on Hornell from which it has never recovered. Most of the former Erie line between Hornell and Binghamton was destroyed in 1972 by the floods of Hurricane Agnes, what was left of the Erie Lackawanna became part of Conrail in 1976. In 1983, Erie remnants became part of New Jersey Transit rail operations, today, most of the surviving Erie Railroad routes are operated by the Norfolk Southern Railway. The New York and Erie Rail Road was chartered April 24,1832 by Governor of New York, Enos T. Throop to connect the Hudson River at Piermont, north of New York City, west to Lake Erie at Dunkirk. On February 16,1841 the railroad was authorized to cross into the northeast corner of Pennsylvania on the west side of the Delaware River, construction began in 1836, and it opened from Piermont to Goshen on September 23,1841. After some financial problems, construction resumed in August 1846, further extensions opened to Binghamton December 27,1848, Owego January 1,1849, and the full length to Dunkirk May 19,1851. At Dunkirk steamboats continued across Lake Erie to Detroit, Michigan, the line was built as 6 ft wide gauge, this was believed to be a superior technology to standard gauge, providing more stability. In 1848 the railroad built the Starrucca Viaduct, a railroad bridge over Starrucca Creek in Lanesboro. The viaduct is 1,040 feet long,100 feet high and 25 feet wide at the top and it is the oldest stone rail bridge in Pennsylvania still in use. The Eries charter was amended April 8,1845 to allow the building of the Newburgh Branch, running from the line near Harriman north-northeast to Newburgh. The branch opened January 8,1850 and it was later used as a connection to the New York and New England Railroad via a car float operation across the river to Beacon, New York. Through ticketing began in 1851, with a change of cars at Ramapo due to the gauge break. In 1852 the Buffalo and Rochester Railroad, part of the New York Central Railroad system, the alignment from Buffalo to Attica was sold to the Eries Buffalo and New York City Railroad, a reorganization of the Attica and Hornellsville Railroad, and converted to the Eries wide gauge. The extension from Attica southeast to Hornellsville opened on November 17,1852, giving the Erie access to Buffalo, the Erie began operating the Chemung Railroad in 1850, this provided a branch from Horseheads north to Watkins. The Canandaigua and Elmira Railroad opened in 1851 as an extension from Watkins to Canandaigua and was operated by the Erie until 1853
11.
Baldwin Locomotive Works
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The Baldwin Locomotive Works was an American builder of railroad locomotives. It was originally located in Philadelphia, and later moved to nearby Eddystone, although the company was very successful as the largest producer of steam locomotives, its transition to the production of diesels was far less so. Later, when the demand for diesel locomotives to replace steam tapered off. It stopped producing locomotives in 1956 and went out of business in 1972, having produced over 70,000 locomotives and this company is not to be confused with E M Baldwin of Australia who made small locomotives for such things as sugar cane tramways. The Baldwin Locomotive Works had a humble beginning, the original engine was in use and powered many departments of the works for well over 60 years, and is currently on display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. The Camden and Amboy Railroad Company had shortly before imported a locomotive from England and it had not yet been assembled by Isaac Dripps when Baldwin visited the spot. He inspected the detached parts and made notes of the principal dimensions, aided by these figures, he commenced his task. The difficulties attending the execution of this first order were such that they are not easily understood by present-day mechanics. It was under such circumstances that his first locomotive, christened Old Ironsides, was completed and tried on the Philadelphia and it was at once put in active service, and did duty for over 20 years. It was an engine, weighing a little over five tons, the driving wheels were 54 inches in diameter. The wheels were of heavy cast iron hubs, with spokes and rims, and wrought iron tires. It had a 30 inches diameter boiler which took 20 minutes to raise steam, Baldwin struggled to survive the Panic of 1837. Production fell from 40 locomotives in 1837 to just nine in 1840, as part of the survival strategy, Matthias Baldwin took on two partners, George Vail and George Hufty. Although the partnerships proved relatively short-lived, they helped Baldwin pull through the hard times. Zerah Colburn was one of many engineers who had an association with Baldwin Locomotive Works. Colburn was full of praise for the quality of Baldwins work, in the 1850s, railroad building became a national obsession, with many new carriers starting up, particularly in the Midwest and South. While this helped drive up demand for Baldwin products, it increased competition as more companies entered the locomotive production field. Still, Baldwin had trouble keeping pace with orders and in the early 1850s began paying workers piece-rate pay, taking advantage of human nature, this increased incentives and productivity
12.
Railway turntable
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In rail terminology, a railway turntable or wheelhouse is a device for turning railway rolling stock, usually locomotives, so that they can be moved back in the direction from which they came. This is especially true in areas where economic considerations or a lack of sufficient space have served to weigh against the construction of a turnaround wye. In the case of locomotives, though most can be operated in either direction, they are treated as having front ends. When operated as a unit, the railway company often prefers, or requires. When operated as part of a multiple unit locomotive consist, the locomotives can be arranged so that the consist can be operated front end first no matter which direction the consist is pointed. Turntables were also used to turn observation cars so that their windowed lounge ends faced toward the rear of the train and these early wagonways used a single point-to-point track, and when operators had to move a truck to another wagonway, they did so by hand. The lack of switching technology seriously limited the weight of any loaded wagon combination, the first railway switches were in fact wagon turnplates or sliding rails. Turnplates were initially made of two or four pieces of wood, circular in form, that replicated the track running through them and their diameter matched that of the wagons used on any given wagonway, and they swung around a central pivot. Loaded wagons could be moved onto the turnplate, and rotating the turnplate 90 degrees allowed the loaded wagon to be moved to another piece of wagonway, thus, wagon weight was limited only by the strength of the wood used in the turnplates or sliding rails. When iron and later steel replaced stone and wood, weight capacity rose again, however, the problems with turnplates and sliding rails were twofold. First, they were small, which limited the wagon length that could be turned. Second, their capacity could only be accessed when the wagon was on top of them and still. The railway switch, which both of these problems, was patented by Charles Fox in 1832. As steam locomotives replaced horses as the means of power, they became optimised to run in only one direction, for operational ease. The resulting need to turn heavy locomotives required an upgrade to the existing turnplate technology. Like earlier turnplates, most new turntables consisted of a pit in which a steel bridge rotated. The bridge was supported and balanced by the central pivot, to reduce the total load on the pivot. This was most often achieved by a steel rail running around the floor of the pit that supported the ends of the bridge when a locomotive entered or exited, the turntables had a positive locking mechanism to prevent undesired rotation and to align the bridge rails with the exit track
