1.
Traction maintenance depot
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In the United Kingdom, a traction maintenance depot, or TMD, is a railway depot where locomotives are serviced and maintained. A traction and rolling stock depot, or T&RSMD, is a maintenance depot where locomotives, multiple units. Each rail locomotive in the UK is allocated to a depot, traditionally, locomotives would have normally been maintained at the depot where they were allocated. Today, this is still the same for some train operating companies, a small depot with minor facilities where locomotives are merely stored is often known as a stabling point in the UK. At one time they were known as motive power depots, such depots, particularly in the days of steam locomotives, would have more facilities than the modern stabling point, but did not carry out major repairs. Roundhouse List of British Rail TOPS depot codes List of British Railways shed codes
2.
The Engine Shed
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The Engine Shed is a music and entertainment venue at the University of Lincoln in Lincoln, Lincolnshire, England, and is operated by the University of Lincoln Students Union. It was opened in September 2006 and takes its name from the shed that used to lie in its current location. The venue has a capacity of 1,500 in the main hall, the first live gig was Embrace on 18 September 2006. It has also staged careers fairs and hosts the Universitys freshers fair, in Summer 2014 the University transferred the operation of The Engine Shed to the University of Lincoln Students Union who continue to operate the venue to date. The building was constructed in 1875 for the Great Northern Railway as Shed 40A. It had been disused since 1964 and it was too far-fetched for the financially strapped 1970s. For many years Lincoln only had the Theatre Royal as its main venue, although the local council had no enthusiasm for a theatre or venue on the Brayford site, the University resumed plans for a much-needed music venue. The building is at the end of the university campus. There were two phases in the design, the first phase became what is now The Engine Shed, the consulting engineers were Ward Cole, who designed many other new buildings in the Brayford area. The architects were Stem Architects who are based in Sparkhouse Studios on the University campus, the topping out ceremony was on 16 May 2006. In addition to this, it played host to Thirty Seconds to Mars, the concert was broadcast on Radio 1, for their Radio 1 Student tour. The venue has played host to a number of top comedians, including Jason Manford, Russell Howard. Official Website Panoramio BBC Radio 1 Introducing in April 2008
3.
Locomotive
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A locomotive or engine is a rail transport vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. A locomotive has no payload capacity of its own, and its purpose is to move the train along the tracks. In contrast, some trains have self-propelled payload-carrying vehicles and these are not normally considered locomotives, and may be referred to as multiple units, motor coaches or railcars. The use of these vehicles is increasingly common for passenger trains. Traditionally, locomotives pulled trains from the front, however, push-pull operation has become common, where the train may have a locomotive at the front, at the rear, or at each end. Prior to locomotives, the force for railroads had been generated by various lower-technology methods such as human power, horse power. The first successful locomotives were built by Cornish inventor Richard Trevithick, in 1804 his unnamed steam locomotive hauled a train along the tramway of the Penydarren ironworks, near Merthyr Tydfil in Wales. Although the locomotive hauled a train of 10 long tons of iron and 70 passengers in five wagons over nine miles, the locomotive only ran three trips before it was abandoned. Trevithick built a series of locomotives after the Penydarren experiment, including one which ran at a colliery in Tyneside in northern England, the first commercially successful steam locomotive was Matthew Murrays rack locomotive, Salamanca, built for the narrow gauge Middleton Railway in 1812. This was followed in 1813 by the Puffing Billy built by Christopher Blackett and William Hedley for the Wylam Colliery Railway, Puffing Billy is now on display in the Science Museum in London, the oldest locomotive in existence. In 1814 George Stephenson, inspired by the locomotives of Trevithick. He built the Blücher, one of the first successful flanged-wheel adhesion locomotives, Stephenson played a pivotal role in the development and widespread adoption of steam locomotives. His designs improved on the work of the pioneers, in 1825 he built the Locomotion for the Stockton and Darlington Railway, north east England, which became the first public steam railway. In 1829 he built The Rocket which was entered in and won the Rainhill Trials and this success led to Stephenson establishing his company as the pre-eminent builder of steam locomotives used on railways in the United Kingdom, the United States and much of Europe. The first inter city passenger railway, Liverpool and Manchester Railway, opened in 1830, there are a few basic reasons to isolate locomotive train power, as compared to self-propelled vehicles. Maximum utilization of power cars Separate locomotives facilitate movement of costly motive power assets as needed, flexibility Large locomotives can substitute for small locomotives when more power is required, for example, where grades are steeper. As needed, a locomotive can be used for freight duties. Obsolescence cycles Separating motive power from payload-hauling cars enables replacement without affecting the other, to illustrate, locomotives might become obsolete when their associated cars did not, and vice versa
4.
Shed
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A shed is typically a simple, single-storey roofed structure in a back garden or on an allotment that is used for storage, hobbies, or as a workshop. Sheds used on farms or in industry can be large structures, the main types of shed construction are metal sheathing over a metal frame, plastic sheathing and frame, all-wood construction, and vinyl-sided sheds built over a wooden frame. A culture of shed enthusiasts exists in countries for people who enjoy building sheds. In Australia and New Zealand there are magazines called The Shed, an association for shed hobbyists, depending on the region and type of use, a shed may also be called an outhouse, outbuilding or shack. The simplest and least-expensive sheds are available in kit form and these kits are designed for regular people to be able to assemble themselves using commonly available tools. Both shed kits and DIY plans are available for wooden and plastic sheds, Sheds are used to store home and garden tools and equipment such as lawn tractors, and gardening supplies. In addition, sheds can be used to store items that are not suitable for storage, such as petrol, pesticides. For homes with gardens or modest storage needs, there are several types of very small sheds. The sheds not only use less ground area but also have a low profile less likely to obstruct the view or clash with the landscaping and these small sheds include corner sheds, which fit into a corner, vertical sheds, horizontal sheds, and tool sheds. When a shed is used for storage, shelves and hooks are often used to maximize the storage space. Gambrel-style roofed sheds, which resemble a Dutch-style barn, have a sloping roofline which increases storage space in the loft area. Some Gambrel-styles have no loft and offer the advantage of reduced overall height, another style of small shed is the saltbox-style shed. Many sheds have either a pent or apex roof shape, a pent shed features a single roof section which is angled downwards to let rainwater run off, with more headroom at the front than the back. This is a simple, practical design that will fit particularly well next to a wall or fence and it is also usually lower than the typical apex shed, so could be a better choice if there are any height restrictions. A pent shed may be free-standing or attached to a wall, an apex shed has a pointed roof in an inverted V shape similar to the roof line of many houses. Two roof sections meet at a ridge in the middle, providing more headroom in the centre than at the sides and this type is generally regarded as a more attractive and traditional design, and may be preferable if the shed is going to be visible from the house. A twist on the standard apex shape is the reverse apex shed, in this design, the door is set in a side wall instead of the front. The main advantage of the reverse design is that the door opens into the widest part of the shed instead of the narrowest
5.
Steam locomotive
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A steam locomotive is a railway locomotive that produces its pulling power through a steam engine. These locomotives are fueled by burning combustible material—usually coal, wood, the steam moves reciprocating pistons which are mechanically connected to the locomotives main wheels. Both fuel and water supplies are carried with the locomotive, either on the locomotive itself or in wagons pulled behind, the first steam locomotive, made by Richard Trevithick, first operated on 21 February 1804, three years after the road locomotive he made in 1801. The first practical steam locomotive was built in 1812-13 by John Blenkinsop, Steam locomotives were first developed in Great Britain during the early 19th century and used for railway transport until the middle of the 20th century. From the early 1900s they were superseded by electric and diesel locomotives, with full conversions to electric. The majority of locomotives were retired from regular service by the 1980s, though several continue to run on tourist. The earliest railways employed horses to draw carts along railway tracks, in 1784, William Murdoch, a Scottish inventor, built a small-scale prototype of a steam road locomotive. An early working model of a rail locomotive was designed and constructed by steamboat pioneer John Fitch in the US during 1794. His steam locomotive used interior bladed wheels guided by rails or tracks, the model still exists at the Ohio Historical Society Museum in Columbus. The authenticity and date of this locomotive is disputed by some experts, accompanied by Andrew Vivian, it ran with mixed success. The design incorporated a number of important innovations that included using high-pressure steam which reduced the weight of the engine, Trevithick visited the Newcastle area in 1804 and had a ready audience of colliery owners and engineers. The visit was so successful that the railways in north-east England became the leading centre for experimentation. Trevithick continued his own steam propulsion experiments through another trio of locomotives, Four years later, the successful twin-cylinder locomotive Salamanca by Matthew Murray for the edge railed rack and pinion Middleton Railway debuted in 1812. Another well known early locomotive was Puffing Billy built 1813–14 by engineer William Hedley and it was intended to work on the Wylam Colliery near Newcastle upon Tyne. This locomotive is the oldest preserved, and is on display in the Science Museum. George Stephenson built Locomotion No.1 for the Stockton and Darlington Railway, north-east England, in 1829, his son Robert built in Newcastle The Rocket which was entered in and won the Rainhill Trials. This success led to the company emerging as the pre-eminent builder of locomotives used on railways in the UK, US. The Liverpool and Manchester Railway opened a year later making exclusive use of power for passenger
6.
Bahnbetriebswerk
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A Bahnbetriebswerk is the equivalent of a locomotive depot on the German and Austrian railways. It is an installation that carries out the maintenance, minor repairs, refuelling and cleaning of locomotives, in addition it organises the deployment of locomotives and crews. In the Deutsche Bahn, a Bahnbetriebswerk is known today as a Betriebshof, many other countries simply use the term depot. The smaller facility, the Lokomotivstation akin to the British sub-depot or stabling point, is affiliated to a Bahnbetriebswerk, the shortened form Betriebswerk is also used and both are commonly abbreviated to Bw or BW. On 7 January 1835 the first Bahnbetriebswerk in Germany was opened and it looked after locomotives on the first railway line in Germany, the Bavarian Ludwigsbahn from Nuremberg to Fürth. It was here that the first locomotive in Germany, the Adler, was assembled and maintained, the inventor or father of the Bahnbetriebswerk was John Blenkinsop. Soon afterwards the first Bahnbetriebswerk was built, not only did it carry out the usual functions of such a depot, but also others such as the construction of locomotives. In 1845, John Blenkinsop was clear that it was cheaper to service locomotives at regular intervals than not to repair them until they broke down. Gradually all the other German railway companies organised their technical support based on the example of the Ludwigsbahn, such facilities also appeared at junctions, which explains why there were so many locomotive sheds of that type. From the 1860s, all railway companies separated the functions of traffic operating, over time, the first repair shops also appeared, known at that time as Hauptwerkstätten. With the takeover of the German state railways following the treaty of 30 April 1920 the organisation of engineering services was standardised across the whole of Germany. The Deutsche Reichsbahn set up various Reichsbahn divisions and engineering offices, on 1 August 1935 there were 7 Reichsbahn divisions and 132 engineering offices. The new organisational regulations introduced in the 1920s proved their worth, nevertheless the number of Bahnbetriebswerke rose, initially the DR turned large Lokbahnhöfe into Bahnbetriebswerke, but on the foundation of the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft things changed suddenly. A fifth of the reparations that had to be handed to the victorious powers after World War I had to be absorbed by the DRG, in order to be able to manage that, rationalisation measures had to be taken, above all almost all areas had to make savings. In addition the management was streamlined which led to the closure of all smaller Bahnbetriebswerke, at the same time so-called Großbahnbetriebswerke were created. Medium and small facilities were integrated into these Betriebswerke. As a result, giant depots emerged that had a multitude of maintenance facilities, examples include, Dresden-Friedrichstadt, Hamburg-Altona, Hamm and Osnabrück. They were often responsible for the maintenance of over 150 locomotives, the Deutsche Bundesbahn began from 1950 to turn smaller Bahnbetriebswerke into outstations
7.
Ausbesserungswerk
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An Ausbesserungswerk is a railway facility in German-speaking countries, the primary function of which is the repair of railway vehicles or their components. It is thus equivalent to a shop or works. It is also referred to as a Centralwerkstatt or Zentralwerkstatt or Hauptwerkstatt, during the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft period between the two world wars these facilities were called Reichsbahnausbesserungswerke. The term Hauptwerkstatt was also used by state railways or private railways and they are still called that today, for example. In general the Deutsche Bahn AG today uses the term Werk, in addition they handle the conversion and modernisation of vehicles, as well as the construction of new vehicles in some cases. On top of the maintenance of vehicles, most Ausbesserungswerke also carry out the manufacture of turnouts, depending on the particular specialisation of an individual Ausbesserungswerk it may also be described as a Reisezugwagenwerk, Güterwagenwerk or Weichenwerk. With the expansion of the network from the middle of the 19th century a large number of Ausbesserungswerke sprang up in the entire German speaking world. In addition, there are Hauptwerkstätten for the Berlin S-Bahn at Berlin-Schöneweide, the Deutsche Bahn AG aside, the Austrian Federal Railways, Swiss Federal Railways and large private railways have their own Hauptwerkstätten. In Weiden, Stendal and Delitzsch Ausbesserungswerke belonging to the DB AG, a private Ausbesserungswerk in Unterhausen at Neuburg an der Donau maintains goods vehicles, mainly tank wagons. These stations are equipped with lifting gear in order to be able to jack vehicles up, adjoining the main workshop are mechanical and electrical workshops for the refurbishment and repair of individual components such as undercarriages, brake equipment and motors. The external livery of railway vehicles is carried out in a paint shed, Hauptwerkstätten for railway vehicles are not just found on normal railways, but also on the U-Bahn and tramways. Due to the small number of vehicles to be maintained the Hauptwerkstätten are in most cases attached to tramway sheds. An example of a workshop is the Hauptwerkstätte of the Vienna tramway system
8.
Bahnbetriebswerk (steam locomotives)
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A Bahnbetriebswerk is a German railway depot where the maintenance of locomotives and other rolling stock is carried out. It is roughly equivalent to a shed, running shed or motive power depot. These were of importance during the steam locomotive era to ensure the smooth running of locomotive-hauled services. Bahnbetriebswerke had a number of facilities in order to be able to carry out their various maintenance tasks. As a result, they needed a lot of staff and were often the largest employers in the area, the history and present-day importance of such depots is covered in the Bahnbetriebswerk article. Before a steam locomotive was allowed onto the line, the crew had to carry out a number of preparatory jobs. In accordance with the roster, the locomotive crew – engine driver. There they were given the key to their locomotive, a book, a route plan and timetable. After completing all the formalities, the driver and fireman went to their engine. After climbing into the cab, the engine driver began with the most important checks, regulator, valve seals, water levels. The fireman checked the equipment on board and the fuel supplies, not until these checks had been carried out did the crew begin their actual work. The fireman began by lighting the fire in the locomotive, then driving it to an inspection pit. Whilst the engine driver looked underneath the engine for any damage, once all the checks had been carried out and the boiler had reached its operating pressure, the locomotive could drive out of the shed and onto the turntable. After the tracks had been cleared by the box, the locomotive officially began its duties. During the final kilometres to the station the fireman began to prepare for disposal by letting the fire slowly burn down depending on demands of the route. After the train had arrived at the terminus, the fireman turned off the train heating, then the locomotive was returned to the Betriebswerk, where it first went to the coaling plant, where its coal was replenished. Next the engine proceeded to the ashpit where the boiler was cleaned out by the shed workers and this involved emptying the ash and clinker from the smokebox and grate into an ashpit sunk between the tracks. This was a dirty job
9.
Mexborough
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Mexborough is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster in South Yorkshire, England. It lies on the estuary of the River Dearne, on the A6023 road, historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Mexborough has a population of 14,750, increasing to a ward population of 15,244 at the 2011 Census. The name Mexborough combines the Old English suffix burh meaning a place with an Old English or Old Norse personal name. Following the Conquest the area fell under the control of the Norman Baron Roger de Busli, the remains of an earthwork in Castle Park are thought to have been a motte and bailey castle constructed in the 11th century shortly after the Conquest. St. John the Baptist C of E church includes elements that date from the 12th century, a few other pre-1800 buildings remain, including several public houses, the Ferryboat Inn, the George and Dragon, the Bulls Head and the Red Lion. Most of the buildings in the town are post-1800 and these industries led to an increase in industrial illness and an increase in the mortality rate. Although the town boasted a hospital, the lack of suitable facilities led to Lord Montagu donating land for a new hospital to be built. Lord Montagu laid the first stone at the site in 1904, the site is still a working hospital, and now forms part of the Doncaster and Bassetlaw NHS trust. The industries which led to the creation of Montagu Hospital not only brought problems to the town, but also led to an increase in population and, for some, many more public houses and other businesses were created, many of which are still trading today. It was in one of public houses, the Montagu Arms. During the second half of the 19th century, like other industrial towns. This was modelled on the consumer cooperative set up by the Rochdale Pioneers in 1844, in 1861 nine working men met together at the home of James Simpson in Mexborough and decided to form the Mexborough Working Mens Industrial Society. The aim of the Society was to supply the necessary things of life, membership quickly grew and by the 1890s it stood at 1,200. In its heyday, there were ten shops which were to be found in built up area of Mexborough. By 1903 land had been purchased in the middle of Mexborough on which to build a large and grand new central store, soon after they were taken over by the Barnsley British Co-operative Society. One of Mexboroughs landmarks is closely associated with the Cooperative Society and this is the former Barnsley British Cooperative Society flour mill which stands on the north side of the River Don Navigation close to the Church of St John the Baptist. It started off as the Don Roller Mills and it was owned by James White who sold it to the Barnsley British Cooperative Society in 1912. For over a hundred years, the locomotive maintenance and stabling depot was a major employer
10.
Yorkshire
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Yorkshire, formally known as the County of York, is a historic county of Northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Due to its size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been undertaken over time by its subdivisions. Throughout these changes, Yorkshire has continued to be recognised as a geographical territory, Yorkshire has sometimes been nicknamed Gods Own County or Gods Own Country. Yorkshire Day, held on 1 August, is a celebration of the culture of Yorkshire. Yorkshire is now divided between different official regions, most of the county falls within Yorkshire and the Humber. The extreme northern part of the county falls within North East England, Small areas in the west of the historic county now form part of North West England, following boundary changes in 1974. Yorkshire or the County of York was so named as it is the shire of the city of York local /ˈjɔːk/ or Yorks Shire, York comes from the Viking name for the city, Jórvík. Shire is from Old English, scir meaning care or official charge, the shire suffix is locally pronounced /-ʃə/ shuh, or occasionally /-ʃiə/, a homophone of sheer. Early inhabitants of Yorkshire were Celts, who formed two tribes, the Brigantes and the Parisi. The Brigantes controlled territory which later became all of the North Riding of Yorkshire, the tribe controlled most of Northern England and more territory than any other Celtic tribe in England. That they had the Yorkshire area as their heartland is evident in that Isurium Brigantum was the town of their civitas under Roman rule. Six of the nine Brigantian poleis described by Claudius Ptolemaeus in the Geographia fall within the historic county, the Parisi, who controlled the area that would become the East Riding of Yorkshire, might have been related to the Parisii of Lutetia Parisiorum, Gaul. Their capital was at Petuaria, close to the Humber estuary, initially, this situation suited both the Romans and the Brigantes, who were known as the most militant tribe in Britain. Queen Cartimandua left her husband Venutius for his bearer, Vellocatus. Cartimandua, due to her relationship with the Romans, was able to keep control of the kingdom. At the second attempt, Venutius seized the kingdom, but the Romans, under general Petillius Cerialis, the fortified city of Eboracum was named as capital of Britannia Inferior and joint-capital of all Roman Britain. During the two years before the death of Emperor Septimius Severus, the Roman Empire was run from Eboracum by him, another emperor, Constantius Chlorus, died in Yorkshire during a visit in 306 AD. This saw his son Constantine the Great proclaimed emperor in the city, in the early 5th century, the Roman rule ceased with the withdrawal of the last active Roman troops
11.
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
12.
Dry stone
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Dry stone is a building method by which structures are constructed from stones without any mortar to bind them together. Dry stone structures are stable because of their construction method. Dry stone technology is best known in the context of wall construction, but dry stone artwork, buildings, bridges, Dry stone walls have been traditionally used in building construction as field boundaries and garden or churchyard walls, and on steep slopes as retaining walls for terracing. Some dry-stone wall constructions in north-west Europe have been dated back to the Neolithic Age, some Cornish hedges are believed by the Guild of Cornish Hedgers to date from 5000 BC, although there appears to be little dating evidence. In County Mayo, Ireland, a field system made from dry-stone walls. The cyclopean walls of the acropolis of Mycenae have been dated to 1350 BC, in Belize, the Mayan ruins at Lubaantun illustrate use of dry stone construction in architecture of the 8th and 9th centuries AD. When used as boundaries, dry stone structures often are known as dykes. Dry stone walls are characteristic of areas of Britain and Ireland where rock outcrops naturally or large stones exist in quantity in the soil. They are especially abundant in the West of Ireland, particularly Connemara and they may also be found throughout the Mediterranean, including retaining walls used for terracing. Such constructions are common where large stones are plentiful or conditions are too harsh for hedges capable of retaining livestock to be grown as field boundaries. Many thousands of miles of such walls exist, most of them centuries old, the technique of construction was brought to America primarily by English and Scots-Irish immigrants. The technique was taken to Australia and New Zealand. Similar walls also are found in the Swiss-Italian border region, where they are used to enclose the open space under large natural boulders or outcrops. The higher-lying rock-rich fields and pastures in Bohemias South-Western border range of Šumava are often lined by dry stone walls built of field-stones removed from the arable or cultural land and they serve both as cattle/sheep fences and the lots borders. Sometimes also the dry stone terracing is apparent, often combined with parts of masonry that are held together by a clay-cum-needles composite mortar. Great Zimbabwe is a city in the south-eastern hills of Zimbabwe, near Lake Mutirikwe. It was the capital of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe during the countrys Late Iron Age, construction on the monument began in the 11th century and continued until the 15th century. The exact identity of the Great Zimbabwe builders is at present unknown, the stone city spans an area of 722 hectares which, at its peak, could have housed up to 18,000 people
13.
Coaling tower
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A coaling tower, coal stage or coaling station is a facility used to load coal as fuel into railway steam locomotives. Coaling towers were often sited at motive power depots or locomotive maintenance shops, coaling towers were constructed of wood, steel-reinforced concrete, or steel. The method of lifting the bulk coal into the storage bin varied, the coal usually was dropped from a hopper car into a pit below tracks adjacent to the tower. Some facilities lifted entire railway coal trucks or wagons, sanding pipes were often mounted on coaling towers to allow simultaneous replenishment of a locomotives sand box. As railroads transitioned from the use of locomotives to the use of diesel locomotives in the 1950s the need for coaling towers ended. Many reinforced concrete towers remain in place if they do not interfere with operations due to the high cost of demolition incurred with these massive structures, state, province, or county in which the coaling tower is located. Railroad for which the tower was originally built. Year in which the tower was built. Type of coaling station, tower or stage, chutes, dock, capacity in tons of coal which the coaling tower was built to store. Remarks, whether the tower is adjacent to tracks, name of the railroad yard, similar towers. Motive power depot Roundhouse Train Tower
14.
Stratford TMD
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Stratford TMD was a traction maintenance depot located in Stratford, London, England on the Great Eastern Main Line. It was located just west of Stratford station on the site occupied in July 2012 by Stratford International station, the depot was at one time the biggest on the London and North Eastern Railway with locomotives covering duties from crack express services to freight workings in Londons docks. Each UK depot has a code that is used when allocating locomotives to the depots, the original code was STF which was first used in 1875 and was replaced by the British Railways code for the depot which was 30A. In 1973 the depot carried the was coded as SX before becoming SF, Locomotive construction took place at the adjacent Stratford Works and Stratford TMD was initially located on this site located in the V between the Lea Bridge and Great Eastern Main Lines. In 1871 the depot moved to the teardrop of lines to the west of the present Stratford Regional station, the site of the depot is now taken up by Stratford International station. Stratford Depot, as it was called, was built by the Northern and Eastern Railway whose line from Stratford to Broxbourne opened in 1840. On 19 February 1846 additional accommodation was authorised, which resulted in completion of the Erecting Shop the following year and it was in 1847 that the Eastern Counties Railway works in Romford were shut and moved to this site. From this time, the accommodation grew by accretion so that by 1867 the carriage department was using a building 370 ft by 80 ft attached to the side of the Polygon. See the entry on Stratford Works for further information on this site, the Great Eastern Railway was formed in 1862 by the amalgamation of several East Anglian Railways. In the 1860s moves were made to increase the accommodation with a new shed for forty locos proposed. In 1877 the Jubilee shed (named after Queen Victorias jubilee was opened and this was a straight-through shed and with capacity for 130 engines. In 1917 during World War I the site was bombed by a Zeppelin and one driver was killed, three engines were also damaged by other bombs. In 1920 locomotive superintendent LP Parker wrote about the depot, some of the key facts are reproduced below, There were 550 locomotives allocated to Stratford of which 110 were allocated to sub-sheds. The main line services were dealt with B12 4-6-0 and D15 4-4-0s, Main line freight was in the hands of the J15 class and local freight in and around East London was in the hands of 0-6-0Ts belonging to classes J67, J68 and J69. One of these engines is preserved as part of the collection at York. Stratford was responsible for all the suburban services working out of Liverpool Street station, There was a 70-foot turntable installed a few years before Parkers article and part of a re-modelling scheme improving access to the depot. There was also a 65-foot turntable and both were electrically powered, the locomotive coaling plant was one of the biggest in the country and had opened in 1915. Up to that point all coaling had been done by hand with 36 men being employed on each shift and it is possible that with the demand on men in the war that women may have been employed in this role as they certainly were in some other depots
15.
Tender (rail)
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A tender or coal-car is a special rail vehicle hauled by a steam locomotive containing its fuel and water. Steam locomotives consume large quantities of water compared to the quantity of fuel, a locomotive that pulls a tender is called a tender locomotive. Locomotives that do not have tenders and carry all their fuel, a brake tender is a tender that is heavy and used to provide greater braking efficiency. The largest steam locomotives are coupled by a drawbar to a tender that carries the water. The fuel source used depends on what is available locally. In the UK and parts of Europe, a supply of coal made this the obvious choice from the earliest days of the steam engine. Until around 1850 in the United States, the vast majority of burned wood until most of the eastern forests were cleared. Subsequently coal burning became more widespread, and wood burners were restricted to rural, according to Steamlocomotive. com, By the mid-1800s, most steam locomotive tenders consisted of a fuel bunker surrounded by a U shaped water jacket. The overall shape of the tender was usually rectangular, the bunker which held the coal was sloped downwards toward the locomotive providing easier access to the coal. The ratio of water to fuel capacities of tenders was normally based on two water-stops to each fuel stop because water was readily available than fuel. One pound of coal could turn six pounds of water to steam, therefore, tender capacity ratios were normally close to 14 tons of coal per 10,000 gallons of water. The water supply in a tender was replenished at water stops, refilling the tender is the job of the fireman, who is responsible for maintaining the locomotives fire, steam pressure, and supply of fuel and water. Water carried in the tender must be forced into the boiler, early engines used pumps driven by the motion of the pistons. Later, steam injectors replaced the pump while some engines used turbopumps, in the UK, the USA and France, water troughs were provided on some main lines to allow locomotives to replenish their water supply while moving. The fuel and water capacities of a tender are usually proportional to the rate at which they are consumed, the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central Railroad used track pans on many of their routes, allowing locomotives to pick up water at speed. The result was that the tanks on these tenders were proportionally much smaller. In the UK water troughs were used by three of the Big Four railways, the Southerns decision to electrify its routes into London with a third rail system also made the installation of water troughs impractical. Only on the former London and South Western Railway routes west of Salisbury, rather than install troughs the L&SWR equipped its express locomotives with special high-capacity tenders with a water capacity of 4,000 gallons running on a pair of twin-axle bogies
16.
Builder's plate
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A builders plate is usually a metal plate that is attached to rolling stock, bogies, construction equipment, trucks, automobiles, large household appliances, bridges, ships and more. Builders plates, A locomotives birth certificate
17.
Kollam Junction railway station
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Kollam Junction railway station is a junction station situated in the city of Kollam in Kerala, India. It is the second largest railway station in Kerala in terms of area and is one of the oldest railway stations in the state, indias second longest railway platform is situated at Kollam railway station. Kollam Junction lies on Kollam-Thiruvananthapuram trunk line and it is an A-class station operated by the Southern Railway Zone of the Indian Railways and comes under the Thiruvananthapuram railway division. The annual passenger revenue of Kollam railway station is ₹60.44 crore and 23,350 is the daily ridership through this station. Kollam was the city in Kerala to be connected to the nascent Indian Railway. The idea of a link from Tirunelveli to Kollam, then the trading capital of the Travancore Kingdom was first conceived in 1873. The line was sanctioned by the Madras Presidency in 1899 and a survey completed in 1900, the railway line was built jointly by South Indian railway, Travancore state and the Madras Presidency. Kollams railway station was built in 1904 by Sree Moolam Tirunal Rama Varma and it was the ruler’s desire to create a rail link between Kollam, the then commercial capital of his State and Madras. The meter gauge line from Kollam to Punalur was inaugurated on 1 June 1904, the Kollam-Sengottai railway line was inaugurated on 26 November 1904. The meter gauge line was extended to Chala at Trivandrum via Paravur and Varkala. The meter gauge line from Kollam was extended to Ernakulam via Kottayam on 6 January 1958. The meter gauge lines between Kollam and Ernakulam were converted to broad gauge in 1975 and inaugurated on 13 September 1976, the broad gauge conversion between the Punalur and Kollam sections was inaugurated on 12 May 2010. There was once a 2.4 kilometres meter gauge line connecting Quilon Junction, during the inauguration of the Kollam-Punalur meter gauge line in 1904, parts of locomotives which were to be used for Quilon-Schencottah line were shipped to Quilon Port from Tuticorin Port. They were assembled at the Ashramam Maidan, which was an open ground, the line was laid to carry these locomotives to the main station. The line was dismantled in 2000 to allow for town expansion, there are a total of 17 tracks in the Kollam railway station,2 lines are passing through the MEMU shed. The station has 6 platforms for handling long distance, passenger, the platform 1 is divided into two sections. Platform 1A handles the trains to Punalur-Sengottai line and platform 1 handles trains towards Trivandrum Central, the platform 1 and 1A together have a length of 1,180.5 m making them together the second longest railway platform in India. The station has a MEMU shed which is situated near to Platform 1A, an FCI godown owned and operated by Food Corporation of India is also situated near Kollam junction.68 crore, for Mainline Electric Multiple Unit rakes
18.
Kollam MEMU Shed
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Kollam MEMU Shed is a motive power depot facility for maintaining MEMU rakes, situated in the city of Kollam in the Indian state of Kerala. It is one of the four MEMU rake maintenance sheds serving the Southern Railway zone of the Indian Railways, presently,5 pairs of MEMU services are now running from Kollam Junction. The maintenance works of those rakes are regularly doing in Kollam MEMU shed, MEMU sheds in Kollam and Palakkad were proposed in 2008s Indian Railway Budget. The first announced MEMU shed for Kerala was in Kollam, Palakkad MEMU shed inaugurated on 1 January 2011. The Kollam MEMU shed was formally commissioned on 1 December 2013, Kollam MEMU Shed is the largest MEMU Shed in Kerala, which is equipped with most modern facilities. Kollam Kollam Junction railway station Kollam district
19.
Bus garage
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A bus garage, also known as a bus base or bus barn, is a facility where buses are stored and maintained. The term bus depot is used, except that the term bus depot may also be used to refer to a bus station. In many conurbations, bus garages are on the site of former car barns or tram sheds, where trams were stored, in other areas, garages were built to replace horse-bus yards or on virgin sites when populations were not as high as now. The largest bus depot in the world is Millennium Park Bus Depot In Delhi India, garages may also contain recovery vehicles, often converted buses, although their incidence has declined with the use of contractors to recover break-downs, and the increase in reliability. During the day, internal and external areas will see a variety of movements, heritage vehicles are almost exclusively stored inside the garage. Often garages will feature rest rooms for drivers assigned to as required duties, the garage may also have light duties drivers, who merely move the buses internally around the garage, often called shunting. Several bus companies such as London Buses and Lothian Buses used to operate multiple storage garages around their operating area, central works have declined with increase in sub-contract engineering, and improvements in mechanical reliability of bus designs. Also, the practice of routine mid-life refurbishment of bus fleets has declined, some bus companies also make use of outstations, as an additional bus storage facility. These are generally outdoor parking locations, where buses are stored overnight or between peaks, which are conveniently located for operations, reducing dead mileage. Incidents of vandalism and a reduction in services has seen their decline in the UK. Bus garages will generally have large areas unobstructed by supporting columns as well as high roofs, especially for storage of double-decker buses
20.
Ipswich engine shed
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Ipswich engine shed was an engine shed located in Ipswich in Suffolk in the UK on the Great Eastern Main Line located just south of Stoke tunnel and the current Ipswich railway station. Locomotives accessed the site from Halifax Junction which was also the junction for the Griffin Wharf branch of Ipswich docks, the depot opened in 1846 and closed in 1968 although the site remained in railway use for a further thirty years. In British Railways days it was allocated the code 32B, locomotive activity started on the depot site with the opening of the original Ipswich station located at Croft Street and Station St in June 1846 by the Eastern Union Railway. In June 1851 the EUR had 31 locomotives breaking down thus, in 1854 the EUR was taken over by the Eastern Counties Railway and in 1860 the new Ipswich railway station opened after the tunnel was completed. It was at time a carriage and wagon works was established on the site of the old station. The initial engine shed was a two road shed with associated sidings and a small turntable, the site was always cramped and poorly equipped with every day servicing of engines taking place in the open. The Great Eastern Railway was formed in 1862 by the amalgamation of several East Anglian Railways, in August 1878 there was a fire in the four road engine shed which resulted in a number of workmen losing their tools. The company replaced these with a grant and the shed was repaired, at the end of 1922 the shed at Ipswich had an allocation of 131 locomotives being the third biggest shed on the Great Eastern behind Stratford and Cambridge sheds. The allocation consisted of, The London and North Eastern Railway came into existence in 1923, whilst Great Eastern types provided the majority of the types allocated to Ipswich shed, newer LNE types and engines from other LNER constituent companies were allocated. B1 4-6-0 B17 4-6-0 C12 4-4-2T Ivatt Great Northern locomotive some of which were used on Felixstowe Branch Line C14 4-4-2T Robinson/GC - From 1936, three of which allocated to Felixstowe shed the other two to Ipswich. Most of the class were allocated to Stratford and March and other members of the class visited Ipswich during this time. In the early years of British Rail Ipswich shed was host to visiting Southern Railway Battle of Britain class 4-6-2 locomotives before the introduction of the Britannia class in the early 1950s, the shed was completely rebuilt in 1954 into a concrete 6 track straight through road shed. In 1955 the locomotive allocation totalling 79 locomotives was as follows, The 0-6-0T engines were used for shunting. J15, J39 and J17 were freight locomotives, All other locomotives were primarily passenger but it was not unknown for some of them to work freight trains as well. The Ivatt designed 2MT 2-6-2T no 41200 was allocated to the shed for tests on local branches including the Aldeburgh Branch Line, later that year the first Diesel Multiple Units worked in the area and no other members of this class were allocated. In 1959 Ipswich received its first allocation of mainline diesels, on 11 June 1959 class J19 0-6-0 locomotive number 64641 was the last steam locomotive to be repaired at the depot. 5 March 1960 - last steam working from Ipswich shed headed by J15 0-6-0 no 65389 which worked the last freight train to Snape, however a pair of B1 4-6-0s were retained as a carriage heating units. No 17 operated between 1964 and succeeding No 22 which had undertaken the role since December 1963, in November 1963 Class 15 no 8221 crashed through the buffer stops and into Croft Street
21.
York engine sheds and locomotive works
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There were a number of engine sheds and railway works located in York. The large York North engine shed became the National Railway Museum in 1975, Queen Street locomotive works York Wagon works Holgate Road carriage works Prior to 1923 several railway companies ran trains to York. The other three became part of the London Midland & Scottish Railway. Prior to 1922 the Great Eastern Railway had come to an arrangement with the NER who had worked their trains through from Lincoln, York North was opened by the North Eastern Railway in 1878 the year after the current York station was opened. With the re-location of the station outside of the city walls and it also had good access to the freight yards and the carriage sheds located at Clifton. On opening, the shed consisted of three roundhouses each with a 45-foot turntable linked to a coaling stage, in 1891 the original 45-foot turntable in no 2 roundhouse was replaced by a 50-foot turntable. A new water tank was provided in 1909, in 1911 a fourth roundhouse was built and the two existing 45-foot turntables were replaced with electrically operated turntables. All these improvements were complete by 1915, in 1923 operation of the shed became the responsibility of the London and North Eastern Railway. In 1932 further modernisation took place with the fitting of a 70-foot Mundt type turntable built by Ipswich firm Ransomes & Rapier, Prior to this the coaling would have been done by hand. The North shed eventually contained four roundhouses, locomotives were stabled around these under cover and would move off the shed onto their next duty. Normal procedure was that arriving locomotives would have their ash cleared out from the firebox before being coaled and watered in anticipation of the next duty, if a locomotive required repair, the coaling and watering was sometimes done after the repair had been effected. As the organisational structure of the changed in 1923 with The Grouping and with nationalisation in 1948 so the importance of York North shed rose. In April 1942 the shed was hit by a bomb during an air raid during the Baedeker Blitz, the British Railways depot code allotted in 1949 was 50A. These codes are allocated to locomotives to show the depot responsible for the maintenance of the locomotive, rebuilding of the shed followed in 1954 with roundhouses 1 and 2 being demolished and replaced by a straight shed. Roundhouses 3 and 4 were re-roofed and the 70-foot turntable in roundhouse 4 was renewed, the roundhouses were closed to steam traction in 1967 and the straight shed became York diesel depot. In March 1970 an attempt was made to demolish the mechanical coaling plant, attempts were made to pull it over with hawsers attached to locomotives, but they proved fruitless and it was only in May that a crane equipped with a wrecking ball finished the job. Following renovation of the roundhouses, the premises were occupied by the National Railway Museum which opened in 1975, when the diesel depot closed in 1983 this was also taken over by the museum and part of this area is still used to overhaul preserved locomotives and rolling stock. The allocation of locomotives to York North covered many classes of locomotive, the table below shows the allocation on 1 January 1923
22.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
23.
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
24.
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
25.
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
26.
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
27.
Cant (road/rail)
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The cant of a railway track or camber of a road is the rate of change in elevation between the two rails or edges. On railways, cant helps a train steer around a curve, keeping the wheel flanges from touching the rails, minimising friction and wear. However, it may be necessary to select a value at design time. Generally the aim is for trains to run without flange contact, allowance has to be made for the different speeds of trains. Slower trains will tend to make contact with the inner rail on curves, while faster trains will tend to ride outwards. Either contact causes wear and tear and may lead to derailment, many high-speed lines do not permit slower freight trains, particularly with heavier axle loads. In some cases, the impact is reduced by the use of flange lubrication, ideally, the track should have sleepers at a closer spacing and a greater depth of ballast to accommodate the increased forces exerted in the curve. At the ends of a curve, the amount of cant cannot change from zero to its maximum immediately and it must change gradually in a track transition curve. The length of the transition depends on the maximum allowable speed—the higher the speed, the greater length is required. For the United States standard maximum unbalanced superelevation of 75 mm, for high-speed railways in Europe, maximum cant is 180 mm. Track unbalanced superelevation in the United States is restricted to 75 mm, though 102 mm is permissible by waiver. The maximum value for European railways varies by country, some of which have curves with over 280 mm of unbalanced superelevation to permit high-speed transportation, the highest values are only for tilting trains, because it would be too uncomfortable for passengers. This follows simply from a balance weight, centrifugal force and normal force. In the approximation it is assumed that the cant is small compared to the gauge of the track. In a formula this becomes v m a x ≈ r g w = g d w with d =1 / r the curvature of the track, in the United States, maximum speed is subject to specific rules. In Australia, ARTC is increasing speed around curves sharper than an 800-metre radius by replacing wooden sleepers with concrete ones so that the cant can be increased, the rails themselves are now usually canted inwards by about 10 to 5 per cent. In 1925 about 15 of 36 major American railways had adopted this practice, in civil engineering, cant is often referred to as cross slope or camber. It helps rainwater drain from the road surface, along straight or gently curved sections, the middle of the road is normally higher than the edges. This is called normal crown and helps shed rainwater off the sides of the road, on more severe bends, the outside edge of the curve is raised, or superelevated, to help vehicles around the curve
28.
Clip and scotch
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To clip and scotch a set of railway points uses two pieces of equipment to temporarily lock a set of points into a particular position. In this way the points are fixed in either the normal or reverse positions, for infrequently used points, this guards against mechanical failure of the points leaving them in a condition to derail trains. The clip and scotch method can also be used to deny access to the turnout or mainline. The block of wood set in the gap is known as the wedge and is functionally equivalent to a scotch. Requirements for the Design, Operation and Maintenance of Points, safety & Standards Directorate, Railtrack PLC, Evergreen House,160 Euston Road, London NW1 2DX. Archived from the original on October 6,2007, LUL RAILWAY SAFETY CASE VERSION3.24 GLOSSARY. Archived from the original on May 22,2005
29.
Datenail
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Datenails were tagging devices utilized by railroads to visually identify the age of a railroad tie. Different railroads used different sized nails with either alpha or numerical markings, an example would be a Southern Pacific Railroad nail with the marking 01 stamped on the head of the nail. The 01 would identify the nail as being hammered into a tie in the year 1901. Datenail use has dropped dramatically since the century and the advent of more modern maintenance of way equipment. Ties are no longer marked in this manner in North American practice, the Southern Railway never made use of datenails. Datenails are also found on utility poles, sometimes in conjunction with a showing the height of the pole in feet. The types of nails may have distinguishing characteristics, such as the datenail having raised digits, the pole height will be a multiple of five
30.
Fishplate
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In rail terminology, a fishplate, splice bar or joint bar is a metal bar that is bolted to the ends of two rails to join them together in a track. The name is derived from fish, a bar with a curved profile used to strengthen a ships mast. The top and bottom edges are tapered inwards so the device wedges itself between the top and bottom of the rail when it is bolted into place. In rail transport modelling, a fishplate is often a small copper or nickel silver plate that slips onto both rails to provide the functions of maintaining alignment and electrical continuity. The device was invented by William Bridges Adams in May 1842, because of his dissatisfaction with the scarf joints and he noted that to form the scarf joint the rail was halved in thickness at its ends, where the stress was greatest. It was first deployed on the Eastern Counties Railway in 1844, Adams and Robert Richardson patented the invention in 1847, but in 1849 James Samuel, the engineer of the ECR developed fishplates that could be bolted to the rails. The moving blades of a set of points can be connected to the rails by looser than normal fishplates. This is called a heeled switch, alternatively, the blade and stock rail can be a one piece heel-less switch, with a flexible thinned section to create the moving heel. Even though fishplates strengthen the weak points represented by rail joints, improvements can still be made, for example, the joints can be welded together using the thermite welding process. In 1967, at Hither Green on the Southern Region of British Railways, welded Rail installation was sped up due to this error, with strict procedures on Concrete and Wooden Sleepers. On 12 July 2013, the last four cars of an SNCF Paris-Limoges train left the track while entering the Brétigny-sur-Orge station, killing seven people and injuring 32. Under the weight of the train travelling at 137 km/h, the fishplate had pivoted around the first of four bolts meant to hold it in place, the most likely cause of the bolts coming loose, says BEA-TT, were stresses caused by cracking in the cast steel crossing. This had caused the head of the bolt to break off and the others to fail, one becoming unscrewed. Rail lengths Tie plate Fish Plate
31.
Ladder track
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This article is about the types of railway track technologies known as Ladder Track. For a description of the layout also known as ladder track. Ladder track is a type of track in which the track is laid on longitudinal supports with transverse connectors holding the two rails at the correct gauge distance. Modern ladder track can be considered a development of baulk road, Ladder type track has also be used historically on bridges lacking ballast, and in situations requiring good drainage or ease of maintenance such as stations. On the Hull and Selby Railway it was used in part as it was noted to produce smooth running, however the contact between rail and sleeper produced hydraulic pumping in wet conditions, which led to rolling stock becoming dirtied very quickly. The longitudinal track was also cause issue with wheel slip on inclines. No longitudinally laid track remained on the line after 1860, Research into longitudinal sleepers took place in Japan, Russia and France in the mid 20th century. In the late 20th century, interest in ladder type tracks increased due to its potential for lower cost and lower maintenance railways, as well as increased stability benefits over sleepered track. An additional benefit in ballasted ladder track is increased resistance to ballast wash out and other forms of ballast degradation due the addition longitudinal support, the same structural rigidity also adds to buckling resistance. Tubular Modular Track is a type of ladder track manufactured by Tubular Track Ltd. of South Africa first introduced in 1989. The track is modular and precast, rather than being cast in situ, the modular nature and controlled production of the track sections has the advantage of rapid installation and good quality control. The track has used mainly in southern Africa, including a section of the Gautrain line in South Africa. The system has also used in Saudi Arabia. The Railway Technical Research Institute of Japan has developed two types of track, ballasted and a floating un-ballasted type. Forms for axle load of 40 tonnes have been designed, the design can also incorporate ducts within the beams and can be converted to slab track by in-situ concrete pouring. The companys main market is mining applications, railroad tie Trackless train ラダー軌道 Ladder Track System, www. rtri. or
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Minimum railway curve radius
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The minimum railway curve radius is the shortest allowable design radius for railway tracks under a particular set of conditions. It has an important bearing on costs and operating costs and, in combination with superelevation in the case of train tracks. Minimum radius of curve is one parameter in the design of vehicles as well as trams. Monorails and guideways are also subject to minimum radii, the first proper railway was the Liverpool and Manchester Railway which opened in 1830. Like the trams that had preceded it over a hundred years, among other reasons for the gentle curves were the lack of strength of the track, which might have overturned if the curves were too sharp causing derailments. There was no signalling at this time, so drivers had to be able to see ahead to avoid collisions with previous trains, the gentler the curves, the longer the visibility. The earliest rails were made in lengths of wrought iron. Minimum curve radii for railroads are governed by the speed operated, for handling of long freight trains, a minimum 717-foot radius is preferred. The sharpest curves tend to be on the narrowest of narrow gauge railways, as the need for more powerful locomotives grew, the need for more driving wheels on a longer, fixed wheelbase grew too. But long wheel bases are unfriendly to sharp curves, various types of articulated locomotives were devised to avoid having to operate multiple locomotives with multiple crews. More recent diesel and electric locomotives do not have a wheelbase problem and this is particularly true of the European buffer and chain couplers, where the buffers extend the profile of the railcar body. For a line with maximum speed 60 km/h, buffer-and-chain couplings reduce the radius to around 200 m. A long heavy freight train, especially those with wagons of mixed loading, may struggle on sharp curves, common solutions include, marshalling light and empty wagons at rear of train intermediate locomotives, including remotely controlled ones. Easing curves reduced speeds reduced cant, at the expense of fast passenger trains, equalizing wagon loading better driver training driving controls that display drawgear forces. And c2013 Electronically Controlled Pneumatic brakes, a similar problem occurs with harsh changes in gradients. To counter this, a cant is used, ideally the train should be tilted such that resultant force acts straight down through the bottom of the train, so the wheels, track, train and passengers feel little or no sideways force. Some trains are capable of tilting to enhance this effect for passenger comfort, because freight and passenger trains tend to move at different speeds and weigh dramatically different, a cant cannot be ideal for both types of rail traffic. The relationship between speed and tilt can be calculated mathematically, the values used when building high-speed railways vary, and depend on desired wear and safety levels
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Rail fastening system
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A rail fastening system is a means of fixing rails to railroad ties or sleepers. The terms rail anchors, tie plates, chairs and track fasteners are used to refer to parts or all of a rail fastening system, various types of fastening have been used over the years. The earliest wooden rails were fixed to wooden sleepers by pegs through holes in the rail, by the 18th century cast iron rails had come into use, and also had holes in the rail itself to allow them to be fixed to a support. The first chair for a rail is thought to have introduced in 1797 which attached to the rail on the vertical web via bolts. In North American practice the flanged T rail became the standard, elsewhere T rails were replaced by bull head rails of a rounded I or figure-8 appearance which still required a supporting chair. Eventually the flanged T rail became commonplace on all the worlds railways, a Golden Tie, also known as a Golden Spike or The Last Spike, may be used to symbolize the start or the completion of an endeavor. These are less often silver or another precious material, historically, a ceremonial Golden Spike driven by Leland Stanford connected the rails of the First Transcontinental Railroad across the United States. The valuable rail fastening spike represented the merge of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads on May 10,1869, at Promontory Summit, since, railroad workers have been celebrated in popular culture, including in song and verse. Most recently, a Golden Spike marked the completion of the longest transportation tunnel in the world, the Gotthard Base Tunnel, full rail service began on 11 December 2016. Its functional length is 57.09 km and its the worlds deepest traffic tunnel, a rail spike is a large nail with an offset head that is used to secure rails and base plates to railroad ties in the track. Robert Livingston Stevens is credited with the invention of the railroad spike, in 1982, the spike was still the most common rail fastening in North America. Common sizes are from 9 to 10/16 inch square and ~5.5 to 6 inch long, a rail spike is roughly chisel-shaped and with a flat edged point, the spike is driven with the edge perpendicular to the grain, which gives greater resistance to loosening. The main function is to keep the rail in gauge, on smaller scale jobs spikes are still driven into wooden sleepers by hammering them with a spike maul. Though this manual work has largely replaced by hydraulic tools and machines. Splitting of the wood can be limited by pre-boring spike holes or adding steel bands around the wood, for use in the United States three basic standards are described in the ASTM A65 standard, for different carbon steel contents. A screw spike, rail screw or lag bolt is a metal screw used to fix a tie plate or to directly fasten a rail. Screw spikes are screwed into a hole bored in the sleeper, the screw spike was first introduced in 1860 in France and became common in continental Europe. A dog screw is a variant of the screw spike
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Rail profile
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The rail profile is the cross sectional shape of a railway rail, perpendicular to its length. Early rails were made of wood, cast iron or wrought iron, all modern rails are hot rolled steel with a cross section approximate to an I-beam, but asymmetric about a horizontal axis. The head is profiled to resist wear and to give a ride. Unlike some other uses of iron and steel, railway rails are subject to high stresses and are made of very high quality steel. It took many decades to improve the quality of the materials, minor flaws in the steel that may pose no problems in other applications can lead to broken rails and dangerous derailments when used on railway tracks. By and large, the heavier the rails and the rest of the trackwork, the rails represent a substantial fraction of the cost of a railway line. Only a small number of sizes are made by steelworks at one time. Worn, heavy rail from a mainline is often reclaimed and downgraded for re-use on a branchline, the weight of a rail per length is an important factor in determining rails strength and hence axleloads and speeds. Weights are measured in pounds per yard or kilograms per metre, rails in Canada, the United Kingdom and United States are described using imperial units. In Australia, metric units are used as in mainland Europe, commonly, in rail terminology Pound is a contraction of the expression pounds per yard and hence a 132–pound rail means a rail of 132 pounds per yard. Rails are made in a number of different sizes. Some common European rail sizes include, In the countries of former USSR65 kg/m rails and 75 kg/m rails are common, the American Society of Civil Engineers specified rail profiles in 1893 for 5-pound-per-yard increments from 40 to 100 lb/yd. Height of rail equaled width of foot for each ASCE tee-rail weight, ASCE90 lb/yd profile was adequate, but heavier weights were less satisfactory. In 1909, the American Railway Association specified standard profiles for 10 lb/yd increments from 60 to 100 lb/yd, the trend was to increase rail height/foot-width ratio and strengthen the web. Disadvantages of the foot were overcome through use of tie-plates. AREA recommendations reduced the weight of rail head down to 36%. Attention was also focused on improved fillet radii to reduce stress concentration at the web junction with the head, AREA recommended the ARA90 lb/yd profile. Old ASCE rails of lighter weight remained in use, and satisfied the demand for light rail for a few decades
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Railroad tie
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A railroad tie/railway tie/crosstie or railway sleeper is a rectangular support for the rails in railroad tracks. Generally laid perpendicular to the rails, ties transfer loads to the track ballast and subgrade, hold the rails upright, railroad ties are traditionally made of wood, but pre-stressed concrete is now also widely used, especially in Europe and Asia. Steel ties are common on secondary lines in the UK, plastic composite ties are also employed, as of January 2008, the approximate market share in North America for traditional and wood ties was 91. 5%, the remainder being concrete, steel, azobé and plastic composite. Approximately 3,520 wooden crossties are used per mile of railroad track in the US,2,640 per mile on main lines in the UK. The type of railroad tie used on the predecessors of the first true railway consisted of a pair of stone blocks laid into the ground, one advantage of this method of construction was that it allowed horses to tread the middle path without the risk of tripping. In railway use with heavier locomotives, it was found that it was hard to maintain the correct gauge. The stone blocks were in any case unsuitable on soft ground, such as at Chat Moss, bi-block ties with a tie rod are somewhat similar. Historically wooden rail ties were made by hewing with an axe, a variety of softwood and hardwoods timbers are used as ties, oak, jarrah and karri being popular hardwoods, although increasingly difficult to obtain, especially from sustainable sources. Sometimes non-toxic preservatives are used, such as copper azole or micronized copper, New boron-based wood preserving technology is being employed by major US railroads in a dual treatment process in order to extend the life of wood ties in wet areas. Some timbers are durable enough that they can be used untreated, problems with wooden ties include rot, splitting, insect infestation, plate-cutting, also known as chair shuffle in the UK and spike-pull. For more information on wooden ties the Railway Tie Association maintains a website devoted to wood tie research. Wooden ties can, of course, catch fire, as they age they develop cracks that allow sparks to lodge so that they catch fire more easily, concrete ties are cheaper and easier to obtain than timber and better able to carry higher axle-weights and sustain higher speeds. Their greater weight ensures improved retention of track geometry, especially when installed with continuous-welded rail, concrete ties have a longer service life and require less maintenance than timber due to their greater weight, which helps them remain in the correct position longer. Concrete ties need to be installed on a well-prepared subgrade with a depth on free-draining ballast to perform well. Concrete ties amplify wheel noise, so wooden ties are used in densely populated areas. On the highest categories of line in the UK, pre-stressed concrete ties are the only permitted by Network Rail standards. Steel ties are formed from pressed steel and are trough-shaped in section, the ends of the tie are shaped to form a spade which increases the lateral resistance of the tie. Housings to accommodate the system are welded to the upper surface of the tie
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Track ballast
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Track ballast forms the trackbed upon which railroad ties are laid. It is packed between, below, and around the ties and it is used to bear the load from the railroad ties, to facilitate drainage of water, and also to keep down vegetation that might interfere with the track structure. This also serves to hold the track in place as the roll by. It is typically made of crushed stone, although ballast has sometimes consisted of other, less suitable materials, the term ballast comes from a nautical term for the stones used to stabilize a ship. The appropriate thickness of a layer of track ballast depends on the size and spacing of the ties, the amount of traffic on the line, and various other factors. Track ballast should never be laid down less than 150 mm thick, an insufficient depth of ballast causes overloading of the underlying soil, and in unfavourable conditions overloading the soil causes the track to sink, usually unevenly. Ballast less than 300 mm thick can lead to vibrations that damage nearby structures, however, increasing the depth beyond 300 mm adds no extra benefit in reducing vibration. In turn, track ballast typically rests on a layer of crushed stones. The sub-ballast layer gives a solid support for the top ballast, sometimes an elastic mat is placed on the layer of sub-ballast and beneath the ballast, thereby significantly reducing vibration. The ballast shoulder always should be at least 150 mm wide, the shape of the ballast is also important. Stones must be cut, with sharp edges, so that they properly interlock and grip the ties in order to fully secure them against movement. In order to let the stones fully settle and interlock, speed limits are often lowered on sections of track for a period of time after new ballast has been laid. If ballast is badly fouled, the clogging will reduce its ability to drain properly, therefore, keeping the ballast clean is essential. Bioremediation can be used to clean ballast and it is not always necessary to replace the ballast if it is fouled, nor must all the ballast be removed if it is to be cleaned. Removing and cleaning the ballast from the shoulder is often sufficient, such machines can clean up to two kilometres of ballast in an hour. In such cases, it is necessary to replace the ballast altogether, the dump and jack method cannot of course be used through tunnels, under overbridges, and where there are platforms. Where the track is laid over a swamp, such as the Hexham swamp in Australia, the ballast continuously sinks, after 150 years of topping up, there appears to be 10 m of sunken ballast under the tracks. Chat Moss in the United Kingdom is similar, regular inspection of the ballast shoulder is important, as noted earlier, the lateral stability of the track depends upon the shoulder
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Track transition curve
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A track transition curve, or spiral easement, is a mathematically calculated curve on a section of highway, or railroad track, where a straight section changes into a curve. It is designed to prevent sudden changes in lateral acceleration, in plan the start of the transition of the horizontal curve is at infinite radius and at the end of the transition it has the same radius as the curve itself, thus forming a very broad spiral. At the same time, in the plane, the outside of the curve is gradually raised until the correct degree of bank is reached. With a road vehicle the driver applies the steering alteration in a gradual manner. The actual equation given in Rankine is that of a cubic curve and this was also known as cubic parabola at that time. In the UK, only from 1845 when legislation and land began to constrain the laying out of rail routes and tighter curves were necessary. The true spiral, where the curvature is exactly linear in arclength, several late-19th century civil engineers seem to have derived the equation for this curve independently. Charles Crandall gives credit to one Ellis Holbrook, in the Railroad Gazette, Dec.3,1880, another early publication was The Railway Transition Spiral by Arthur N. Talbot, originally published in 1890. Some early 20th century authors call the curve Glovers spiral, attributing it to James Glovers 1900 publication, the equivalence of the railroad transition spiral and the clothoid seems to have been first published in 1922 by Arthur Lovat Higgins. Since then, clothoid is the most common given the curve. While railroad track geometry is intrinsically three-dimensional, for practical purposes the vertical and horizontal components of track geometry are usually treated separately, here grade refers to the tangent of the angle of rise of the track. The design pattern for horizontal geometry is typically a sequence of straight line, the degree of banking in railroad track is typically expressed as the difference in elevation of the two rails, commonly quantified and referred to as the superelevation. The simplest and most commonly used form of curve is that in which the superelevation. Cartesian coordinates of points along this spiral are given by the Fresnel integrals, the resulting shape matches a portion of an Euler spiral, which is also commonly referred to as a clothoid, and sometimes Cornu spiral. A transition curve can connect a track segment of constant non-zero curvature to another segment with constant curvature that is zero or non-zero of either sign, successive curves in the same direction are sometimes called progressive curves and successive curves in opposite directions are called reverse curves. The Euler spiral has two advantages, one is that it is easy for surveyors because the coordinates can be looked up in Fresnel integral tables. The other is that it provides the shortest transition subject to a limit on the rate of change of the track superelevation. However, as has been recognized for a time, it has undesirable dynamic characteristics due to the large roll acceleration
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Balloon loop
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A balloon loop, turning loop or reversing loop allows a rail vehicle or train to reverse direction without having to shunt or even stop. Balloon loops can be useful for passenger trains and unit freight trains such as coal trains, Balloon loops are common on tram or streetcar systems. Balloon loops were first introduced on metro and tram lines, Balloon loops enable higher line capacity and also allow the use of single-ended trams which have several advantages, including lower cost and more seating when doors are on one side only. However, double-ended trams also benefit from the capacity advantage of balloon loops, initially the Sydney system was operated by single-ended steam trams and then, from the 1890s, by double-ended electric trams. The Sydney system was possibly the first major example of a tramway system. European systems were converted to looped operation in the early twentieth century. Looped operation with single-ended trams was also used on many North American streetcar systems, on a balloon loop, the station is on the balloon loop, and the platform may be curved or straight. Penfield - now closed and removed Outer Harbor - now closed and removed Olympic Park, Sydney, Australia, Beech Forrest, Victoria, Australia, single platform station on Victorian narrow gauge railway. These trains discharge and take on passengers at Brooklyn Bridge – City Hall, South Ferry was a two-track subway loop station in New York City, with a sharply curved side platform for each track. After the latter station was damaged in Hurricane Sandy, the station was reopened temporarily to provide service to the ferry terminal until the repairs to the latter station are complete. Bowdoin Station on the MBTA Blue Line in Boston has an island platform inside a balloon loop. The boarding platform is long enough for four cars. World Trade Center station on the PATH subway system linking New York, dungeness, Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway, Kent, England, single track, single platform for both boarding and alighting. This evens the wear on the train wheels, central station in Newcastle upon Tyne is on a loop, allowing trains from the South to arrive via the King Edward VII Bridge and return using the High Level Bridge. Peasholm on the North Bay Railway in Scarborough, North Yorkshire has a balloon loop. The loop is used to allow the locomotive to run round the train, the first Wembley Stadium station in London was on a balloon loop, but the present station of that name is not. Barmouth Ferry station on the Fairbourne Railway, blackpool Tramway has a balloon loop at each end of the system and at two intermediate points. Kennington station, also on the Northern line, has a loop to the south of the station to allow terminating southbound trains to reach the northbound platforms to form a return service
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Classification yard
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A classification yard or marshalling yard is a railway yard found at some freight train stations, used to separate railway cars on to one of several tracks. First the cars are taken to a track, sometimes called a lead or a drill, from there the cars are sent through a series of switches called a ladder onto the classification tracks. Larger yards tend to put the lead on an artificially built hill called a hump to use the force of gravity to propel the cars through the ladder, freight trains that consist of isolated cars must be made into trains and divided according to their destinations. Thus the cars must be shunted several times along their route in contrast to a unit train and this shunting is done partly at the starting and final destinations and partly in classification yards. Flat yards are constructed on ground, or on a gentle slope. Freight cars are pushed by a locomotive and coast to their required location, hump yards are the largest and most effective classification yards, with the largest shunting capacity, often several thousand cars a day. The heart of these yards is the lead track on a small hill over which an engine pushes the cars. As concerns speed regulation, there are two types of hump yards—without or with mechanisation by retarders, in the old non-retarder yards braking was usually done in Europe by railroaders who laid skates onto the tracks. The skate or chock was manually placed on one or both of the rails so that the treadles or rims of the wheel or wheels caused frictional retardation, in the United States this braking was done by riders on the cars. In the modern retarder yards this work is done by mechanized rail brakes called retarders and they are operated either pneumatically or hydraulically. Pneumatic systems are prevalent in the United States, France, Belgium, Russia and China, while hydraulic systems are used in Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. In the United States, many classification bowls have more than 40 tracks—up to 72—which are often divided into six to ten tracks in each balloon loop. Bailey Yard in North Platte, Nebraska, United States, the worlds largest classification yard, is a hump yard, notably, in Europe, Russia and China, all major classification yards are hump yards. Europes largest hump yard is that of Maschen near Hamburg, Germany, the second largest is in the port of Antwerp, Belgium. According to the PRRT&HS PRR Chronology, the first hump yard in the United States was opened May 11,1903 as part of the Altoona Yards at Bells Mills. Other sources report the PRR yard at Youngwood, PA which opened in the 1880s to serve the Connellsville coke fields as the first U. S. hump yard. Gravity yards are operated similarly to hump yards but, in contrast to the latter, thus, only few gravity yards were ever built, sometimes requiring massive earthwork. Most gravity yards were built in Germany and Great Britain, a few also in some other European countries, in the USA, there were only very few old gravity yards, one of the few gravity yards in operation today is CSXs Readville Yard south of Boston, Massachusetts
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Junction (rail)
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A junction, in the context of rail transport, is a place at which two or more rail routes converge or diverge. This implies a connection between the tracks of the two routes, provided by points and signalling. In a simple case where two routes with one or two tracks each meet at a junction, a simple layout of tracks suffices to allow trains to transfer from one route to the other. More complicated junctions are needed to permit trains to travel in direction after joining the new route. In this latter case, the three points of the triangle may be different names, for example using points of the compass as well as the name of the overall place. Rail transport operations refer to stations that lie on or near a railway junction as a junction station, frequently, trains are built up and taken apart at such stations so that the same train can split up and go to multiple destinations. For goods trains, marshalling yards serve a similar purpose, the worlds first railway junction was Newton Junction near Newton-le-Willows, England where, in 1831, two railways merged. The capacity of the limits the capacity of a railway network more than the capacity of individual railway lines. This applies more as the density increases. Measures to improve junctions are often more useful than building new railway lines, the capacity of a railway junction can be increased with improved signalling measures, by building points suitable for higher speeds, or by turning level junctions into flying junctions. With more complicated junctions such construction can rapidly become very expensive, especially if space is restricted by tunnels, rail terminology Interlocking Railway town Double junction
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Gauntlet track
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Gauntlet track or interlaced track is an arrangement in which railway tracks run parallel on a single track bed and are interlaced such that only one pair of rails may be used at a time. Since this requires only slightly more width than a single track, trains run on the discrete pair of rails appropriate to their direction, track gauge or loading gauge. Gauntlet tracks can be used to provide clearance to a fixed obstruction adjacent to a track such as a cutting, bridge. Frog gauntlets are commonly used when a rail lines capacity is increased by the provision of an additional track. They are typically used for short stretches of track where it is cheaper to provide extra rails than to provide switches and this also eliminates the problem of switch failures. In a frog gauntlet, one crosses over a rail on the adjacent track. A frog is used to provide the flangeway for the crossing tracks, the train taking the gauntlet runs over the frog onto the parallel rails, passes through the gauntlet area, and passes over another frog to return to the original line. Since there are no points or other moving parts on a frog gauntlet track, because two trains cannot use the gauntlet at the same time, scheduling and signalling must allow for this restriction. In a point gauntlet track, the rails for the two tracks do not need to cross, so no frog is required. The train taking the gauntlet runs over a set of points onto the parallel rails, passes through the gauntlet area. This arrangement is used at the Roselle Park Station referenced below, at a small number of locations on single track lines in Britain, interlaced loops had been provided where sprung catch points were required because of the steep gradient. The points at either end of the loop were set according to the direction of travel. Trains running uphill were routed via the loop incorporating the sprung catch point, trains running downhill used the opposite loop, bypassing the catch point. Where tracks diverge, a section of track may be provided where the switches require to be located remote from the actual divergence. This arrangement is most commonly used on systems, to move the switches away from a heavily trafficked road. An arrangement similar to gauntlet track is used to allow trains of different gauges to use the same track. In that case, the two interlaced tracks will have different gauges, sometimes sharing one of the rails for a total of three rails, in Sydney, the Como bridge over the Georges River between Oatley and Como was built as single line in the 1880s. The line was duplicated soon after, except for that bridge, the bridge was fitted with gauntlet track, which needs no turnouts, and hence needs no signal box at the far end
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