1.
Stock car racing
–
Stock car racing is a form of automobile racing found mainly and most prominently in the United States and Canada, with Australia and New Zealand also having forms of stock car auto racing. Traditionally, races are run on oval tracks measuring approximately 0.25 to 2.66 miles, the worlds largest governing body for stock car racing is the American NASCAR, and its Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series is the premier top level series of professional stock car racing. Top level races typically range between 200 to 600 miles in length, top level stock cars reach speeds in excess of 200 mph at speedway tracks and on superspeedway tracks such as Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway. Contemporary NASCAR-spec top level cars produce maximum power outputs of 860-900 hp from their naturally aspirated V8 engines, for the 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season, power output of the competing cars ranged from 750–800 hp. A stock car, in the sense of the term, is an automobile that has not been modified from its original factory configuration. Later the term stock car came to mean any production-based automobile used in racing and this term is used to differentiate such a car from a race car, a special, custom-built car designed only for racing purposes. The actual degree to which the cars conform to standard model specs has changed over the years, are architecturally identical on all vehicles. For example, the NASCAR Sprint Cup series now requires fuel injection, the closest European equivalent to stock car racing is probably touring car racing. In the UK and New Zealand there is a formula called stock cars. In Australia there was a formula that was similar to NASCAR called AUSCAR. The Racecar-Euro Series began in 2009 and was sanctioned by NASCAR as a series in 2012. True stock car racing, which consists of only street vehicles that can be bought by public, is sometimes now called street stock, pure stock, hobby stock, showroom stock. In 1972, SCCA started its first showroom stock racing series, some modern showroom stock racing allows safety modifications done on showroom stock cars. Super stock classes are similar to street stock, but allow for modifications to the engine. Power output is usually in the range of 500–550 horsepower, Tire width is usually limited to 8 in. Some entry level classes are called street stock, and are similar to what is called banger racing in England. Late models are usually the highest class of cars in local racing. Rules for construction of a model car vary from region to region
2.
Rail yard
–
A rail yard, railway yard or railroad yard is the US term for a complex series of railroad tracks for storing, sorting, or loading/unloading, railroad cars and/or locomotives. Railroad yards have many tracks in parallel for keeping rolling stock stored off the mainline, railroad cars are moved around by specially designed yard switchers, a type of locomotive. Cars in a railroad yard may be sorted by categories, including railroad company, loaded or unloaded, destination, car type. Railroad yards are built where there is a need to store cars while they are not being loaded or unloaded. Large yards may have a tower to control operations, many railway yards are located at strategic points on a main line. Main line yards are often composed of an Up yard and a Down yard, there are different types of yards, and different parts within a yard, depending on how they are built. They are decoupled and let to accelerate into the classification equipment lower down, a flat yard has no hump, and relies on locomotives for all car movements. A large sub-group of such yards are known as Staging yards, the long haul carrier makes the round trip with a minimal turn around time, and the local switch engine transfers empties to the loading yard when the industries output is ready to be shipped. In the staging yard, the locomotive is most likely operated by industry, since overall throughput speed matters, many have small pneumatic, hydraulic or spring driven braking retarders to adjust and slow speed both before and after yard switch points. Along with car tracking and load tracking to destination technologies such as RFID long trains can be broken down and reconfigured in transfer yards or operations in remarkable time. Transfer yard is a yard where consists are dropped off or picked up as a group by through service such as a Unit Train, but managed locally by local switching service locomotives. Unit tracks may be reserved for Unit trains, which carry a block of all of the same origin and destination. Such consists often stop in a yard for other purposes, inspection. Freight yards may have multiple industries adjacent to them where railroad cars are loaded or unloaded and then stored before they move on to their new destination. Major freight yards in the U. S. Major U. K. goods yards include those in Crewe, Reading and Bescot, near Walsall, coach yards are used for sorting, storing and repairing passenger cars. These yards are located in areas near large stations or terminals. An example of a major U. S. coach yard is Sunnyside Yard in New York City and those that are principally used for storage, such as the West Side Yard in New York, are called layup yards or stabling yards. Major U. K. coach stabling yards include those in Crewe and Longsight, Manchester, which are operated by various regional train companies
3.
Rail transport
–
Rail transport is a means of conveyance of passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, also known as tracks. It is also referred to as train transport. In contrast to road transport, where vehicles run on a flat surface. Tracks usually consist of rails, installed on ties and ballast, on which the rolling stock, usually fitted with metal wheels. Other variations are possible, such as slab track, where the rails are fastened to a concrete foundation resting on a prepared subsurface. Rolling stock in a transport system generally encounters lower frictional resistance than road vehicles, so passenger. The operation is carried out by a company, providing transport between train stations or freight customer facilities. Power is provided by locomotives which either draw electric power from a railway system or produce their own power. Most tracks are accompanied by a signalling system, Railways are a safe land transport system when compared to other forms of transport. The oldest, man-hauled railways date back to the 6th century BC, with Periander, one of the Seven Sages of Greece, Rail transport blossomed after the British development of the steam locomotive as a viable source of power in the 19th centuries. With steam engines, one could construct mainline railways, which were a key component of the Industrial Revolution, also, railways reduced the costs of shipping, and allowed for fewer lost goods, compared with water transport, which faced occasional sinking of ships. The change from canals to railways allowed for markets in which prices varied very little from city to city. In the 1880s, electrified trains were introduced, and also the first tramways, starting during the 1940s, the non-electrified railways in most countries had their steam locomotives replaced by diesel-electric locomotives, with the process being almost complete by 2000. During the 1960s, electrified high-speed railway systems were introduced in Japan, other forms of guided ground transport outside the traditional railway definitions, such as monorail or maglev, have been tried but have seen limited use. The history of the growth, decline and restoration to use of transport can be divided up into several discrete periods defined by the principal means of motive power used. The earliest evidence of a railway was a 6-kilometre Diolkos wagonway, trucks pushed by slaves ran in grooves in limestone, which provided the track element. The Diolkos operated for over 600 years, Railways began reappearing in Europe after the Dark Ages. The earliest known record of a railway in Europe from this period is a window in the Minster of Freiburg im Breisgau in Germany
4.
Vehicle
–
A vehicle is a mobile machine that transports people or cargo. Typical vehicles include wagons, bicycles, motor vehicles, railed vehicles, Land vehicles are classified broadly by what is used to apply steering and drive forces against the ground, wheeled, tracked, railed or skied. ISO 3833-1977 is the standard, also used in legislation, for road vehicles types, terms. Boats were used between 4000 BC-3000 BC in Sumer, ancient Egypt and in the Indian Ocean, there is evidence of camel pulled wheeled vehicles about 3000–4000 BC. Wheeled vehicles pulled by men and animals ran in grooves in limestone, in 200 CE, Ma Jun built a south-pointing chariot, a vehicle with an early form of guidance system. Railways began reappearing in Europe after the Dark Ages, the earliest known record of a railway in Europe from this period is a stained-glass window in the Minster of Freiburg im Breisgau dating from around 1350. In 1515, Cardinal Matthäus Lang wrote a description of the Reisszug, the line originally used wooden rails and a hemp haulage rope and was operated by human or animal power, through a treadwheel. 1769 Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot is often credited with building the first self-propelled mechanical vehicle or automobile in 1769. In Russia, in the 1780s, Ivan Kulibin developed a human-pedalled, three-wheeled carriage with modern features such as a flywheel, brake, gear box and bearings, however and it was introduced by Drais to the public in Mannheim in summer 1817. 1903 Wright brothers flew the first controlled, powered aircraft 1907 First helicopters Gyroplane no.1, there are over 1 billion bicycles in use worldwide. In 2002 there were an estimated 590 million cars and 205 million motorcycles in service in the world, at least 500 million Chinese Flying Pigeon bicycles have been made, more than an other single model of vehicle. The most-produced model of vehicle is the Honda Super Cub motorcycle. The most-produced car model is the Toyota Corolla, with at least 35 million made by 2010, by far, most vehicles use wheels which employ the principle of rolling to enable displacement with very little rolling friction. It is essential that a vehicle have a source of energy to drive it, energy can be extracted from the surrounding environment, as in the case of a sailboat, a solar-powered car or a streetcar. Energy can also be stored, in any form, provided it can be converted on demand, the most common type of energy source is fuel. Batteries also facilitate the use of motors, which have their own advantages. On the other hand, batteries have low densities, short service life, poor performance at extreme temperatures. Like fuel, batteries store energy and can cause burns
5.
Locomotive
–
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
6.
Railroad car
–
A railroad car or railcar, railway wagon or railway carriage, also called a train car or train wagon, is a vehicle used for the carrying of cargo or passengers on a rail transport system. Such cars, when coupled together and hauled by one or more locomotives, alternatively, some passenger cars are self-propelled in which case they may be either single railcars or make up multiple units. The term car is used by itself in American English when a rail context is implicit. Indian English sometimes uses bogie in the manner, though the term has other meanings in other variants of English. In American English, railcar is a term for a railway vehicle, in other countries railcar refers specifically to a self-propelled, powered. Tables may be provided between seats facing one another, alternatively, seats facing in the same direction may have access to a fold-down ledge on the back of the seat in front. If the aisle is located between seats, seat rows may face the direction, or be grouped, with twin rows facing each other. In some vehicles intended for services, seats are positioned with their backs to the side walls. This gives a wide accessway and allows room for standing passengers at peak times, if the aisle is at the side, the car is usually divided into small compartments. These usually contain six seats, although sometimes in second class they contain eight, modern cars usually have either air-conditioning or windows that can be opened, or sometimes both. Various types of onboard train toilet facilities may also be provided, other types of passenger car exist, especially for long journeys, such as the dining car, parlor car, disco car, and in rare cases theater and movie theater car. In some cases another type of car is converted to one of these for an event. Observation cars were built for the rear of many trains to allow the passengers to view the scenery. Sleeping cars outfitted with small bedrooms allow passengers to sleep through their night-time trips, long-distance trains often require baggage cars for the passengers luggage. In European practice it used to be common for day coaches to be formed of compartments seating 6 or 8 passengers, in the UK, Corridor coaches fell into disfavor in the 1960s and 1970s partially because open coaches are considered more secure by women traveling alone. Another distinction is between single- and double deck train cars, an example of a double decker is the Amtrak superliner. A trainset is a semi-permanently arranged formation of cars, rather than one created ad hoc out of cars are available. These are only broken up and reshuffled on shed, trains are then built of one or more of these sets coupled together as needed for the capacity of that train
7.
Passenger car (rail)
–
A passenger car is a piece of railway rolling stock that is designed to carry passengers. The term passenger car can also be associated with a car, baggage, dining, railway post office. Up until about the end of the 19th century, most passenger cars were constructed of wood, the first passenger trains did not travel very far, but they were able to haul many more passengers for a longer distance than any wagons pulled by horses. As railways were first constructed in England, so too were the first passenger cars, one of the early coach designs was the Stanhope. It featured a roof and small holes in the floor for drainage when it rained, the only problem with this design is that the passengers were expected to stand for their entire trip. The first passenger cars in the United States resembled stagecoaches and they were short, often less than 10 ft long and had two axles. British railways had a start on American railroads, with the first bed-carriage being built there as early as 1838 for use on the London and Birmingham Railway. Britains early sleepers, when made up for sleeping, extended the foot of the bed into a section at the end of the carriage. The cars were too short to allow more than two or three beds to be positioned end to end. Britains Royal Mail commissioned and built the first Travelling Post Office cars in the late 1840s as well. These cars resembled coaches in their short wheelbase and exterior design, when not in use, the hook would swivel down against the side of the car to prevent it from catching obstacles. As locomotive technology progressed in the century, trains grew in length. Passenger cars, particularly in America, grew along with them, first getting longer with the addition of a second truck, early American sleeping cars were not compartmented, but by the end of the 19th century they were. The compartments in the sleepers were accessed from a side hall running the length of the cars. Many American passenger trains, particularly the long ones, included a car at the end of the train called an observation car. Until about the 1930s, these had a platform at the rear. These evolved into the end car, usually with a rounded end which was still called an observation car. The interiors of observation cars varied, many had special chairs and tables
8.
Goods wagon
–
Goods wagons or freight wagons are unpowered railway vehicles that are used for the transportation of cargo. At the beginning of the era, the vast majority of goods wagons were four-wheeled vehicles of simple construction. These were almost exclusively small covered wagons, open wagons with side-boards, over the course of time, an increasing number of specialised wagons were developed. Special wagons for specific purposes or wagons with special features were already being introduced around 1850 by private companies, amongst these were tank wagons and numerous refrigerated vans. In countries like Germany, wagon hire firms procured large numbers of these wagons, in the early days of the railway, goods trains still ran at top speeds of only about 20 mph. However, the introduction of through brakes using air pipes from the 1920s enabled higher speeds to be safely achieved, the Deutsche Bahn even has goods wagons cleared for high-speed rail travel at up to 100 mph. In Europe, the first agreements were struck early on between the national state railways and private companies for the mutual use of each other’s goods wagons. Around 1850, the Union of German Railway Administrations drew up regulations for the standardisation of dimensions, the formation of the Prussian State Railway Union in 1881 encouraged the emergence of wagon classes built to standard norms. One further European milestone was the formation of the German State Railway Wagon Association on 1 April 1909. With the participation of all the German state railways, it created a pool of goods wagons. In addition, they all had standardised inscriptions and red-brown livery, in order to standardise future procurements, a total of 11 wagon classes were defined. From 1939, wagons were developed primarily from a point of view and were known as wartime classes. After the war, in East Germany, some pre-war goods wagon classes were given a new lease of life as ‘reconstructed goods wagons’, since the Union of Private Goods Wagon Companies was founded in 1921, the interests of private transport organisations in Germany has been jointly represented. The Union has around 100 members who own 50,000 goods wagons, in 2007, they transported 361,000,000 t of goods. Since 1922, the agreement for the use of goods wagons in international traffic has regulated the exchange of goods wagons in Europe. In addition, international goods wagon fleets were created in 1953 in Western Europe with the Europ-Verband, during the second half of the 20th century, national goods wagon classes in Europe were increasingly replaced by Union internationale des chemins de fer standard wagons. Since 1964, all goods wagons in Germany, for example, have had to be classified using the UIC goods wagon classification system, lowmacs Covered wagons or vans have a fixed roof and are mainly used for the transportation of part-load goods or parcels. Today these are divided into, Ordinary classes Special classes, which are distinguished by their large loading volumes
9.
Inventory
–
Inventory or stock means to the goods and materials that a business holds for the ultimate goals to have a purpose of resale. Inventory management is a discipline and primarily about specifying the shape and it is required at different locations within a facility or within many locations of a supply network to precede the regular and planned course of production and stock of materials. In the context of services, inventory refers to all work done prior to sale, balancing these competing requirements leads to optimal inventory levels, which is an ongoing process as the business needs shift and react to the wider environment. Inventory management involves a retailer seeking to acquire and maintain a proper merchandise assortment while ordering, shipping, handling and this would include the monitoring of material moved into and out of stockroom locations and the reconciling of the inventory balances. It also may include ABC analysis, lot tracking, cycle counting support, however, in practice, inventory is to be maintained for consumption during variations in lead time. Lead time itself can be addressed by ordering that many days in advance, seasonal Demand, demands varies periodically, but producers capacity is fixed. This can lead to stock accumulation, consider for example how goods consumed only in holidays can lead to accumulation of large stocks on the anticipation of future consumption, uncertainty - Inventories are maintained as buffers to meet uncertainties in demand, supply and movements of goods. Economies of scale - Ideal condition of one unit at a time at a place where a user needs it, so bulk buying, movement and storing brings in economies of scale, thus inventory. Appreciation in Value - In some situations, some stock gains the value when it is kept for some time to allow it reach the desired standard for consumption. Capital Investment Space Usage Complicated Inventory Control Systems, higher number of inventory items complicates the control, stock Keeping Unit SKUs are clear, internal identification numbers assigned to each of the products and their variants. SKUs can be any combination of letters and numbers chosen, just as long as the system is consistent, stockout means running out of the inventory of an SKU. New old stock is a used in business to refer to merchandise being offered for sale that was manufactured long ago. Such merchandise may not be produced anymore, and the new old stock may represent the only source of a particular item at the present time. Manufacturers, distributors, and wholesalers inventory tends to cluster in warehouses, retailers inventory may exist in a warehouse or in a shop or store accessible to customers. Inventories not intended for sale to customers or to clients may be held in any premises an organization uses, stock ties up cash and, if uncontrolled, it will be impossible to know the actual level of stocks and therefore impossible to control them. Work in process, WIP - materials and components that have begun their transformation to finished goods, finished goods - goods ready for sale to customers. Goods for resale - returned goods that are salable, the firms work in process includes those materials from the time of release to the work floor until they become complete and ready for sale to wholesale or retail customers. This may be vats of prepared food, filled cans not yet labeled or sub-assemblies of food components and it may also include finished cans that are not yet packaged into cartons or pallets
10.
Market liquidity
–
In business, economics or investment, market liquidity is a markets ability to purchase or sell an asset without causing drastic change in the assets price. Equivalently, a market liquidity describes the assets ability to sell quickly without having to reduce its price to a significant degree. Liquidity is about how big the trade-off is between the speed of the sale and the price it can be sold for, in a liquid market, the trade-off is mild, selling quickly will not reduce the price much. In a relatively illiquid market, selling it quickly will require cutting its price by some amount, money, or cash, is the most liquid asset, because it can be sold for goods and services instantly with no loss of value. There is no wait for a buyer of the cash. There is no trade-off between speed and value and it can be used immediately to perform economic actions like buying, selling, or paying debt, meeting immediate wants and needs. If an asset is moderately liquid, it has moderate liquidity, in an alternative definition, liquidity can mean the amount of cash and cash equivalents. If a business has moderate liquidity, it has an amount of very liquid assets. If a business has sufficient liquidity, it has a sufficient amount of liquid assets. An act of exchanging a less liquid asset for a liquid asset is called liquidation. Often liquidation is trading the less liquid asset for cash, also known as selling it, for the same asset, its liquidity can change through time or between different markets, such as in different countries. The change in the liquidity is just based on the market liquidity for the asset at the particular time or in the particular country. The liquidity of a product can be measured as how often it is bought, Liquidity is defined formally in many accounting regimes and has in recent years been more strictly defined. For instance, the US Federal Reserve intends to apply quantitative liquidity requirements based on Basel III liquidity rules as of fiscal 2012, bank directors will also be required to know of, and approve, major liquidity risks personally. A liquid asset has some or all of the features, It can be sold rapidly, with minimal loss of value. The essential characteristic of a market is that there are always ready. A market may be considered both deep and liquid if there are ready and willing buyers and sellers in large quantities, an illiquid asset is an asset which is not readily salable due to uncertainty about its value or the lack of a market in which it is regularly traded. The mortgage-related assets which resulted in the mortgage crisis are examples of illiquid assets
11.
Infrastructure
–
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
12.
Rail tracks
–
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
13.
Railway signal
–
A signal is a mechanical or electrical device erected beside a railway line to pass information relating to the state of the line ahead to train/engine drivers. The driver interprets the signals indication and acts accordingly, typically, a signal might inform the driver of the speed at which the train may safely proceed or it may instruct the driver to stop. Originally, signals displayed simple stop/proceed indications, as traffic density increased, this proved to be too limiting and refinements were added. One such refinement was the addition of distant signals on the approach to stop signals, the distant signal gave the driver warning that he was approaching a signal which might require a stop. This allowed for an increase in speed, since train drivers no longer had to drive at a speed within sighting distance of the stop signal. Under timetable and train operation, the signals did not directly convey orders to the train crew. Instead, they directed the crew to pick up orders, possibly stopping to do so if the order warranted it, signals are used to indicate one or more of the following, that the line ahead is clear or blocked. That the driver has permission to proceed, the speed the train may travel. The state of the next signal and that the train orders are to be picked up by the crew. Signals can be placed, at the start of a section of track, on the approach to a movable item of infrastructure, such as points/switches or a swingbridge. in advance of other signals. On the approach to a level crossing, ahead of platforms or other places that trains are likely to be stopped. Running lines are usually continuously signalled, each line of a double track railway is normally signalled in one direction only, with all signals facing the same direction on either line. Where bi-directional signalling is installed, signals face in both directions on both tracks, signals are generally not provided for controlling movements within sidings or yard areas. The aspect is the appearance of the signal, the indication is the meaning. In American practice the indications have conventional names, so that for instance Medium Approach means Proceed at not exceeding medium speed and it is important to understand that for signals that use coloured aspects, the colour of each individual light is subsumed in the overall pattern. In the United States, for example, it is common to see a Clear aspect consisting of a light above a red light. The red light in this instance does not indicate Stop, it is simply a component of a larger aspect. Operating rules normally specify that there is some imperfection in the display of an aspect
14.
Train station
–
A train station, railway station, railroad station, or depot is a railway facility where trains regularly stop to load or unload passengers or freight. It generally consists of at least one platform and a station building providing such ancillary services as ticket sales. If a station is on a line, it often has a passing loop to facilitate traffic movements. The smallest stations are most often referred to as stops or, in parts of the world. Stations may be at level, underground, or elevated. Connections may be available to intersecting rail lines or other modes such as buses. In British usage, the station is commonly understood to mean a railway station unless otherwise qualified. In the United States, the most common term in contemporary usage is train station, Railway station and railroad station are less frequent. Outside North America, a depot is place where buses, trains, or other vehicles are housed and maintained and from which they are dispatched for service. The two-storey Mount Clare station in Baltimore, Maryland, which survives as a museum, first saw service as the terminus of the horse-drawn Baltimore. The oldest terminal station in the world was Crown Street railway station in Liverpool, built in 1830, as the first train on the Liverpool-Manchester line left Liverpool, the station is slightly older than the Manchester terminal at Liverpool Road. The station was the first to incorporate a train shed, the station was demolished in 1836 as the Liverpool terminal station moved to Lime Street railway station. Crown Street station was converted to a goods station terminal, the first stations had little in the way of buildings or amenities. The first stations in the modern sense were on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, manchesters Liverpool Road Station, the second oldest terminal station in the world, is preserved as part of the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester. It resembles a row of Georgian houses, dual-purpose stations can sometimes still be found today, though in many cases goods facilities are restricted to major stations. In rural and remote communities across Canada and the United States, such stations were known as flag stops or flag stations. Many stations date from the 19th century and reflect the architecture of the time. Countries where railways arrived later may still have such architecture, as later stations often imitated 19th-century styles, various forms of architecture have been used in the construction of stations, from those boasting grand, intricate, Baroque- or Gothic-style edifices, to plainer utilitarian or modernist styles
15.
Steam locomotive
–
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
16.
Diesel locomotive
–
A diesel locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engine. Several types of diesel locomotive have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which power is conveyed to the driving wheels. Early internal combustion engine-powered locomotives and railmotors used gasoline as their fuel, soon after Dr. Rudolf Diesel patented his first compression ignition engine in 1892, it was considered for railway propulsion. Progress was slow, however, as several problems had to be overcome, power transmission was a primary concern. As opposed to steam and electric engines, internal combustion engines work efficiently only within a range of turning frequencies. In light vehicles, this could be overcome by a clutch, in heavy railway vehicles, mechanical transmission never worked well or wore out too soon. Experience with early gasoline powered locomotives and railcars was valuable for the development of diesel traction, one step towards diesel-electric transmission was the petrol-electric vehicle, such as the Acsev Weitzer railmotor, which could operate from batteries and electric overhead wires too. Steady improvements in diesel design gradually reduced its size and improved its power-to-weight ratio to a point where one could be mounted in a locomotive. Once the concept of drive was accepted, the pace of development quickened. In 1930, Armstrong Whitworth of the United Kingdom delivered two 1,200 hp locomotives using engines of Sulzer design to Buenos Aires Great Southern Railway of Argentina, currently, almost all diesel locomotives are diesel-electric, although the diesel-hydraulic type was widely used between the 1950s and 1970s. The Soviet diesel locomotive TEP80-0002 lays claim to the speed record for a diesel railed vehicle. In 1894, a 20 h. p. two axle machine built by Priestman Brothers was used on the Hull Docks, in 1896 an oil-engined railway locomotive was built for the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, England, in 1896, using an engine designed by Herbert Akroyd Stuart. It was not, strictly, a diesel because it used a hot bulb engine, following the expiration of Dr. Rudolf Diesels patent in 1912, his engine design was successfully applied to marine propulsion and stationary applications. However, the massiveness and poor power-to-weight ratio of early engines made them unsuitable for propelling land-based vehicles. Therefore, the potential as a railroad prime mover was not initially recognized. This changed as development reduced the size and weight of the engine, the worlds first diesel-powered locomotive was operated in the summer of 1912 on the Winterthur-Romanshorn Railroad in Switzerland, but was not a commercial success. In 1906, Rudolf Diesel, Adolf Klose and the steam, Sulzer had been manufacturing Diesel engines since 1898. During further test runs in 1913 several problems were found, after the First World War broke out in 1914, all further trials were stopped
17.
Diesel multiple unit
–
A diesel multiple unit or DMU is a multiple-unit train powered by on-board diesel engines. A DMU requires no separate locomotive, as the engines are incorporated into one or more of the carriages and they may also be referred to as a railcar or railmotor, depending on country. Diesel-powered units may be classified by their transmission type, diesel-electric. The diesel engine may be located above the frame in a bay or under the floor. Driving controls can be at both ends, on one end, or none, DMUs are usually classified by the method of transmitting motive power to their wheels. In a diesel-mechanical multiple unit the rotating energy of the engine is transmitted via a gearbox and driveshaft directly to the wheels of the train, like a car. The transmissions can be shifted manually by the driver, as in the majority of first-generation British Rail DMUs. In a diesel-hydraulic multiple unit, a torque converter, a type of fluid coupling. Some units feature a mix of hydraulic and mechanical transmissions, usually reverting to the latter at higher operating speeds as this decreases engine RPM. In a diesel-electric multiple unit a diesel engine drives a generator or an alternator which produces electrical energy. The generated current is fed to electric traction motors on the wheels or bogies in the same way as a conventional diesel electric locomotive. In modern DEMUs, such as the Bombardier Voyager family, each car is entirely self-contained and has its own engine, generator, a train composed of DMU cars scales well, as it allows extra passenger capacity to be added at the same time as motive power. It also permits passenger capacity to be matched to demand, and for trains to be split and it is not necessary to match the power available to the size and weight of the train, as each unit is capable of moving itself. As units are added, the power available to move the train increases by the necessary amount, distribution of the propulsion among the cars also results in a system that is less vulnerable to single-point-of-failure outages. Many classes of DMU are capable of operating with faulty units still in the consist, because of the self-contained nature of diesel engines, there is no need to run overhead electric lines or electrified track, which can result in lower system construction costs. Such advantages must be weighed against the noise and vibration that may be an issue with this type of train. DMUs were first introduced to Australia in the late mid-20th century for use on branch lines that could not justify a locomotive hauled service. Today, DMUs are widely used throughout Australias southern states, Adelaide Metro uses a variety of DMUs on their suburban network, NSW TrainLink use Xplorer DMUs on services from Sydney to Canberra, Griffith, Broken Hill, Armidale and Moree
18.
Hopper car
–
A hopper car is a type of railroad freight car used to transport loose bulk commodities such as coal, ore, grain, and track ballast. Two main types of hopper car exist, covered hopper cars, which are equipped with a roof, and open hopper cars and this type of car is distinguished from a gondola car in that it has opening doors on the underside or on the sides to discharge its cargo. The development of the car went along with the development of automated handling of such commodities. Covered hopper cars are used for cargo such as grain, sugar. Open hopper cars are used for such as coal, which can suffer exposure with less detrimental effect. Hopper cars have used by railways worldwide whenever automated cargo handling has been desired. Ore jennies is predominantly a term for shorter open hopper cars hauling taconite by the Duluth, Missabe, a rotary car dumper permits the use of simpler and more compact gondola cars instead of hoppers. Covered hoppers, though, are still in widespread use, the Coke Express, a unit train of hopper cars loaded with coke, with the words Coke Express painted on the sides of the hoppers. Increase in wheel loads has important implications for the infrastructure needed to accommodate future grain hopper car shipments. The weight of the car is transmitted to the rails and the track structure through these wheel loads. As wheel loads increase, track maintenance expenses increase and the ability of a rail weight, ballast depth. Moreover, the ability of a bridge to handle prolonged rail traffic also decreases as wheel loads increase. Gondola Victorian Railways hopper wagons Union Pacific #7801 – Photos and short history of an example of a typical self-clearing, open-top triple hopper Rail car manufacturing
19.
Well car
–
A well car, also known as a double-stack car or stack car, is a type of railroad car specially designed to carry intermodal containers used in intermodal freight transport. The well is a section which sits close to the rails between the wheel trucks of the car, allowing a container to be carried lower than on a traditional flatcar. This makes it possible to carry a stack of two containers per unit on railway lines wherever the loading gauge assures sufficient clearance, the top container is secured to the bottom container either by a bulkhead built into the car, or through the use of inter-box connectors. Four IBCs are needed per wellcar, advantages to using well cars include increased stability due to the lower center of gravity of the load, lower tare weight, and in the case of articulated units, reduced slack action. Double-stack cars are most common in North America where intermodal traffic is heavy and electrification is less widespread, southern Pacific Railroad, along with Malcom McLean, came up with the idea of the first double-stack intermodal car in 1977. SP then designed the first car with ACF Industries that same year and that same year, the first all double stack train left Los Angeles for South Kearny, New Jersey, under the name of Stacktrain rail service. Along the way the train transferred from the UP to CNW, each unit of a double-stack car is constructed with a single well, but are often constructed with multiple units of three to five units, connected by articulated connectors. Articulated connectors are supported by the centerplate of a single truck, also, in a number of cases, multiple single-well cars are connected by drawbars and share a single reporting mark. On both types of cars, the units are typically distinguished by letters, with the unit on one end being the A unit. Middle units are labeled starting with C, and going up to E for five-unit cars starting from the A unit, double-stack cars come in a number of sizes, related to the standard sizes of the containers they are designed to carry. Well lengths of 40 ft,48 ft and 53 ft are most common, a number of 45 ft wells and 56 ft wells also exist. On 40,45,48, or 53 cars, larger containers are placed on top of smaller containers that fit in the available wells to efficiently use all available space. All wells are also capable of carrying two 20 ft ISO containers in the bottom position, some double-stack cars have been also equipped with hitches which allow them to carry semi-trailers as well as containers. These are known as all-purpose well cars, foreign intermodal trains carry 20s, 40s, 45s and 53 foot containers to and from coastal container ports to import or export intercontinentally. Domestic intermodal trains carry 53 foot containers plus trailer-on-flatcar and they travel throughout North America, econo Stack well cars are a variation of conventional well cars and their main purpose is to give the double stacked containers more support. The down side to them is they do not allow 53 containers to be stacked on top, australia - double stack trains operate between Perth, Adelaide, Darwin and Parkes, NSW6.5 m clearances. China - using double stacked container trains under 25 kV AC overhead lines, india - Mundra Port operates double stack diesel trains on 1,676 mm gauge using flat wagons. Experiments for double stacking under 25 kV AC overhead lines have begun because of given by Japan
20.
Intermodal container
–
These containers are known under a number of names, such as simply container, cargo or freight container, ISO container, shipping, sea or ocean container, container van or box, sea or c can. The common heights are 8 feet 6 inches and 9 feet 6 inches – the latter are known as High Cube or Hi-Cube containers, in 2012 there were about 20.5 million intermodal containers in the world of varying types to suit different cargoes. Containers have largely supplanted the traditional break bulk cargo – in 2010 containers accounted for 60% of the seaborne trade. The predominant alternative methods of transport carry bulk cargo – whether gaseous, liquid or solid – e. g. by bulk carrier or tank ship, for air freight, the more light-weight IATA-defined unit load device is used. By the 1830s, railways on several continents were carrying containers that could be transferred to other modes of transport, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in the United Kingdom was one of these. Simple rectangular timber boxes, four to a truck, they were used to convey coal from the Lancashire collieries to Liverpool, early versions of standardized containers were used in Europe before World War II. Construction of these containers had a frame with wooden walls, floor, roof. American containers at this time were not standardized, and these early containers were not yet stackable – neither in the U. S. nor Europe, in November 1932, the first container terminal in the world was opened by the Pennsylvania Rail Road Company in Enola, PA. A system was selected for Western Europe, based on the Netherlands system for goods and waste transportation called Laadkisten. This system used roller containers for transport by rail, truck and ship, in various configurations up to 5,500 kg capacity and this became the first post World War II European railway standard of the International Union of Railways – UIC-590, known as pa-Behälter. It was implemented in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, West Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, the use of standardized steel shipping containers began during the late 1940s and early 1950s, when commercial shipping operators and the US military started developing such units. In 1948 the U. S. Army Transportation Corps developed the Transporter, a rigid, corrugated steel container, able to carry 9,000 pounds. It was 8 ft 6 in long,6 ft 3 in wide, and 6 ft 10 in high, with doors on one end, was mounted on skids. After proving successful in Korea, the Transporter was developed into the Container Express box system in late 1952, cONEXes could be stacked three high, and protected their contents from the elements. By 1965 the US military used some 100,000 Conex boxes, making this the first worldwide application of intermodal containers. From 1949 onwards, engineer Keith Tantlinger repeatedly contributed to the development of containers, as well as their handling, steel castings on the top corners provided lifting and securing points. In 1955 trucking magnate Malcom McLean bought Pan-Atlantic Steamship Company, to form a container shipping enterprise, the first containers were supplied by Brown, where McLean met Keith Tantlinger, and hired him as vice-president of engineering and research. Under the supervision of Tantlinger, a new 35 ft x 8 ft x 8 ft 6 in Sea-Land container was developed, each container had a frame with eight corner castings that could withstand stacking loads
21.
Great Britain
–
Great Britain, also known as Britain, is a large island in the north Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of 209,331 km2, Great Britain is the largest European island, in 2011 the island had a population of about 61 million people, making it the worlds third-most populous island after Java in Indonesia and Honshu in Japan. The island of Ireland is situated to the west of it, the island is dominated by a maritime climate with quite narrow temperature differences between seasons. Politically, the island is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, most of England, Scotland, and Wales are on the island. The term Great Britain often extends to surrounding islands that form part of England, Scotland, and Wales. A single Kingdom of Great Britain resulted from the union of the Kingdom of England, the archipelago has been referred to by a single name for over 2000 years, the term British Isles derives from terms used by classical geographers to describe this island group. By 50 BC Greek geographers were using equivalents of Prettanikē as a name for the British Isles. However, with the Roman conquest of Britain the Latin term Britannia was used for the island of Great Britain, the oldest mention of terms related to Great Britain was by Aristotle, or possibly by Pseudo-Aristotle, in his text On the Universe, Vol. III. To quote his works, There are two large islands in it, called the British Isles, Albion and Ierne. The name Britain descends from the Latin name for Britain, Britannia or Brittānia, Old French Bretaigne and Middle English Bretayne, Breteyne. The French form replaced the Old English Breoton, Breoten, Bryten, Breten, Britannia was used by the Romans from the 1st century BC for the British Isles taken together. It is derived from the writings of the Pytheas around 320 BC. Marcian of Heraclea, in his Periplus maris exteri, described the group as αἱ Πρεττανικαὶ νῆσοι. The peoples of these islands of Prettanike were called the Πρεττανοί, Priteni is the source of the Welsh language term Prydain, Britain, which has the same source as the Goidelic term Cruithne used to refer to the early Brythonic-speaking inhabitants of Ireland. The latter were later called Picts or Caledonians by the Romans, the Greco-Egyptian scientist Ptolemy referred to the larger island as great Britain and to Ireland as little Britain in his work Almagest. The name Albion appears to have out of use sometime after the Roman conquest of Britain. After the Anglo-Saxon period, Britain was used as a term only. It was used again in 1604, when King James VI and I styled himself King of Great Brittaine, France, Great Britain refers geographically to the island of Great Britain, politically to England, Scotland and Wales in combination
22.
Great Western Railway
–
The Great Western Railway was a British railway company that linked London with the south-west and west of England, the Midlands, and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835, Goods wagons were painted red but this was later changed to mid-grey. Great Western trains included long-distance express services such as the Flying Dutchman, the Cornish Riviera Express and it also operated many suburban and rural services, some operated by steam railmotors or autotrains. The company pioneered the use of larger, more economic goods wagons than were usual in Britain and it operated a network of road motor routes, was a part of the Railway Air Services, and owned ships, docks and hotels. The Great Western Railway originated from the desire of Bristol merchants to maintain their city as the port of the country. The company was founded at a meeting in Bristol in 1833 and was incorporated by Act of Parliament in 1835. Isambard Kingdom Brunel, then aged twenty-nine, was appointed engineer and this was by far Brunels largest contract to date. Firstly, he chose to use a gauge of 7 ft to allow for the possibility of large wheels outside the bodies of the rolling stock which could give smoother running at high speeds. Secondly, he selected a route, north of the Marlborough Downs and this meant the line was not direct from to London to Bristol. From Reading heading west, the line would curve in a northerly sweep back to Bath, the first 22.5 miles of line, from Paddington station in London to Maidenhead Bridge station, opened on 4 June 1838. When Maidenhead Railway Bridge was ready the line was extended to Twyford on 1 July 1839, the cutting was the scene of a railway disaster two years later when a goods train ran into a landslip, ten passengers who were travelling in open trucks were killed. This accident prompted Parliament to pass the 1844 Railway Regulation Act requiring railway companies to provide carriages for passengers. The next section, from Reading to Steventon crossed the Thames twice, a 7. 25-mile extension took the line to Faringdon Road on 20 July 1840. Meanwhile, work had started at the Bristol end of the line, on 17 December 1840, the line from London reached a temporary terminus at Wootton Bassett Road west of Swindon and 80.25 miles from Paddington. The section from Wootton Bassett Road to Chippenham was opened on 31 May 1841, as was Swindon Junction station where the Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway to Cirencester connected. That was an independent line worked by the GWR, as was the Bristol and Exeter Railway, in 1851, the GWR purchased the Kennet and Avon Canal, which was a competing carrier between London, Reading, Bath and Bristol. The GWR was closely involved with the C&GWUR and the B&ER, the South Wales Railway had opened between Chepstow and Swansea in 1850 and became connected to the GWR by Brunels Chepstow Bridge in 1852. It was completed to Neyland in 1856, where a port was established
23.
Brake van
–
Brake van and guards van are terms used mainly in the UK, Australia and India for a railway vehicle equipped with a hand brake which can be applied by the guard. Many British freight trains formerly had no continuous brake so the only available brakes were those on the locomotive, because of this shortage of brake power, the speed was restricted to 25 mph. The brake van was marshalled at the rear of the train so both portions of the train could be brought to a stand in the event of a coupling breaking. When freight trains were fitted with braking, brake vans lost their importance. However, they continue on some important railways, such as the Indian Railways. Railways were a development of industrial tramways, which had found need on occasions to add additional braking capacity by adding an empty truck to the rear of a group of tramcars. This allowed the locomotive — often a cableway powered by an engine at the surface — to operate both safely and, more importantly, at higher speed. The first railways, such as the pioneering Liverpool and Manchester Railway of 1830, used a version of the buffer and chain coupling. Vehicles are coupled by hand using a hook and links with a device that draws the vehicles together. Vehicles have buffers, one at each corner on the ends, with no continuous brake across the entire train, the whole train was reliant on the braking capacity of the locomotive, and train lengths were restricted. To allow for trains, early railway companies from the 1840s onwards began replicating industrial tramway practises. The term was derived from their name on the industrial tramways, early railway couplings had been found to be prone to breakages. The term was replaced by brake van from the 1870s onwards. Because of the risks of shortage of brake power and breaking couplings. On unfitted trains, the van has several purposes. Route knowledge would allow the guard to initiate the braking before the driver, to aid in this, signalling regulations mandated that signals be left at clear until the entirety of a train had passed, as the guard would immediately apply brakes upon seeing a signal at danger. As breaking couplings on unfitted trains when starting were a common occurrence. A later job of the guard was the provision of side lamps on brake vans, the white lamp is the tail lamp, whilst the grey lamps are the side lamps, along with the standard tail lamp required on the rear of every train
24.
British Railways
–
British Railways, which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was the operator of most of the rail transport in Great Britain between 1948 and 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British railway companies and lasted until the privatisation of British Rail. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Commission, the period of nationalisation saw sweeping changes in the national railway network. A process of dieselisation and electrification took place, and by 1968 steam locomotion had been replaced by diesel and electric traction. Passengers replaced freight as the source of business, and one-third of the network was closed by the Beeching Axe of the 1960s in an effort to reduce rail subsidies. On privatisation, responsibility for track, signalling and stations was transferred to Railtrack, the British Rail double arrow logo is formed of two interlocked arrows showing the direction of travel on a double track railway and was nicknamed the arrow of indecision. The rail transport system in Great Britain developed during the 19th century, during World War I the railways were under state control, which continued until 1921. Complete nationalisation had been considered, and the Railways Act 1921 is sometimes considered as a precursor to that, nationalisation was subsequently carried out after World War II, under the Transport Act 1947. This Act made provision for the nationalisation of the network, as part of a policy of nationalising public services by Clement Attlees Labour Government. British Railways came into existence as the name of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Commission on 1 January 1948 when it took over the assets of the Big Four. There were also joint railways between the Big Four and a few railways to consider. Excluded from nationalisation were industrial lines like the Oxfordshire Ironstone Railway, the London Underground – publicly owned since 1933 – was also nationalised, becoming the London Transport Executive of the British Transport Commission. The Bicester Military Railway was already run by the government, the electric Liverpool Overhead Railway was also excluded from nationalisation. The Railway Executive was conscious that some lines on the network were unprofitable and hard to justify socially, however, the general financial position of BR became gradually poorer, until an operating loss was recorded in 1955. The Executive itself had abolished in 1953 by the Conservative government. Other changes to the British Transport Commission at the time included the return of road haulage to the private sector. British Railways was divided into regions which were based on the areas the former Big Four operated in, later. Western Region of British Railways, former Great Western Railway lines, London Midland Region of British Railways, former London Midland and Scottish Railway lines in England
25.
Track (rail transport)
–
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
26.
Telegram style
–
It originated in the telegraph age when telecommunication consisted only of short messages transmitted by hand over the telegraph wire. The telegraph companies charged for their service by the number of words in a message, with a maximum of 15 characters per word for a plain-language telegram, the style developed to minimize costs but still convey the message clearly and unambiguously. The related term cablese describes the style of press messages sent uncoded, a characteristic is the use of the word STOP for a full stop character, eg t-gram style stop Orville Wrights telegram of December 17,1903 about the first powered flight. Orevelle Wright Before the telegraph age military dispatches from overseas were made by letters transported by sailing ships. Clarity and concision were often considered important in such correspondence, an apocryphal story about the briefest correspondence in history has a writer inquiring about the sales of his new book by sending the message. To his publisher, only to receive, in some ways, telegram style was the precursor to the modern language abbreviations employed in texting or the use of short message standard services such as Twitter. For telegrams, space was at a premium—economically speaking—and abbreviations were used as a matter of necessity and this motivation was revived for compressing information into the 140 character limit of a costly SMS prior to the advent of multi-message capabilities. Length constraints drove readoption of telegraphic style despite requiring more effort to write, the average length of a telegram in the 1900s in the US was 11.93 words, more than half of the messages were 10 words or fewer. According to another study, the length of the telegrams sent in the UK before 1950 was 14.6 words or 78.8 characters. For German telegrams, the length is 11.5 words or 72.4 characters. At the end of the 19th century the average length of a German telegram was calculated as 14.2 words, headlinese SMS language HOW TO WRITE TELEGRAMS PROPERLY A Small Booklet by Nelson E. Ross,1928 Notes on Writing Richard N. Langlois, February 1997. ISBN 0-8027-1342-4 for hardback, ISBN 0-425-17169-8 for paperback, telegraphic codes and message practice, 1870-1945
27.
SMS language
–
Once it became popular it took on a life of its own and was often used outside of its original context. SMS language is similar to that used by those sending telegraphs that charged by the word and it seeks to use the fewest number of letters to produce ultra-concise words and sentiments in dealing with space, time and cost constraints of text messaging. This follows from how early SMS permitted only 160 characters and some carriers charge messages by the number of characters sent. It also shares some of these characteristics with Internet slang and Telex speak following from how its evolution is rather symbiotic to the evolution of use of shorthand in Internet chat rooms. Likewise, such a change sought to accommodate the number of characters allowed per message. Faramerz Dabhoiwala wrote in The Guardian in 2016, modern usages that horrify linguistic purists in fact have deep historical roots, OMG was used by a septuagenarian naval hero, admiral of the fleet Lord Fisher, in 1917. Nevertheless, the invention of mobile phone messaging is considered to be the source for the invention of SMS language, in general, SMS language thus permits the sender to type less and communicate more quickly than one could without such shortcuts. One example is the use of tomoz instead of tomorrow, nevertheless, there are no standard rules for the creation and use of SMS languages. Words can also be combined with numbers to make them shorter, some may view SMS language to be a nascent dialect of the English language, that is a dialect strongly if not completely derivative of the English language. Such generalization may have risen from the fact that mobile phones had only been able to support a number of default languages in the early stages of its conception and distribution. Researcher Mohammad Shirali-Shahreza further observes that mobile phone producers offer support of local language of the country within which their phone sets are to be distributed, nevertheless, various factors contribute as additional constraints to the use of non-English languages and scripts in SMS. On the flip side, researcher Gillian Perrett observes the de-anglicization of the English language following its use, the primary motivation for the creation and use of SMS language was to convey a comprehensible message using the fewest number of characters possible. This was for two reasons, one, telecommunication companies limited the number of characters per SMS, and also charged the user per SMS sent, to keep costs down, users had to find a way of being concise while still communicating the desired message. Two, typing on a phone is normally slower than with a keyboard, as a result, punctuation, grammar, and capitalization are largely ignored. In many countries, people now have access to unlimited text options in their plan, although this varies widely from country to country. However, screens are small and the input problem persists. Observations and classifications as to the linguistic and stylistic properties of SMS language have made and proposed by Crispin Thurlow, López Rúa. For words that have no common abbreviation, users most commonly remove the vowels from a word, omission of words, especially function words are also employed as part of the effort to overcome time and space constraints
28.
Great Western Railway telegraphic codes
–
Great Western Railway telegraphic codes were a commercial telegraph code used to shorten the telegraphic messages sent between the stations and offices of the railway. The codes listed below are taken from the 1939 edition of the Telegraph Message Code book unless stated otherwise, the Great Western Railway pioneered telegraph communication over the 13 miles from Paddington to West Drayton on 9 April 1839 using Cooke and Wheatstone equipment. Although used primarily as a safety device to regulate the passage of trains, in order to do this quickly and accurately, a number of code words were used to replace complicated or regularly used phrases. The codes were changed from time to time to current needs. By 1922 most railways in the country had agreed on standard code words, in 1943 all railways were brought into a single system of codes and the GWR special codes were discontinued. Note, many of these codes could have a letter to identify variations, such as Mink A. Most of these codes were painted onto the wagons for easy identification, by using these codes long and complex sentences could be sent using just a few words. Some examples of the codes representing phrases include, Adex – Advertised day excursion, boyne – There is no water at the following station. Wire full description, marks, and contents, and say who complains, cynic – Can only offer ordinary service. Osage – Send men here for undermentioned engine to leave at, palm – Report fully by next train with reference to delay. Smoke – Owing to fog in London Division restriction train service to operate in accordance with current fog-working notice, stork – We have no trace of your invoice, send copy next train. Zola – Can you send engine and men to undermentioned station, australian railway telegraphic codes Commercial code Great Western Railway wagons
29.
Great Western Railway wagons
–
The fleet of Great Western Railway wagons was both large and varied as it carried the wide variety of goods traffic on the Great Western Railway in the United Kingdom. In 1902 the company owned 59,036 wagons, and by 1926 this had risen to 88,580, the first wagons were just open boxes but covered vans were added from the 1860s and a wide range of special wagons were eventually built to handle many specialised traffics. Towards the end of its existence these were all painted in a grey livery, most early vehicles were open wagons with four wheels, although a few six-wheeled vehicles were provided for special loads. Covered vans followed, initially for carrying cattle but later for any kind of goods that needed to be protected from the weather during transit. The first bogie wagons appeared in 1873 for heavy loads, container wagons appeared in 1931 and special motor car vans in 1933. Indeed, special wagons were built for different commodities such as gunpowder, china clay, motor cars, boilers, long girders, sheets of glass, cattle, fruit. When the GWR was opened no trains were fitted with vacuum brakes, the first goods wagons to be fitted with vacuum brakes were those that ran in passenger trains carrying perishable goods such as fish. In common with most other British railways, goods trains were coupled together by a large three-link chain between sprung hooks on each wagon. More common on GWR wagons was a coupling, in which the middle link was specially shaped so that they could be shortened when in vacuum-fitted trains. Wagons were painted brown in the years of the GWR. A dark grey livery was introduced about 1904 and continued to be used until 1947, the owner of the wagon was identified by G. W. R painted in small letters on the underframe or bottom plank of the body. When wagons were painted red many were fitted with cast iron plates instead, from 1904 the initials changed to a large painted GW which was reduced to just 16 in in 1920. About 1937 the design returned to just a small 5 in GW painted just above the wagon’s number, the earliest wagons were of an open type, essentially a four-sided box with a drop-down door in each side carried on four or sometimes six wheels. Those with just one or two side planks and an 8 ton capacity were built until 1872 by which time 9 ton, four-wheel,1886 saw the introduction of four-plank wagons which were rated to carry 10 tons but a few longer ones were rated at 12 tons. Five-plank wagons were standard construction from 1902 but from just two years later all new open wagons were built with seven planks, many early wagons were built with semi-circular raised ends that could support a tarpaulin cover or tilt. From 1902 a number of wagons were instead constructed with a longitudinal bar above the middle of the wagon. This was able to support a tarpaulin, or sheet as they were by now known, an experimental bogie open, coded Tourn, was built in 1889. 36 feet long, it was high but soon raised to four planks
30.
International Standard Book Number
–
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
31.
International Standard Serial Number
–
An International Standard Serial Number is an eight-digit serial number used to uniquely identify a serial publication. The ISSN is especially helpful in distinguishing between serials with the same title, ISSN are used in ordering, cataloging, interlibrary loans, and other practices in connection with serial literature. The ISSN system was first drafted as an International Organization for Standardization international standard in 1971, ISO subcommittee TC 46/SC9 is responsible for maintaining the standard. When a serial with the content is published in more than one media type. For example, many serials are published both in print and electronic media, the ISSN system refers to these types as print ISSN and electronic ISSN, respectively. The format of the ISSN is an eight digit code, divided by a hyphen into two four-digit numbers, as an integer number, it can be represented by the first seven digits. The last code digit, which may be 0-9 or an X, is a check digit. Formally, the form of the ISSN code can be expressed as follows, NNNN-NNNC where N is in the set, a digit character. The ISSN of the journal Hearing Research, for example, is 0378-5955, where the final 5 is the check digit, for calculations, an upper case X in the check digit position indicates a check digit of 10. To confirm the check digit, calculate the sum of all eight digits of the ISSN multiplied by its position in the number, the modulus 11 of the sum must be 0. There is an online ISSN checker that can validate an ISSN, ISSN codes are assigned by a network of ISSN National Centres, usually located at national libraries and coordinated by the ISSN International Centre based in Paris. The International Centre is an organization created in 1974 through an agreement between UNESCO and the French government. The International Centre maintains a database of all ISSNs assigned worldwide, at the end of 2016, the ISSN Register contained records for 1,943,572 items. ISSN and ISBN codes are similar in concept, where ISBNs are assigned to individual books, an ISBN might be assigned for particular issues of a serial, in addition to the ISSN code for the serial as a whole. An ISSN, unlike the ISBN code, is an identifier associated with a serial title. For this reason a new ISSN is assigned to a serial each time it undergoes a major title change, separate ISSNs are needed for serials in different media. Thus, the print and electronic versions of a serial need separate ISSNs. Also, a CD-ROM version and a web version of a serial require different ISSNs since two different media are involved, however, the same ISSN can be used for different file formats of the same online serial
32.
Refrigerator car
–
A refrigerator car is a refrigerated boxcar, a piece of railroad rolling stock designed to carry perishable freight at specific temperatures. Refrigerator cars differ from simple insulated boxcars and ventilated boxcars, neither of which are fitted with cooling apparatus, reefers can be ice-cooled, come equipped with any one of a variety of mechanical refrigeration systems, or utilize carbon dioxide as a cooling agent. Milk cars may or may not include a system, but are equipped with high-speed trucks. After the end of the American Civil War, Chicago, Illinois emerged as a railway center for the distribution of livestock raised on the Great Plains to Eastern markets. Driving cattle across the plains also caused tremendous loss, with some animals dying in transit. Costly inefficiencies were inherent in transporting live animals by rail, particularly the fact that about sixty percent of the mass is inedible. The death of animals weakened by the long drive further increased the shipping cost. Meat sought a way to ship dressed meats from his Chicago packing plant to eastern markets, during the mid-19th century, attempts were made to ship agricultural products by rail. The first refrigerated boxcar entered service in June 1851, on the Northern Railroad and this icebox on wheels was a limited success since it was only functional in cold weather. That same year, the Ogdensburg and Lake Champlain Railroad began shipping butter to Boston in purpose-built freight cars, the first consignment of dressed beef left the Chicago stock yards in 1857 in ordinary boxcars retrofitted with bins filled with ice. Placing meat directly against ice resulted in discoloration and affected the taste, the method proved too limited to be practical. Detroits William Davis patented a refrigerator car that employed metal racks to suspend the carcasses above a frozen mixture of ice and salt. In 1868, he sold the design to George H. Hammond, a Detroit meat packer, the load had the tendency of swinging to one side when the car entered a curve at high speed, and use of the units was discontinued after several derailments. The meat was packed tightly at the bottom of the car to keep the center of gravity low, in 1880 the Peninsular Car Company delivered the first of these units to Swift, and the Swift Refrigerator Line was created. Within a year, the Lines roster had risen to nearly 200 units, competing firms such as Armour and Company quickly followed suit. By 1920, the SRL owned and operated 7,000 of the rail cars. The General American Transportation Corporation would assume ownership of the line in 1930, in the 1870s, the lack of a practical means to refrigerate peaches limited the markets open to Samuel Rumph, a Georgia peach grower. In 1875, he invented a railcar and crates that allowed him to grow peaches on a very large scale
33.
Stock car (rail)
–
In railroad terminology, a stock car, cattle car or cattle wagon is a type of rolling stock used for carrying livestock to market. Specialized types of cars have been built to haul live fish and shellfish and circus animals such as camels. Until the 1880s, when the Mather Stock Car Company and others introduced more humane stock cars, improved technology and faster shipping times have greatly reduced losses. Rail cars have used to transport livestock since the 1830s. The first shipments in the United States were made via the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in general purpose, thereafter, and until 1860, the majority of shipments were made in conventional boxcars that had been fitted with open-structured iron-barred doors for ventilation. Some railroads constructed combination cars that could be utilized for carrying both live animals as well as conventional freight loads, driving cattle across the plains led to tremendous weight loss, and a number of animals were typically lost along the way. The suffering of animals in transit as a result of hunger, thirst, increased train speeds reduced overall transit times, though not enough to offset the deleterious conditions the animals were forced to endure. Some of the railroad companies attempted to alleviate the problems by adding passenger cars to the trains that hauled early stock cars. The New Jersey Railroad and Transportation Company followed this practice as early as 1839, and these early passenger accommodations were the predecessors of the later drovers caboose designs that were used until the mid-20th century. Railroad operating rules for livestock and handlers that rode the trains were limited, as the handlers were private contractors or employees of the shippers. A1948 rulebook for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, for example, wishes of attendants regarding care of livestock should be ascertained and assistance rendered in caring for such shipments. In absence of instructions, hog shipments should be watered as necessary. Particular attention must be given to stock unaccompanied by attendants, most railroads resisted the call for as long as possible from shippers for improvements to cars specifically designed to carry livestock. The railroads generally preferred to use standard boxcars because that type of car proved more versatile in the number of different types of loads it could carry. When the railroads and cattle industry failed to act quickly enough to correct these perceived deficiencies, claims were made that the meat of neglected animals was unfit for human consumption. In 1869, Illinois passed the first laws to limit the time on board. However, double-deck stock cars had been experimented with as early as the 1830s on the Liverpool, other states such as Ohio and Massachusetts soon followed with similar legislation, though effective federal laws were not enacted until the passing of the Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1906. The first patented stock car designs that actually saw use on American railroads were created by Zadok Street, streets designs were first used in 1870 on shipments between Chicago and New York City
34.
Railway post office
–
The RPO was staffed by highly trained Railway Mail Service postal clerks, and was off-limits to the passengers on the train. In the UK, the equivalent term was Travelling Post Office, from the middle of the 19th century, many American railroads earned substantial revenues through contracts with the U. S. Post Office Department to carry mail aboard high-speed passenger trains, in fact, a number of companies maintained passenger routes where the financial losses from moving people were more than offset by transporting the mail. The worlds first official carriage of mail by rail was by the United Kingdoms General Post Office in November 1830, using adapted railway carriages on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. In the United States, some references suggest that the first shipment of mail carried on a train occurred in 1831 on the South Carolina Rail Road. Other sources state that the first official contract to carry mail on a train was made with the Baltimore. The United States Congress officially designated all railroads as official postal routes on July 7,1838, similar services were introduced on Canadian railroads in 1859. The Railway post office was introduced in the United States on July 28,1862, using converted baggage cars on the Hannibal, purpose-built Railway Post Office cars entered service on this line a few weeks after the service was initiated. Their purpose was to separate mail for connection with a westbound stagecoach departing soon after the arrival at St. Joseph. This service lasted approximately one year, the first permanent Railway Post Office route was established on August 28,1864, between Chicago, Illinois, and Clinton, Iowa. This service is distinguished from the 1862 operation because mail was sorted to and received from each post office along the route, as well as major post offices beyond the routes end-points. Armstrong, assistant postmaster at Chicago, originally came up with the idea of having mail processed and distributed while the mail was on board, en route in mail cars. With the assistance of Schuyler Colfax, Speaker of the House at the time, in 1869, the Railway Mail Service, headed by George B. Armstrong, was inaugurated to handle the transportation and sorting of mail aboard trains. Armstrong was promoted from a position in the Chicago post office following his experiments in 1864 with a converted route agents car on runs between Chicago and Clinton, Iowa. RPO car interiors, which at first consisted of wood furniture and fixtures. In 1879, an RMS employee named Charles R. Harrison developed a new set of fixtures that soon gained widespread use. Harrisons design consisted of hinged, cast-iron fixtures that could be unfolded and set up in a number of configurations to hold mail pouches, racks and a sorting table as needed for specific routes
35.
Mobile post office
–
Mobile post offices deliver mail and other postal services through specially equipped vehicles, such as trucks and trains. The United Kingdom pioneered the use of what it calls the Travelling Post Office. TPOs were removed from service by Royal Mail in early 2004, in the UK, road vehicles that provide postal services are known as Mobile Post Offices, to differentiate them from the rail Travelling Post Offices. Mobile Post Offices were first introduced in 1936 to provide telegraph, telephone and postal services at events such as race meetings. The need for large Mobile Post Offices declined over the years, in the United States, the most prominent mobile post offices are railway post offices. For about 30 years, ending in the 1920s, a few cities had streetcar offices, in addition, the U. S. runs a Boat Railway Post Offices. The boat services were first available for inland waterways, beginning in 1857, and subsequently ocean routes to Puerto Rico, Canal Zone, the rail and boat offices were discontinued in 1977 and 1978, respectively. Canada began its railroad mail services in 1859, both CN Rail and CP Rail used mailcars to haul mail across Canada. With the switch to mail delivery by air or truck, Canada Post no longer delivers mail by rail, via Rail provides courier/mail service, VIAPAQ Courier, at select train stations in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Mobile postal trucks serve two routes for Hongkong Post operating within Hong Kong, the French postal service, La Poste carries mail on exclusively mail trains, operating at night, called SNCF TGV La Poste. In Israel, mobile post offices began in 1955 as part of the postal services for the Negev. Following an earthquake in 2005, the Universal Postal Union donated monies to Pakistan for a postal office truck. Taiwans Chunghwa Post, which is no longer a member of the UPU, also maintains one mobile post office in Yuli, countries have issued postage stamps to recognize mobile postal services. For instance, in 1913, the U. S. issued parcel post stamps that portray a mail train as well as an employee of a railway post office, in 1974, Zambia issued a series of 4 stamps as commemoratives for the centenary of the Universal Postal Union. Israel issued a stamp in 1959 picturing its red mobile post truck, in 1950, the Mobile Post Office Society was established as a philatelic organization interested in the postmarks and activities of mobile offices, primarily in the U. S. In popular culture, the mobile post office may be best known for the Great Train Robbery, notes Sources Bergman, Edwin B.29 Years to Oblivion, The Last Years of Railway Mail Service in the United States, Mobile Post Office Society, Omaha, Nebraska. Available from http, //www. eskimo. com/~rkunz/mposhome. html Mobile Post Office Society, Mail by Rail - The History of the TPO & Post Office Railway, Ian Allan Publishing, London. The Railway Mail Service, Railway Mail Service Library, Boyce, on boats and streetcars, available as an MS Word file at
36.
Bar car
–
A bar car is a train car that has as its primary purpose the provision and consumption of alcoholic and other beverages. Bar cars were common during the heyday of U. S. rail travel prior to World War II, however, since May 2014 there are no bar cars left. Metro-North Railroad has replaced the 1970s-era cars now used by commuters from Manhattan to Connecticut, the M-8 was designed by Cesar Vergara, a train designer from Ridgefield, Connecticut, who also provided a design for a modern bar car. The last bar cars were retired in May 2014, formerly, a bar car service ran on 3 of Chicagos Metra lines, the Milwaukee District/North Line, the Milwaukee District/West Line, and the Rock Island District line. The last service was on August 29,2008, when the last contracts expired,10 Comet I bar cars were built in 1970 for the Erie Lackawanna and were used for AM coffee service and PM bar service on diesel trains based from Hoboken Terminal into the 1980s. The bar cars were converted to standard coaches when rebuilt in 1987, Canadian National Railwayss Rapido service from Toronto to Montreal, for a brief time during the late 1960s and 1970s, had what was known as a Bistro car. Contemporary services on Via Rail include complimentary unlimited alcoholic beverages served at your seat in Business Class on Corridor trains, alcoholic beverages are available for at-seat purchase/service in Economy Class on all remote services trains. On long-distance trains such as The Canadian and The Ocean, alcoholic beverages are available for purchase in the Skyline, Park, service to Prestige Class passengers is complimentary. Spårakoff Daily schedule for trains with bar cars on the Metro-North New Haven bound line Barcar. com - fan site Inside Metro-North M2 barcar
37.
Bilevel rail car
–
The bilevel car or double-decker train is a type of rail car that has two levels of passenger accommodation, as opposed to one, increasing passenger capacity. In some countries such vehicles are referred to as dostos. Bilevel trains are claimed to be energy efficient, and may have a lower operating cost per passenger. A bilevel car may carry about twice as many as a normal car, however, a bilevel train may take longer to exchange passengers at each station, since more people will enter and exit from each car. The increased dwell time makes them most popular on long-distance routes which make fewer stops, Bilevel cars may not be usable in countries or older railway systems with low loading gauges. This includes much of the network in the northeast of the USA. In some countries such as the UK new lines are built to a higher than the structure gauge to allow the use of double-deck trains in future. Double deck carriages date to at least as early as the half of the 19th century. Vidard introduced two-storied carriages on the Chemins de fer de lEst, with a body, windows, and doors. The double-deck design usually includes lowering the floor to below the top level of the wheels, closer to the rails. Such a design will fit under bridges, tunnels and power wires. For cost and safety, this also minimizes car height. For low train station platforms, a two floor design with level entry onto the floor is used. Occasionally a third, very tall two floors over-wheel design is used and this is a traditional single floor car with a second story design with, when using low platform, requires steps up to a traditional floor height and then internal stairs up to the upper floor. There are four important height measurements above the railhead, platform height, traditional floor height, downstairs floor height, platform height determines the level entry height for wheeled objects, such as luggage, strollers, wheelchairs and bicycles. Platform height is ideally standardized across all stations the train serves, traditional rail car floor height matters for end doors connecting to existing single floor rail cars. Downstairs or lowest floor height is determined by the thickness of the beams connecting the span between the wheels and bogies of a rail car. The upstairs floor or highest floor height is above the lowest floor and must fit under bridges, level entry floor height must match the platform height
38.
Colonist car
–
A colonist car was a type of railway passenger coach designed to provide inexpensive long-distant transportation for immigrants, mainly in North America. They were noted for very spartan accommodation, colonist cars began in the 1840s as the cheapest form of transport for immigrants who could only afford basic fares. At first they provided only benches around the side of what were often boxcars which could be converted to grain cars for trips to the east coast. These cars provided simple pull-down sleeping births and kitchens where immigrant families could cook their own meals, a family could cross Canada from Montreal for seven dollars but immigrants had to provide their own food and bedding. Blankets, pillows and food all cost extra, the Canadian Pacific eventually built a fleet of over a thousand colonist cars which played a major role in settling the Canadian west. Rival Canadian Railways such as the Intercolonial Railway and later the Canadian Northern also built fleets of cars in the peak years of immigration before World War I. They saw renewed use in World War II as troop cars, by the 1960s most colonist cars were worn out and were replaced by standard passenger cars as demand for immigrant trains from sea ports fell in the wake of increased travel by air. Today, two Canadian Pacific Railway colonist cars are preserved in Canada at the Calgary Heritage Park in Calgary, and at the West Coast Railway Associations museum in Squamish, British Columbia. The Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 built a replica of a 1920s era colonist car complete with immigrant luggage and cooking stove as part of its 2015 expansion
39.
Compartment coach
–
A compartment coach is a railway passenger coach divided into separate areas or compartments, with no means of moving between compartments. The compartment coach was developed at the beginning of the railway era in England simply by placing a post coach body on a railway undercarriage. Compartment coaches were used across almost the whole of Europe and were right up to the 1930s. On the European continent they were referred to as English coaches or coaches built to the English system. A corridor coach has covered gangways, side entrances and partitioned compartments with a corridor down one side, the first compartment coaches in the 19th century comprised several cabins on one undercarriage, similar to the post coaches. Compartment coaches with doors for each compartment, without any connexion between compartments, were built up to the end of the 20th century, countless four-, six- and eight-wheeled vehicles of this type were used in Germany and especially by the Prussian state railways. Until about 1880, four-wheeled compartment coaches were typical, after the end of the wave of nationalisations the Prussian state railways, around 1895, acquired the quieter-running six-wheelers. For this, so-called norms were established for four-, six- and, later, for the six-wheelers, both fixed axle and sliding axle designs were envisaged. Those coaches designed specifically for suburban traffic had no toilets, on the other coaches, a gangway was specified in order to keep the number of toilets to a minimum for economic reasons. Numerous coaches had therefore to be converted, after the end of the 19th century, fourth class compartment coaches were also procured. Four- and six-wheeled compartment coaches were used in all train categories on main lines. With the advent of the D-Zug express coaches in 1892, compartment coaches were deployed in passenger trains on main lines, so ticket checking by the guard became a function of station staff. By contrast, open coaches were common on branch lines, because there were often no platform barriers on branch line stations, from 1895, especially in Prussia and Saxony, eight-wheeled compartment coaches were built. They were predominantly used in the semi-fast trains or Eilzüge introduced in 1907, over 3,500 coaches were built in several batches starting in 1818. The compartments in the coaches were sometimes linked to provide access to the toilets, in third class coaches the privies lacked flushing facilities until some time later. Initially the window frames on compartment coaches - like the bodies themselves - were made of wood. After 1900 they were made of a brass alloy based on a patent by the Julius Pintsch AG firm, the upper part of the window frame on these coaches was rounded. From 1910 the former lighting was replaced by more efficient gas lighting
40.
Couchette car
–
A couchette car is a railway carriage conveying non or semi-private sleeping accommodation. The car is divided into a number of compartments accessed from the corridor of the car. Typically, in 2nd class the seat serves as the lowest bunk, there are two types of couchette car in countries of the former USSR, coupé and platzkart. Coupé cars are expensive and comfortable with 4-bunk compartments fully separated from each other. The attendant provides a sheet, blanket, and pillow for each passenger, unlike in sleeping cars, couchette compartments are not always segregated by sex, and it is normal not to undress except for removing footwear. One compartment at the end of the car is reserved for the use of the attendant, in some former eastern bloc countries this is not done, and it is normal for passengers to be awoken by border police and railway inspectors at each border crossing. Toilets and washrooms are located at the ends of the car, auto Train CityNightLine Sleeping car White, John H. Baltimore, MD, Johns Hopkins University Press
41.
Dining car
–
A dining car or a restaurant car, also a diner, is a railroad passenger car that serves meals in the manner of a full-service, sit-down restaurant. Grill cars, in which sit on stools at a counter and purchase. Fare typically consisted of meat, cold beans, and old coffee. Such poor conditions discouraged many from making the journey, most railroads began offering meal service on trains even before the First Transcontinental Railroad. As competition among railroads intensified, dining car service was taken to new levels, the room accommodated 12 guests, and could be reserved anytime for private dinner or cocktail parties, or other special functions. The room was used by celebrities and dignitaries traveling on the Super Chief. Edwin Kachel was a steward for more than twenty-five years in the Dining-Car Department of the Great Northern Railway and he said that on a dining car, three elements can be considered -- the equipment, the employee, then passenger. In other words, the whole is constituted by two-thirds of human parts, as cross-country train travel became more commonplace, passengers began to expect high-quality food to be served at the meals on board. The level of service on trains in the 1920s and 1930s rivaled that of high-end restaurants. Elegance is one of the words used to describe the concept of dining on a train. Use of fresh ingredients was encouraged whenever possible, the Christmas menu for the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. In one of the most common dining car configurations, one end of the car contains a galley while the end has table or booth seating on either side of a center aisle. Dining cars enhance the familiar restaurant experience with the visual entertainment of the ever-changing view. While dining cars are common today than in the past they still play a significant role in passenger railroading, especially on medium-. Today, a number of tourist-oriented railroads offer dinner excursions to capitalize on the fascination with the dining car experience. The U76/U70 tram line between the German cities of Düsseldorf and Krefeld offers a Bistrowagen, where passengers can order drinks and snacks and this practise comes from the early 20th Century, when interurban trams conveyed a dining car. Despite the introduction of tram units,4 trams still have a Bistrowagen. The Harvey House Cookbook, Memories of Dining along the Santa Fe Railroad, luckin, Richard W. Mimbres to Mimbreño, A Study of Santa Fes Famous China Pattern
42.
Dome car
–
A dome car is a type of railway passenger car that has a glass dome on the top of the car where passengers can ride and see in all directions around the train. It also can include features of a coach, lounge car, dining car, in North America, dome cars were manufactured by the Budd Company, Pullman Standard and American Car & Foundry. Southern Pacific Railroad built its own cars in its Sacramento, California. In the 1990s Colorado Railcar began producing dome cars, generally, seats in the dome were considered non-revenue like lounge car seats. When dome cars operate today in excursion trains, the dome seats often command a premium fare, a portion of the car, usually in the center of the car but offset towards one end, is split between two levels. The offset results in floorplans having a long end and an end on the main level. Passengers in the portion of the dome are able to see in all directions from a vantage point above the trains roofline. In the United States, the Union Pacific Railroad operated dome dining cars and these cars had a kitchen in the short end, with a pantry in half the space under the dome. The other half of the space under the dome was a dining room for small groups. Between the pantry and kitchen there was a dumbwaiter to transfer items between the kitchen and the area in the dome portion of the car. The long end was the dining area. The dormitory space was used by train crew such as the dining car staff. Several railroads operated dome sleeping cars and those of the Northern Pacific Railway had four bedrooms in the long end, four roomettes in the short end and four duplex single rooms under the dome. The Wabash Railroad and Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad operated dome cars for first class day service. Wabashs Blue Bird included a Budd dome-parlor-observation as part of its original consist, the CB&Q operated dome-parlor-observation cars on the Twin Zephyrs, the Kansas City Zephyr and the Denver Zephyr. Several railroads operated dome cars, usually at the rear of the train. These cars have a dome on top of the car with a rounded-end or flat-end rear observation section where passengers can sit and these cars often have additional sleeping compartments under the dome and/or in the short end as well as a bar and/or additional lounge spaces. The Canadian Pacific Railway outfitted the 1955 Canadian with Park-series dome-sleeper-observations, while the partial dome cars were the most common, a number of variations on the dome car were developed
43.
Lounge car
–
A lounge car is a type of passenger car on a train, where riders can purchase food and drinks. The car may feature large windows and comfortable seating to create a diversion from standard coach or dining options. In earlier times, a car was more likely to have a small kitchen, or grill. Food was prepared to order and often cooked, though such as club sandwiches would have usually been part of the offerings. The cars were operated by the Pullman Company, and in other cases by the railroad directly as part of the dining car department. Lounge cars operated by Pullman were exclusively for the use of sleeping car passengers, buffet lounge cars were often found in trains which did not offer full dining car service. On other trains they supplemented the diner and offered sandwiches, burgers and short orders at times when the diner was not serving, e. g. mid-afternoon, to qualify as a buffet lounge the car had to offer both food and drink service. Buffet lounges should not be confused with snack or grill cars which did not offer a range of libations. In Britain, luxury cars are known as Pullman cars. Baltimore, MD, Johns Hopkins University Press, meal and Dining Options Aboard Amtrak Amtrak Lounge Car
44.
Observation car
–
The push-pull mode of operation removes this limitation. In Europe, various trains are now fitted with observation cars at either or both ends and this variety of features is easy to spot with a variety of window placement and sizes, while Observation Car windows tend to be more uniform in size and placement. A lighted drumhead adornment, usually indicating the name of the train or the name/logo of the railroad would invariably be hung from the end of the observation car. Some early trains offered two observation cars, an enclosed type for its compartment or first class passengers and an open type resembling a flat car for its tourist class riders. The observation platform made a temporary stage for just such an event. In more recent years, presidents Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, while the cars manufactured by companies such as Pullman-Standard conformed to somewhat standard designs, some railroads created their own distinctive designs for observation ends. For example, the Milwaukee Road’s passenger trains were often rounded out with either a “Skytop Lounge” or a finned “Beavertail observation” the latter due to noted industrial designer Otto Kuhler. The Milwaukees Skytops—four parlor cars built in the railroads own shops, the WP touted this combination car type as “the best of both worlds” in passenger amenities. The Wabash used the cars on their Bluebird, Chicago to St. Louis, the C&O cars were sold to the Denver & Rio Grande and ran on the Royal Gorge. As described above, the car on scheduled passenger trains has largely fallen victim to increased operational costs. An outstanding exception is Via Rails Canadian, which operates on every triweekly trip between Toronto and Vancouver with the same dome observation-lounge cars in use on the train since 1955. Some modern European trains, typically operating in the mode, are fitted with observation cars on one or both ends. The driver is located in a cabin on the side of the passengers, the German ICE control cars feature a see-through driver cabin, with passenger seats behind the driver. Private railroad car White, John H, baltimore, MD, Johns Hopkins University Press. Budd also built cars for the Wabashs Bluebird between Chicago and St. Louis and the Chesapeake and Ohio Chessie which never went into service. The C&O cars were sold off to the Denver and Rio Grande Western where they served on the Royal Gorge and her costume is made to resemble that of a Pullman Observation coach. Dome Observation history Skytop Lounge Coffee Creek restoration London and North Western Railway observation car No.1503 Swanage Railway’s Pullman Observation Car No.14
45.
Open coach
–
An open coach is a railway passenger coach that does not have compartments or other divisions within it and in which the seats are arranged in one or more open plan areas with a centre aisle. The first open coaches appeared in the first half of the 19th century in the USA, the prototype for their design were the passenger cabins in the river steamers which were then widespread in America. As a result of their origin they were known in Europe as American system passenger coaches or American coaches. Initially they were used for rural regional services, whilst urban local trains. Several European railways, for example the Royal Württemberg State Railways or the Swiss Northeastern Railway, however, from the beginning of the 20th century open coaches became common used in local trains and began to spread to long-distance services too. High-speed trains often consist only of open coaches, the seats in open coaches are either arranged in groups opposite one another or behind one another aeroplane-style, and sometimes seats can be rotated to face the direction of travel. Seats facing one another may be provided with fixed tables, seats arranged one behind the other often have folding trays in the back of the seat in front, open coaches are almost always equipped with gangways. Originally these were open platforms at the ends of the coach, on tramways, an open coach is a six- or eight-wheeled driving car or trailer, which has an especially high volumetric capacity. Unlike the earlier, typical platform coaches, open coaches do not have partitions with doors between the area and the actual passenger compartment. These coaches were popular in central Europe in the early 1950s, whilst in West Germany, Austria and Switzerland this type of vehicle was rapidly replaced by articulated trams, in East Germany, the Tatra trams were the norm during the 1960s in many cities. The same was true in the former Eastern Bloc countries
46.
Parlor car
–
A parlor car is a type of passenger coach that provides superior comforts and amenities when compared to a standard coach. Parlor cars came about on United States railroads to address the absence of separate class accommodations, in the United Kingdom and Europe, passenger trains carried first-, second- and third-class coaches, with the first-class coaches offering the best seating and costing the most money. In contrast, American trains offered a rate and standard accommodations. For nineteenth century writers this represented a difference between class-bound Europe and the democratic United States, parlor accommodations were appreciated by those who used them because of their exclusivity. The stinks in a day-coach, even under the best of circumstances, are revolting, most parlor cars were found on daytime trains in the Northeast United States. In comparison to a coach, a parlor car offered more comfortable seating and surroundings, as well as food and beverages. Elevated service survives on Amtrak although the term parlor car has fallen into disuse, one remaining example is the Pacific Parlour Car on the Coast Starlight, converted Hi-Level lounges which feature a mixture of 1x1 swivel-chair seating and cafe-style seating. In contrast to past usage this car is provided as a sleeping car passenger-only lounge and is not itself bookable, the Acela Express offers First Class service, including at-seat service and improved seating. Other Amtrak trains offer a Business Class, which includes seating and, on some routes. Bramhall, Frank J. Luxury in American Railway Travel, eight Great American Rail Journeys, A Travel Guide
47.
Sleeping car
–
The sleeping car or sleeper is a railway passenger car that can accommodate all its passengers in beds of one kind or another, primarily for the purpose of making nighttime travel more restful. The first such cars saw use on American railroads in the 1830s. Some of the more types have private rooms. The Cumberland Valley Railroad pioneered sleeping car service in the spring of 1839, with a car named Chambersburg, a couple of years later a second car, the Carlisle, was introduced into service. The man who made the sleeping car business profitable in the United States was George Pullman. Pullman cars were normally a dark Pullman green, although some were painted in the host railroads colors, the cars carried individual names, but usually did not carry visible numbers. Pullman-Standard continued manufacturing sleeping cars and other passenger and freight cars until 1980. One unanticipated consequence of the rise of Pullman cars in the US in the 19th and early 20th centuries was their effect on civil rights, each Pullman car was staffed by a uniformed porter. The majority of Pullman Porters were African Americans, the pullman attendants, regardless of their true name, were traditionally referred to as George by the travelers, the name of the companys founder, George Pullman. The Pullman company was the largest employer of African Americans in the United States, subsequently, railway porters fought for political recognition and were eventually unionized. Their union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, became an important source of strength for the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement in the early 20th century, notably under the leadership of A. Because they moved about the country, Pullman porters also became an important means of communication for news, the African-American newspaper, the Chicago Defender, gained a national circulation in this way. Porters also used to re-sell phonograph records bought in the metropolitan centres, greatly adding to the distribution of jazz and blues. From the 19th to the century, the most common type of sleeping car accommodation on North American trains was the open section. Open-section accommodations consist of pairs of seats, one facing forward. The seat pairs can be converted into the combination of an upper, a famous example of open sections can be seen in the movie Some Like It Hot. As the 20th century progressed, a variety of private rooms was offered. Most of these rooms provided significantly more space than open-section accommodations could offer, Some of them, such as the rooms of the misleadingly named Slumbercoach cars manufactured by the Budd Company and first put into service in 1956, were triumphs of miniaturization
The dictionary definition of rolling stock at Wiktionary