1.
Reporting mark
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A reporting mark is an alphabetic code of one to four letters used to identify owners or lessees of rolling stock and other equipment used on certain railroad networks. In North America the mark, which consists of an code of one to four letters, is stenciled on each piece of equipment. The Association of American Railroads assigns marks to all carriers, under authority granted by the U. S, surface Transportation Board, Transport Canada, and Mexican Government. Under current practice, the first letter must match the initial letter of the railroad name, as it also acts as a Standard Carrier Alpha Code, the reporting mark cannot conflict with codes in use by other nonrail carriers. In another example, the mark for state-funded Amtrak services in California is CDTX because the state transportation agency owns the equipment used in these services. This is why the reporting mark for CSX Transportation, which is a railroad, is CSXT instead of CSX. This often resulted in five-letter reporting marks, an option not otherwise allowed by the AAR, the standard ISO6346 covers identifiers for intermodal containers. When the owner of a mark is taken over by another company. For example, when the Union Pacific Railroad acquired the Chicago and North Western Railway in the 1990s, some companies own several marks that are used to identify different classes of cars, such as boxcars or gondolas. If the acquiring company discontinues the name or mark of the acquired company, occasionally, long-disused marks are suddenly revived by the companies which now own them. For example, in recent years, the Union Pacific Railroad has begun to use the mark CMO on newly built covered hoppers, gondolas, CMO originally belonged to a predecessor of the CNW, which passed it on to them, from which the UP inherited it. Some of these still retain their temporary NYC marks. Because of its size, this list has been split into subpages based on the first letter of the reporting mark, railinc, a subsidiary of the AAR, maintains the active reporting marks for the North American rail industry. Railinc offers a free online look-up of reporting marks and other industry reference files through the Railincs Freight Rail 411 website, a railway vehicle must be registered in a national vehicle register using a 12-digit number derived from the old UIC system of vehicle numbering. The number contains the country in the third and fourth digit. The VKM must not contain special signs or digits, the VKM is preceded by the code for the country, where the vehicle is registered and a hyphen. Some examples, When a vehicle is sold it does not normally be transferred to another register, the Czech railways bought large numbers of coaches from ÖBB. The number remained the same but the VKM changed from A-ÖBB to A-ČD, the UIC introduced a uniform numbering system for their members based on a 12-digit number, largely known as UIC number
2.
Maryland
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The states largest city is Baltimore, and its capital is Annapolis. Among its occasional nicknames are Old Line State, the Free State, the state is named after Henrietta Maria of France, the wife of Charles I of England. George Calvert was the first Lord of Baltimore and the first English proprietor of the colonial grant. Maryland was the state to ratify the United States Constitution. Maryland is one of the smallest U. S. states in terms of area, as well as one of the most densely populated, Maryland has an area of 12,406.68 square miles and is comparable in overall area with Belgium. It is the 42nd largest and 9th smallest state and is closest in size to the state of Hawaii, the next largest state, its neighbor West Virginia, is almost twice the size of Maryland. Maryland possesses a variety of topography within its borders, contributing to its nickname America in Miniature. The mid-portion of this border is interrupted by Washington, D. C. which sits on land that was part of Montgomery and Prince Georges counties and including the town of Georgetown. This land was ceded to the United States Federal Government in 1790 to form the District of Columbia, the Chesapeake Bay nearly bisects the state and the counties east of the bay are known collectively as the Eastern Shore. Close to the town of Hancock, in western Maryland, about two-thirds of the way across the state. This geographical curiosity makes Maryland the narrowest state, bordered by the Mason–Dixon line to the north, portions of Maryland are included in various official and unofficial geographic regions. Much of the Baltimore–Washington corridor lies just south of the Piedmont in the Coastal Plain, earthquakes in Maryland are infrequent and small due to the states distance from seismic/earthquake zones. The M5.8 Virginia earthquake in 2011 was felt moderately throughout Maryland, buildings in the state are not well-designed for earthquakes and can suffer damage easily. The lack of any glacial history accounts for the scarcity of Marylands natural lakes, laurel Oxbow Lake is an over one-hundred-year-old 55-acre natural lake two miles north of Maryland City and adjacent to Russett. Chews Lake is a natural lake two miles south-southeast of Upper Marlboro. There are numerous lakes, the largest of them being the Deep Creek Lake. Maryland has shale formations containing natural gas, where fracking is theoretically possible, as is typical of states on the East Coast, Marylands plant life is abundant and healthy. Middle Atlantic coastal forests, typical of the southeastern Atlantic coastal plain, grow around Chesapeake Bay, moving west, a mixture of Northeastern coastal forests and Southeastern mixed forests cover the central part of the state
3.
Track gauge
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In rail transport, track gauge is the spacing of the rails on a railway track and is measured between the inner faces of the load-bearing rails. All vehicles on a network must have running gear that is compatible with the track gauge, as the dominant parameter determining interoperability, it is still frequently used as a descriptor of a route or network. There is a distinction between the gauge and actual gauge at some locality, due to divergence of track components from the nominal. Railway engineers use a device, like a caliper, to measure the actual gauge, the nominal track gauge is the distance between the inner faces of the rails. In current practice, it is specified at a distance below the rail head as the inner faces of the rail head are not necessarily vertical. In some cases in the earliest days of railways, the company saw itself as an infrastructure provider only. Colloquially the wagons might be referred to as four-foot gauge wagons, say and this nominal value does not equate to the flange spacing, as some freedom is allowed for. An infrastructure manager might specify new or replacement track components at a variation from the nominal gauge for pragmatic reasons. Track is defined in old Imperial units or in universally accepted metric units or SI units, Imperial units were established in United Kingdom by The Weights and Measures Act of 1824. In addition, there are constraints, such as the load-carrying capacity of axles. Narrow gauge railways usually cost less to build because they are lighter in construction, using smaller cars and locomotives, as well as smaller bridges, smaller tunnels. Narrow gauge is often used in mountainous terrain, where the savings in civil engineering work can be substantial. Broader gauge railways are generally expensive to build and require wider curves. There is no single perfect gauge, because different environments and economic considerations come into play, a narrow gauge is superior if ones main considerations are economy and tight curvature. For direct, unimpeded routes with high traffic, a broad gauge may be preferable, the Standard, Russian, and 46 gauges are designed to strike a reasonable balance between these factors. In addition to the general trade-off, another important factor is standardization, once a standard has been chosen, and equipment, infrastructure, and training calibrated to that standard, conversion becomes difficult and expensive. This also makes it easier to adopt an existing standard than to invent a new one and this is true of many technologies, including railroad gauges. The reduced cost, greater efficiency, and greater economic opportunity offered by the use of a common standard explains why a number of gauges predominate worldwide
4.
Annapolis, Maryland
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Annapolis is the capital of the U. S. state of Maryland, as well as the county seat of Anne Arundel County. Its population was measured at 38,394 by the 2010 census, the city served as the seat of the Continental Congress in 1783–84 and was the site of the 1786 Annapolis Convention and the Annapolis Peace Conference, held in 2007. Annapolis is the home of St. Johns College as well as the United States Naval Academy, a settlement in the Province of Maryland named Providence was founded on the north shore of the Severn River in 1649 by Puritan exiles from Virginia led by Governor William Stone. The settlers later moved to a harbor on the south shore. The settlement on the shore was initially named Town at Proctors, then Town at the Severn. In 1654, after the Third English Civil War, Parliamentary forces assumed control of Maryland, per orders from Charles Calvert, fifth Lord Baltimore, Stone returned the following spring at the head of a Cavalier force. On March 25,1655, in what is known as the Battle of the Severn, Stone was defeated, taken prisoner, Fendall governed Maryland during the latter half of the Commonwealth. In 1660, he was replaced by Phillip Calvert as fifth/sixth Governor of Maryland), Annapolis was incorporated as a city in 1708. Water trades such as oyster-packing, boatbuilding and sailmaking became the chief industries. Annapolis is home to a number of recreational boats that have largely replaced the seafood industry in the city. Dr. Alexander Hamilton was a Scottish-born doctor and writer who lived and worked in Annapolis, Annapolis became the temporary capital of the United States after the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783. For the 1783 Congress, the Governor of Maryland commissioned John Shaw, the flag is slightly different from other designs of the time. The blue field extends over the height of the hoist. Shaw created two versions of the flag, one started with a red stripe and another that started with a white one. In 1786, delegates from all states of the Union were invited to meet in Annapolis to consider measures for the regulation of commerce. Delegates from only five states—New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, New Jersey, the Philadelphia convention drafted and approved the Constitution of the United States, which is still in force. During this period, a prisoner of war camp, Camp Parole, was set up in Annapolis. As the war continued, the camp expanded to a location just west of the city
5.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
6.
Rail transport
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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
7.
Baltimore and Annapolis Railroad
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The Baltimore & Annapolis Railroad was an American railroad of central Maryland built in the 19th century. The railroad, the second to serve Annapolis, ran between Annapolis and Clifford along the shore of the Severn River. From Clifford, just north of the present day Patapsco Light Rail Stop, B&A electric passenger operation between the two cities continued until 1950, at which time the rail line became solely a freight carrier, operating buses for passenger service. Freight service to Annapolis continued until June 1968 when the Severn River Trestle was declared unsafe, in the 1980s the line was completely shut down. The right-of-way now serves as part of Baltimores light rail system, the Baltimore & Annapolis Railroad was chartered in 1880, by a group of New England promoters as the Annapolis and Baltimore Short Line and began running in March 1887. The railroad transformed the once-secluded banks of the Severn to a series of suburban communities, at some point prior to 1892, a small connecting line was built between the A&B and the AW&B at the Bay Ridge Junction wye where the AW&B met the Annapolis and Bay Ridge Railroad. Business was slim in the years, and in 1893 the railroad was sold to George Burnham Jr. Universally it was called simply “The Annapolis Short Line. ”The line was electrified in 1908, and changed its name to the Maryland Electric Railways Company, providing clean, comfortable, faster, and more frequent service. The pioneering AC system was less than successful, however. When it did, the B&O was wary of an overhead line over its tracks between the Clifford interchange and Camden Station. So the B&O built a new line for the Short Line between Cliffords and its mainline at Russell Street, paralleling the South Baltimore branch through Westport and this line ran immediately west/south of the Curtis Bay and South Baltimore branches, passing under the Curtis Bay branch along the way. On June 24,1913, the bridge across the Severn River on the Line was opened for a schooner when freight engine Number 5 with six cars was ahead of schedule. The bridge could not be closed in time and the engine, no one was injured, but for six days the passengers had to be ferried across the river. During its heyday, the years between 1918 and the late 1920s, the B&A transported as many as 1,750,000 passengers per year between Baltimore and Annapolis, trains left every hour from 6 am through 11 pm. Because of its performance, the neighboring WB&A bought the Annapolis Short Line in 1921. Afterward, Short Line trains were routed over the WB&A between Linthicum and the WB&As new Baltimore terminal at the corner of Howard & Lombard Streets, for the next decade the WB&A only survived because of a law exempting it from taxes. In January 1931, the extension of the law failed to pass by one vote, the line remained in operation for four more years until it officially ceased on August 20,1935. The WB&A was sold at auction with scrap dealers buying most of the rolling stock
8.
Tram
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A tram is a rail vehicle which runs on tracks along public urban streets, and also sometimes on a segregated right of way. The lines or networks operated by tramcars are called tramways, Tramways powered by electricity, the most common type historically, were once called electric street railways. However, trams were used in urban areas before the universal adoption of electrification. Tram lines may run between cities and/or towns, and/or partially grade-separated even in the cities. Very occasionally, trams also carry freight, Tram vehicles are usually lighter and shorter than conventional trains and rapid transit trains, but the size of trams is rapidly increasing. Some trams may also run on railway tracks, a tramway may be upgraded to a light rail or a rapid transit line. For all these reasons, the differences between the modes of rail transportation are often indistinct. In the United States, the tram has sometimes been used for rubber-tired trackless trains. Today, most trams use electrical power, usually fed by a pantograph, in some cases by a sliding shoe on a third rail. If necessary, they may have dual power systems — electricity in city streets, trams are now included in the wider term light rail, which also includes segregated systems. The English terms tram and tramway are derived from the Scots word tram, referring respectively to a type of truck used in coal mines and the tracks on which they ran. The word tram probably derived from Middle Flemish trame, a Romanesque word meaning the beam or shaft of a barrow or sledge, the identical word la trame with the meaning crossbeam is also used in the French language. The word Tram-car is attested from 1873, although the terms tram and tramway have been adopted by many languages, they are not used universally in English, North Americans prefer streetcar, trolley, or trolleycar. The term streetcar is first recorded in 1840, and originally referred to horsecars, when electrification came, Americans began to speak of trolleycars or later, trolleys. The troller design frequently fell off the wires, and was replaced by other more reliable devices. The terms trolley pole and trolley wheel both derive from the troller, Modern trams often have an overhead pantograph mechanical linkage to connect to power, abandoning the trolley pole altogether. Conventional diesel tourist buses decorated to look like streetcars are sometimes called trolleys in the US, the term may also apply to an aerial ropeway, e. g. the Roosevelt Island Tramway. Over time, the trolley has fallen into informal use
9.
Cleveland
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Cleveland is a city in the U. S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the states second most populous county. The city proper has a population of 388,072, making Cleveland the 51st largest city in the United States, Greater Cleveland ranked as the 32nd largest metropolitan area in the United States, with 2,055,612 people in 2016. The city is the center of the Cleveland–Akron–Canton Combined Statistical Area, the city is located on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately 60 miles west of the Pennsylvania border. Clevelands economy has diversified sectors that include manufacturing, financial services, healthcare, Cleveland is also home to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Residents of Cleveland are called Clevelanders, Cleveland has many nicknames, the oldest of which in contemporary use being The Forest City. Cleaveland oversaw the plan for what would become the downtown area, centered on Public Square, before returning home. The first settler in Cleaveland was Lorenzo Carter, who built a cabin on the banks of the Cuyahoga River, the Village of Cleaveland was incorporated on December 23,1814. In spite of the swampy lowlands and harsh winters, its waterfront location proved to be an advantage. The area began rapid growth after the 1832 completion of the Ohio, growth continued with added railroad links. Cleveland incorporated as a city in 1836, in 1836, the city, then located only on the eastern banks of the Cuyahoga River, nearly erupted into open warfare with neighboring Ohio City over a bridge connecting the two. Ohio City remained an independent municipality until its annexation by Cleveland in 1854, the citys prime geographic location as a transportation hub on the Great Lakes has played an important role in its development as a commercial center. Cleveland serves as a point for iron ore shipped from Minnesota. In 1870, John D. Rockefeller founded Standard Oil in Cleveland, other manufacturers located in Cleveland produced steam-powered cars, which included White and Gaeth, as well as the electric car company Baker. Because of the significant growth, Cleveland was known as the Sixth City during this period, by 1920, due in large part to the citys economic prosperity, Cleveland became the nations fifth largest city. The city counted Progressive Era politicians such as the populist Mayor Tom L. Johnson among its leaders, many prominent Clevelanders from this era are buried in the historic Lake View Cemetery, including President James A. Garfield, and John D. Rockefeller. In commemoration of the centennial of Clevelands incorporation as a city, conceived as a way to energize a city after the Great Depression, it drew four million visitors in its first season, and seven million by the end of its second and final season in September 1937. The exposition was housed on grounds that are now used by the Great Lakes Science Center, following World War II, the city experienced a prosperous economy. In sports, the Indians won the 1948 World Series, the hockey Barons became champions of the American Hockey League, as a result, along with track and boxing champions produced, Cleveland was dubbed City of Champions in sports at this time
10.
Entrepreneurship
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What appears as a real opportunity ex ante might actually be a non-opportunity or one that cannot be actualized by entrepreneurs lacking the necessary business skills, financial or social capital. Traditionally, an entrepreneur has been defined as a person who starts, organizes and manages any enterprise, especially a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk. Rather than working as an employee, an entrepreneur runs a business and assumes all the risk and reward of a given business venture, idea. The entrepreneur is commonly seen as a leader and innovator of new ideas. They act as the manager and oversee the launch and growth of an enterprise, Entrepreneurship is the process by which an individual identifies a business opportunity and acquires and deploys the necessary resources required for its exploitation. For Schumpeter, the changes and dynamic disequilibrium brought on by the innovating entrepreneur, the ‘norm’ of a healthy economy. Entrepreneurial spirit is characterized by innovation and risk-taking, for example, in the 2000s, the field of social entrepreneurship has been identified, in which entrepreneurs combine business activities with humanitarian, environmental or community goals. In the 2010s, entrepreneurship can be studied in college or university as part of the disciplines of management or business administration, Entrepreneur, is a loanword from French. First used in 1723, today the term entrepreneur implies qualities of leadership, initiative, economist Robert Reich has called team-building, leadership, and management ability essential qualities for the entrepreneur. Historically the study of entrepreneurship reaches back to the work in the late 17th and early 18th centuries of Richard Cantillon and Adam Smith, which was foundational to classical economics. In the 20th century, entrepreneurship was studied by Joseph Schumpeter in the 1930s and other Austrian economists such as Carl Menger, Ludwig von Mises, the term entrepreneurship was coined around the 1920s, while the loan from French of the word entrepreneur dates to the 1850s. According to Schumpeter, an entrepreneur is willing and able to convert a new idea or invention into a successful innovation, thus, creative destruction is largely responsible for long-term economic growth. The idea that leads to economic growth is an interpretation of the residual in endogenous growth theory. For Schumpeter, entrepreneurship resulted in new industries and in new combinations of currently existing inputs, Schumpeters initial example of this was the combination of a steam engine and then current wagon making technologies to produce the horseless carriage. In this case the innovation, the car, was transformational and it did not immediately replace the horse-drawn carriage, but in time, incremental improvements reduced the cost and improved the technology, leading to the modern auto industry. Despite Schumpeters early 20th-century contributions, traditional microeconomic theory did not formally consider the entrepreneur in its theoretical frameworks, in this treatment, the entrepreneur was an implied but unspecified actor, consistent with the concept of the entrepreneur being the agent of x-efficiency. For Schumpeter, the entrepreneur did not bear risk, the capitalist did, Schumpeter was of the opinion that entrepreneurs shift the Production Possibility Curve to a higher level using innovations. Cantillon emphasized the willingness of the entrepreneur to assume risk and to deal with uncertainty, thus, he draws attention to the function of the entrepreneur, and distinguishes clearly between the function of the entrepreneur and the owner who provides the money
