1.
Washington Metro
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The Washington Metro, known colloquially as Metro and branded Metrorail, is the heavy rail rapid transit system serving the Washington, D. C. metropolitan area in the United States. It is administered by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, which also operates Metrobus service under the Metro name, besides the District, Metro serves several jurisdictions in Maryland and Virginia. In Maryland, Metro provides service to Montgomery and Prince Georges counties, in Virginia, to Arlington and Fairfax counties and the independent city of Alexandria. Combined with its ridership in the independent Virginia cities of Falls Church and Fairfax, the system is currently being expanded into Loudoun County, Virginia. It operates mostly as a subway in the District itself, while most of the tracks are at surface level or elevated. Opened in 1976, the network now includes six lines,91 stations, Metro is the second-busiest rapid transit system in the United States in number of passenger trips, after the New York City Subway. There were 215.3 million trips on Metro in fiscal year 2015, in June 2008, Metro set a monthly ridership record with 19,729,641 trips, or 798,456 per weekday. Fares vary based on the distance traveled, the time of day, Riders enter and exit the system using a proximity card called SmarTrip. Metro also has the distinction of having the longest, single-tier escalator in the Western Hemisphere in the Wheaton station, during the 1960s plans were laid for a massive freeway system in Washington. But the plan met fierce opposition, and was altered to include a Capital Beltway system plus rail line radials, the Beltway received full funding, funding for the ambitious Inner Loop Freeway system was partially reallocated toward construction of the Metro system. In 1960 the federal government created the National Capital Transportation Agency to develop a rail system. In 1966, a bill creating WMATA was passed by the government, the District of Columbia, Virginia. WMATA approved plans for a 98-mile regional system in 1968, the first portion of the system opened March 27,1976, with 4.6 miles available on the Red Line with five stations from Rhode Island Avenue to Farragut North, all in the District of Columbia. Underground stations were built with arches of concrete, highlighted by soft. The name Metro was suggested by Massimo Vignelli, who designed the subway maps for the New York City Subway, the 103-mile, 83-station system was completed with the opening of the Green Line segment to Branch Avenue on January 13,2001. This did not mean the end of the growth of the system, the first in-fill station, NoMa – Gallaudet University on the Red Line between Union Station and Rhode Island Ave-Brentwood, opened November 20,2004. Construction began in March 2009 for an extension to Dulles Airport to be built in two phases, the first phase, five stations connecting East Falls Church to Tysons Corner and Wiehle Avenue in Reston, opened on July 26,2014. Metro construction required billions of dollars, originally provided by Congress under the authority of the National Capital Transportation Act of 1969
2.
Virginia
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Virginia is a state located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, as well as in the historic Southeast. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are shaped by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay, the capital of the Commonwealth is Richmond, Virginia Beach is the most populous city, and Fairfax County is the most populous political subdivision. The Commonwealths estimated population as of 2014 is over 8.3 million, the areas history begins with several indigenous groups, including the Powhatan. In 1607 the London Company established the Colony of Virginia as the first permanent New World English colony, slave labor and the land acquired from displaced Native American tribes each played a significant role in the colonys early politics and plantation economy. Although the Commonwealth was under one-party rule for nearly a century following Reconstruction, the Virginia General Assembly is the oldest continuous law-making body in the New World. The state government was ranked most effective by the Pew Center on the States in both 2005 and 2008 and it is unique in how it treats cities and counties equally, manages local roads, and prohibits its governors from serving consecutive terms. Virginias economy changed from agricultural to industrial during the 1960s and 1970s. Virginia has an area of 42,774.2 square miles, including 3,180.13 square miles of water. Virginias boundary with Maryland and Washington, D. C. extends to the mark of the south shore of the Potomac River. The southern border is defined as the 36° 30′ parallel north, the border with Tennessee was not settled until 1893, when their dispute was brought to the U. S. Supreme Court. The Chesapeake Bay separates the portion of the Commonwealth from the two-county peninsula of Virginias Eastern Shore. The bay was formed from the river valleys of the Susquehanna River. Many of Virginias rivers flow into the Chesapeake Bay, including the Potomac, Rappahannock, York, and James, the Tidewater is a coastal plain between the Atlantic coast and the fall line. It includes the Eastern Shore and major estuaries of Chesapeake Bay, the Piedmont is a series of sedimentary and igneous rock-based foothills east of the mountains which were formed in the Mesozoic era. The region, known for its clay soil, includes the Southwest Mountains around Charlottesville. The Blue Ridge Mountains are a province of the Appalachian Mountains with the highest points in the state. The Ridge and Valley region is west of the mountains and includes the Great Appalachian Valley, the region is carbonate rock based and includes Massanutten Mountain. The Cumberland Plateau and the Cumberland Mountains are in the southwest corner of Virginia, in this region, rivers flow northwest, with a dendritic drainage system, into the Ohio River basin
3.
Track (rail transport)
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The track on a railway or railroad, also known as the permanent way, is the structure consisting of the rails, fasteners, railroad ties and ballast, plus the underlying subgrade. It enables trains to move by providing a surface for their wheels to roll upon. For clarity it is referred to as railway track or railroad track. Tracks where electric trains or electric trams run are equipped with a system such as an overhead electrical power line or an additional electrified rail. The term permanent way also refers to the track in addition to structures such as fences etc. Most railroads with heavy traffic use continuously welded rails supported by sleepers attached via baseplates that spread the load, a plastic or rubber pad is usually placed between the rail and the tieplate where concrete sleepers are used. The rail is held down to the sleeper with resilient fastenings. For much of the 20th century, rail track used softwood timber sleepers and jointed rails, jointed rails were used at first because contemporary technology did not offer any alternative. The joints also needed to be lubricated, and wear at the mating surfaces needed to be rectified by shimming. For this reason jointed track is not financially appropriate for heavily operated railroads, timber sleepers are of many available timbers, and are often treated with creosote, copper-chrome-arsenic, or other wood preservative. Pre-stressed concrete sleepers are used where timber is scarce and where tonnage or speeds are high. Steel is used in some applications, the track ballast is customarily crushed stone, and the purpose of this is to support the sleepers and allow some adjustment of their position, while allowing free drainage. A disadvantage of traditional track structures is the demand for maintenance, particularly surfacing and lining to restore the desired track geometry. Weakness of the subgrade and drainage deficiencies also lead to maintenance costs. This can be overcome by using ballastless track, in its simplest form this consists of a continuous slab of concrete with the rails supported directly on its upper surface. There are a number of systems, and variations include a continuous reinforced concrete slab. Many permutations of design have been put forward, however, ballastless track has a high initial cost, and in the case of existing railroads the upgrade to such requires closure of the route for a long period. Its whole-life cost can be lower because of the reduction in maintenance, some rubber-tyred metros use ballastless tracks
4.
Florida
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Florida /ˈflɒrᵻdə/ is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, Florida is the 22nd-most extensive, the 3rd-most populous, and the 8th-most densely populated of the U. S. states. Jacksonville is the most populous municipality in the state and is the largest city by area in the contiguous United States, the Miami metropolitan area is Floridas most populous urban area. The city of Tallahassee is the state capital, much of the state is at or near sea level and is characterized by sedimentary soil. The climate varies from subtropical in the north to tropical in the south, the American alligator, American crocodile, Florida panther, and manatee can be found in the Everglades National Park. It was a location of the Seminole Wars against the Native Americans. Today, Florida is distinctive for its large Cuban expatriate community and high population growth, the states economy relies mainly on tourism, agriculture, and transportation, which developed in the late 19th century. Florida is also renowned for amusement parks, orange crops, the Kennedy Space Center, Florida has attracted many writers such as Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Ernest Hemingway and Tennessee Williams, and continues to attract celebrities and athletes. It is internationally known for golf, tennis, auto racing, by the 16th century, the earliest time for which there is a historical record, major Native American groups included the Apalachee, the Timucua, the Ais, the Tocobaga, the Calusa and the Tequesta. Florida was the first part of the continental United States to be visited and settled by Europeans, the earliest known European explorers came with the Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León. Ponce de León spotted and landed on the peninsula on April 2,1513 and he named the region La Florida. The story that he was searching for the Fountain of Youth is a myth, in May 1539, Conquistador Hernando de Soto skirted the coast of Florida, searching for a deep harbor to land. He described seeing a wall of red mangroves spread mile after mile, some reaching as high as 70 feet. Very soon, many smokes appeared along the whole coast, billowing against the sky, the Spanish introduced Christianity, cattle, horses, sheep, the Spanish language, and more to Florida. Both the Spanish and French established settlements in Florida, with varying degrees of success, in 1559, Don Tristán de Luna y Arellano established a settlement at present-day Pensacola, making it the first attempted settlement in Florida, but it was abandoned by 1561. Spain maintained tenuous control over the region by converting the tribes to Christianity. The area of Spanish Florida diminished with the establishment of English settlements to the north, the English attacked St. Augustine, burning the city and its cathedral to the ground several times. Florida attracted numerous Africans and African-Americans from adjacent British colonies who sought freedom from slavery, in 1738, Governor Manuel de Montiano established Fort Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose near St
5.
New York City Subway
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Opened in 1904, the New York City Subway is one of the worlds oldest public transit systems, one of the worlds most used metro systems, and the metro system with the most stations. It offers service 24 hours per day, every day of the year, the New York City Subway is the largest rapid transit system in the world by number of stations, with 472 stations in operation. Stations are located throughout the boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Port Authority Trans-Hudson and the AirTrain JFK, in Manhattan and Queens respectively, accept the subways MetroCard but are not operated by the MTA and do not allow free transfers. Another mass transit service that is not operated by the MTA, the system is also one of the worlds longest. Overall, the system contains 236 miles of routes, translating into 665 miles of track. In 2015, the subway delivered over 1.76 billion rides, averaging approximately 5.7 million daily rides on weekdays and a combined 5.9 million rides each weekend. Of the systems 25 services,22 of them pass through Manhattan, the exceptions being the G train, the Franklin Avenue Shuttle, and the Rockaway Park Shuttle. Large portions of the subway outside Manhattan are elevated, on embankments, or in open cuts, in total, 40% of track is not underground despite the subway moniker. Many lines and stations have both express and local services and these lines have three or four tracks. Normally, the two are used for local trains, while the inner one or two are used for express trains. Stations served by express trains are typically major transfer points or destinations, alfred Ely Beach built the first demonstration for an underground transit system in New York City in 1869 and opened it in February 1870. The tunnel was never extended for political and financial reasons, although extensions had been planned to take the tunnel southward to The Battery, the Great Blizzard of 1888 helped demonstrate the benefits of an underground transportation system. A plan for the construction of the subway was approved in 1894, the first underground line of the subway opened on October 27,1904, almost 36 years after the opening of the first elevated line in New York City, which became the IRT Ninth Avenue Line. The fare was $0.05 and on the first day the trains carried over 150,000 passengers, the oldest structure still in use opened in 1885 as part of the BMT Lexington Avenue Line in Brooklyn and is now part of the BMT Jamaica Line. The oldest right-of-way, which is part of the BMT West End Line near Coney Island Creek, was in use in 1864 as a railroad called the Brooklyn, Bath. By the time the first subway opened, the lines had been consolidated into two privately owned systems, the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company and the Interborough Rapid Transit Company, the city built most of the lines and leased them to the companies. This required it to be run at cost, necessitating fares up to double the five-cent fare popular at the time, in 1940, the city bought the two private systems. Some elevated lines ceased service immediately while others closed soon after, integration was slow, but several connections were built between the IND and BMT, these now operate as one division called the B Division
6.
Sydney
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Sydney /ˈsɪdni/ is the state capital of New South Wales and the most populous city in Australia and Oceania. Located on Australias east coast, the metropolis surrounds the worlds largest natural harbour, residents of Sydney are known as Sydneysiders. The Sydney area has been inhabited by indigenous Australians for at least 30,000 years, the first British settlers, led by Captain Arthur Phillip, arrived in 1788 to found Sydney as a penal colony, the first European settlement in Australia. Since convict transportation ended in the century, the city has transformed from a colonial outpost into a major global cultural. As at June 2016 Sydneys estimated population was 5,005,358, in the 2011 census,34 percent of the population reported having been born overseas, representing many different nationalities and making Sydney one of the most multicultural cities in the world. There are more than 250 different languages spoken in Sydney and about one-third of residents speak a language other than English at home and it is classified as an Alpha+ World City by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, indicating its influence in the region and throughout the world. Ranked eleventh in the world for economic opportunity, Sydney has a market economy with strengths in finance, manufacturing. Its gross regional product was $337 billion in 2013, the largest in Australia, there is a significant concentration of foreign banks and multinational corporations in Sydney and the city is promoted as one of Asia Pacifics leading financial hubs. Its natural features include Sydney Harbour, the Royal National Park, man-made attractions such as the Sydney Opera House, Sydney Tower and the Sydney Harbour Bridge are also well known to international visitors. The first people to inhabit the now known as Sydney were indigenous Australians having migrated from northern Australia. Radiocarbon dating suggests human activity first started to occur in the Sydney area from around 30,735 years ago, the earliest British settlers called them Eora people. Eora is the term the indigenous used to explain their origins upon first contact with the British. Its literal meaning is from this place, prior to the arrival of the British there were 4,000 to 8,000 native people in Sydney from as many as 29 different clans. Sydney Cove from Port Jackson to Petersham was inhabited by the Cadigal clan, the principal language groups were Darug, Guringai, and Dharawal. The earliest Europeans to visit the area noted that the people were conducting activities such as camping and fishing, using trees for bark and food, collecting shells. Development has destroyed much of the citys history including that of the first inhabitants, there continues to be examples of rock art and engravings located in the protected Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. The first meeting between the people and the British occurred on 29 April 1770 when Lieutenant James Cook landed at Botany Bay on the Kurnell Peninsula. He noted in his journal that they were confused and somewhat hostile towards the foreign visitors, Cook was on a mission of exploration and was not commissioned to start a settlement
7.
Locomotive
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A locomotive or engine is a rail transport vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. A locomotive has no payload capacity of its own, and its purpose is to move the train along the tracks. In contrast, some trains have self-propelled payload-carrying vehicles and these are not normally considered locomotives, and may be referred to as multiple units, motor coaches or railcars. The use of these vehicles is increasingly common for passenger trains. Traditionally, locomotives pulled trains from the front, however, push-pull operation has become common, where the train may have a locomotive at the front, at the rear, or at each end. Prior to locomotives, the force for railroads had been generated by various lower-technology methods such as human power, horse power. The first successful locomotives were built by Cornish inventor Richard Trevithick, in 1804 his unnamed steam locomotive hauled a train along the tramway of the Penydarren ironworks, near Merthyr Tydfil in Wales. Although the locomotive hauled a train of 10 long tons of iron and 70 passengers in five wagons over nine miles, the locomotive only ran three trips before it was abandoned. Trevithick built a series of locomotives after the Penydarren experiment, including one which ran at a colliery in Tyneside in northern England, the first commercially successful steam locomotive was Matthew Murrays rack locomotive, Salamanca, built for the narrow gauge Middleton Railway in 1812. This was followed in 1813 by the Puffing Billy built by Christopher Blackett and William Hedley for the Wylam Colliery Railway, Puffing Billy is now on display in the Science Museum in London, the oldest locomotive in existence. In 1814 George Stephenson, inspired by the locomotives of Trevithick. He built the Blücher, one of the first successful flanged-wheel adhesion locomotives, Stephenson played a pivotal role in the development and widespread adoption of steam locomotives. His designs improved on the work of the pioneers, in 1825 he built the Locomotion for the Stockton and Darlington Railway, north east England, which became the first public steam railway. In 1829 he built The Rocket which was entered in and won the Rainhill Trials and this success led to Stephenson establishing his company as the pre-eminent builder of steam locomotives used on railways in the United Kingdom, the United States and much of Europe. The first inter city passenger railway, Liverpool and Manchester Railway, opened in 1830, there are a few basic reasons to isolate locomotive train power, as compared to self-propelled vehicles. Maximum utilization of power cars Separate locomotives facilitate movement of costly motive power assets as needed, flexibility Large locomotives can substitute for small locomotives when more power is required, for example, where grades are steeper. As needed, a locomotive can be used for freight duties. Obsolescence cycles Separating motive power from payload-hauling cars enables replacement without affecting the other, to illustrate, locomotives might become obsolete when their associated cars did not, and vice versa
8.
Tamping machine
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A tamping machine or ballast tamper is a machine used to pack the track ballast under railway tracks to make the tracks more durable. Prior to the introduction of mechanical tampers, this task was done by manual labour with the help of beaters. As well as being faster, more accurate, more efficient and less labour-intensive, whilst also available as a plain tamper with no lifting or lining function this article will focus on the multi function machines. Early machines only lifted the track and packed the ballast and this is done by finding places where the sleepers have sunk from the weight of the passing trains or frost action, causing the track to sag. The tamper lifts each sleeper and the rails up, and packs ballast underneath, when the sleeper is laid down again, the sagged rails now sit at the proper level. In cases where frost action has caused adjacent rails to rise higher, lining rails doesnt involve ballast tamping, it merely ensures the rails are perfectly parallel and straight as possible. Combining tamping and lining into a single machine saves time and money, the majority of track machines are powered by a diesel engine. This provides power to the wheels via either a hydrostatic circuit or cardan shaft, allowing the machine to propel itself to. The engine also drives an hydraulic pump to power for the various tools. The lifting lining unit of a machine is used to lift. To ensure track geometry is corrected most tamping machines use a 2 chord lining system, the 2 chord system requires 3 reference trolleys fitted to the machine usually called A point, B point and C point. Some machines will use a 4th point in between B and C to carry out quality control measurements, depending on chord system the anchorages will be either a wire anchor or a light source. B point is positioned as close as possible to the lifting lining unit. All 3 points are individual rail trolleys able to move up, down, left and right independent of the machine chassis. When working the machine uses pneumatic cylinders to push these trolleys into the selected datum rail both vertically and horizontally. When using this method the tower operator positions A point anchorages according to existing track geometry measurements taken beforehand, once A point has been positioned it is then assumed that both A and C are in correct position as if machine were sitting on corrected track. The machine then uses the lifting lining unit to move the rail, a Continuous Action Tamping Machine can pack between one and four sleepers at a time, with outputs between 320m/h and 2600m/h generally anticipated. The Tamping Express is a developed by Plasser & Theurer
9.
Hopper car
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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
10.
Rotary snowplow
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A rotary snowplow is a piece of railroad snow removal equipment with a large circular set of blades on its front end that rotate to cut through the snow on the track ahead of it. The precursor to the rotary snowplow was the wedge snowplow, the rotary was invented by Toronto, Ontario, Canada dentist J. W. Elliot in 1869. He never built a model or prototype, although he wanted to. Orange Jull of Orangeville, Ontario, expanded on Elliots design, during the winter of 1883–1884, Jull contracted with the Leslie Brothers of Toronto to build a full-size prototype that proved successful. Jull later sold his rights to Leslie Brothers, who formed the Rotary Steam Shovel Manufacturing Company in Paterson. Leslie Brothers contracted with Cooke Locomotive & Machine Works in Paterson to do the actual construction, another inventor is said to be Col. Lewis P. Campbell. He is listed in US patent 1848554, Wedge snowplows were the traditional mechanized method of clearing snow from railroad tracks. These pushed snow off the tracks, deflecting it to the side, deeper drifts cannot easily be cleared by this method, there is simply too much snow to be moved. For this purpose, the rotary snowplow was devised, when snow is too deep, the railroads call on their rotary. The plow is not self-propelled, so one or more locomotives are coupled behind it to push the plow along the line, an engine within the plows carbody rotates the large circular assembly at the front of the plow. The blades on this cut through the snow and force it through a channel just behind the disk to an output chute above the blade assembly. The chute can be adjusted to throw the snow to either the left or the side of the tracks. An operator sits in a cab just above and behind the blade assembly to control the speed of the blades, with the increasing prevalence of diesel locomotives, multiple-unit train controls have been added to the cabs, so that the pushing locomotives can be controlled from the plow. With a plow on each end, the train was able to return to its starting location even if the snow covered the tracks it had just passed over. Such a train would also be able to clear multiple track mainlines efficiently as it could make a pass in one direction on one track, then reverse direction and clear the next track. Rotary snowplows are expensive due to their maintenance costs, which the railroad incurs regardless of whether they are needed in a given year. Japan sees widespread use of snowplows in its many mountainous passes. Rotaries of newer construction are either diesel- or electric-powered, many steam plows were converted to electricity
11.
Rail inspection
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Rail inspection is the practice of examining rail tracks for flaws that could lead to catastrophic failures. According to the United States Federal Railroad Administration Office of Safety Analysis, the leading cause of railway accidents is attributed to human error. The contribution of poor management decisions to rail accidents caused by infrequent or inadequate rail inspection is significant but not reported by the FRA, every year, North American railroads spend millions of dollars to inspect the rails for internal and external flaws. Nondestructive testing methods are used as a preventative measures against track failures, the first rail inspections were done visually. Many sources cite that the need for better rail inspections came after a derailment at Manchester, New York and that particular accident resulted in the death of 29 people and injuries to 60 others. The investigation of the accident revealed that the cause was a transverse fissure in the rail, further investigation in the late 1920s showed that this type of defect was quite common. With increased rail traffic at higher speeds and with axle loads today, critical crack sizes are shrinking. In 1927, Dr. Elmer Sperry built a rail inspection car under contract with the American Railway Association. Magnetic induction was the used on the first rail inspection cars. This was done by passing large amounts of field through the rail. Since then, many other cars have traversed the rails in search of flaws. There are many effects that influence rail defects and rail failure and these effects include bending and shear stresses, wheel/rail contact stresses, thermal stresses, residual stresses and dynamic effects. When a fluid fills a small crack and a train passes over, also, the trapped fluid could freeze and expand or initiate the corrosion process. This means that the entire rail needs to be inspected, the probes and transducers can be utilized on a walking stick, on a hand pushed trolley, or in a hand held setup. These devices are used when small sections of track are to be inspected or when a location is desired. Many times these detail oriented inspection devices follow up on indications made by a rail inspection cars or HiRail trucks, handheld inspection devices are very useful for this when the track is used heavily, because they can be removed relatively easy. However, they are considered slow and tedious, when there are thousands of miles of track that need inspection. Rail inspection cars and HiRail trucks are the answer to today’s high mileage inspection needs, the first rail inspection cars were created by Dr. Sperry
12.
Crane (rail)
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A railroad crane is a type of crane used on a railroad for one of three primary purposes, freight handling in goods yards, permanent way maintenance, and accident recovery work. Although the design according to the type of work, the basic configuration is similar in all cases. The body supports the jib and provides all the lifting and operating mechanisms, on larger cranes, the chassis is fitted with buffing and/or coupling gear to allow the crane to be moved by a locomotive, although many are also self-propelled to allow limited movement about a work site. For cranes with a jib that extends beyond the length of the chassis, the idler car is usually a long, flat wagon that provides a means of securing the jib for transportation, storage areas for special equipment or supplies are usually fitted too. It was not uncommon for the car to be built on a withdrawn revenue-earning wagon. They were often small enough to be operated by hand, and were not normally self-propelled, once cheap road-going mobile cranes were available, these superseded the rail-mounted variety due to their greater flexibility and mobility. The most varied forms of crane are used for maintenance work, general purpose cranes may be used for installing signalling equipment or pointwork, for example, while more specialised types are used for track laying. The largest cranes are used for accident recovery work, usually forming part of a train that includes staff accommodation. These are large enough to lift derailed rolling stock back onto the track, in US terminology, a breakdown crane is often referred to as a wrecker. A railroad crane generally resembles a conventional fixed-location crane except that the platform the crane sits on is a heavy-duty reinforced flat car. The trucks on the car under the crane will often include traction motors so that the crane is able to move itself along the track, larger cranes may be provided with outriggers to provide additional stability when lifting. Sleepers are often carried on the car to put under the outriggers to spread the weight applied to the trackbed. Breakdown cranes were necessary to every railroad to recover derailed rolling stock and locomotives, while assisting with bridge building. Enter into this the steam crane and cable winch, appearing about 1890, the cranes increased in size, commensurate with the rise of steel Pullman cars, so by 1910 steam cranes reached their peak of development. Many of these 1910-era cranes were so useful and powerful, that remained in service until the 1980s. The combination of a steam boiler, heavy steam winch, and cable hook could little be improved upon. Also, steam engines did not mind being parked for months, with a little care, in the 1980s big, hydraulic controlled diesel cranes appeared. Also, these cranes had the ability to travel on the highway so as to better able to get to the scene of an accident and they are much more mobile, and are able to manoeuvre around an accident scene, better than a crane only limited to rail access
