High-speed rail - High-speed rail High-speed rail is public transport by rail with a possible speed above 200 km/h (125 miles per hour). Typically high speed trains travel at top service speeds of between 250 km/h (150 mph) to 300 km/h (180 mph). Although the world speed record for a wheeled train was set in 1990 by a French TGV which reached a speed of 515 km/h (320 mph), the experimental Japanese magnetic levitation train has reached 581 km/h. Table of contents showTocToggle("show","hide") 1 History 2 High-speed trains vs. automobiles or airplanes 3 Markets for high-speed train 4 High-speed trains in the U.S. 5 High-speed trains in Japan 6 Technology 7 Existing high-speed rail systems History Railways were the first form of mass transportation, and until the invention of.
Taiwan High Speed Rail - Taiwan High Speed Rail Taiwan High Speed Rail (台灣高速鐵路) is Taiwan's high speed rail under construction. It runs approximately 345 kilometer from Taipei to Kaohsiung. It adopted Japan's Shinkansen technology for the core system. External Link Taiwan High Speed Rail Corporation.
Inter-city rail - Inter-city rail Inter-city rail services are train services which cover larger distances than commuter trains. In the U.S.A. they are operated by Amtrak; the network is not as dense as in Europe. In Europe railways have many more stationss than the Inter-city trains halt at; the smaller stations are served by local trains. An exception form high speed railways, which have only few stations..
History of rail transport - History of rail transport Railroads have a long history, including systems with man or horse power and rails of wood or stone. The first practical form of mechanized transport, railways had their start in England in the 1820s. They remained the only practical overland transport for well over 100 years. Wagonways were developed in Germany in the 1550s and the use of these tracks, consisting of wooden rails for horse-drawn wagons, spread across Europe. By the early 1700s, the wooden tracks and wheels were beginning to be replaced by iron, and these systems became known as tramways. Typically, the wheels ran in depressed grooves lined with metal plate. James Watt, a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer, was responsible for improvements to the steam engine that caused this.
History of the British railway system - course, there had been railways in Britain for centuries, mostly primitive wooden tracks with single trucks pulled by hand or by horse. These developed during the Industrial Revolution into sophisticated lines of iron track with some ambitious engineering works. The most advanced of these were the Stratford-upon-Avon and Moreton-in-Marsh Tramway, and the Cromford and High Peak railway in Derbyshire. But they all, even the Stockton and Darlington railway opened in 1825, had important differences from modern railways: they were designed for horse haulage, carriage of bulk freight rather than passengers, and all were initially operated like public roads, where anyone with a truck of the right gauge and a horse could ply their trade. This anarchic system made the Stockton and Darlington Railway almost unworkable at first, since waggoners' trains would.
French railway history - for many years forced French railways to import many of their rails from England at great cost. French coal supplies also remained not nearly as well-developed as those in England and Belgium. Until these complementary industries developed French railways always suffered an economic disadvantage relative to those of other states. As well as the economic condition of the nation, France also saw powerful opposition to the changes that railroads would bring: the critics contributed somewhat to France's slower development. For example, in 1832 the Rouen Chamber of commerce opposed a rail link between Rouen and Paris, arguing it would be detrimental to agriculture, hurt the traditional way of life, and impinge upon the business of the canals and rivers. This last argument emerged commonly throughout France. Unlike Russia or Germany, which.
British Rail Class 55 - British Rail Class 55 < Class 53 Class 56 > British Rail assigned Class 55 to the twenty-two English Electric Type 5 express diesel locomotives built in 1961/2 and used for high-speed service on Britain's East Coast Main Line between London Kings Cross and Edinburgh. Table of contents showTocToggle("show","hide") 1 Prototype 2 Production 3 Replacement 4 Preservation 5 Return to Service 6 Class Roster 7 Specifications Prototype The English Electric company, who had absorbed the engine maker Napier into its vast empire, was (among many interests) a major builder of diesel and electric locomotives. EE saw the potential of Napier's Deltic engine for rail traction, and in 1955 built a demonstrator in its Dick Kerr works in Preston. Officially numbered DP1, although this was never borne on.
Channel Tunnel Rail Link - Channel Tunnel Rail Link The Channel Tunnel Rail Link (or CTRL) is a project to construct a 108 km high speed rail line from London to the British end of the Channel Tunnel. When it is completed it will be possible to reach Paris from St Pancras in 2hrs 15mins and Brussels in 2hrs. Table of contents showTocToggle("show","hide") 1 Background 2 The project 3 Engineering notes 4 Additional information 5.
Cog railway - railway is a mountain railway with a special centre rack rail mounted in the middle of the sleepers between the regular rails. The trains are fitted with one or more cog wheels that mesh into this rack rail (picture). This then allows the locomotives to haul the train up steeply inclined slopes. Table of contents showTocToggle("show","hide") 1 Rack systems 2 Cog locomotives 3 Cog railways 4 See Also Rack systems A number of different rack systems have been developed: The Riggenbach system uses a ladder rack, formed of steel plates connected by round bars at regular intervals. The Riggenbach system was the first system devised, and suffers from the problem that its fixed rack is much more complex and expensive to build than the other systems. This system is sometimes known.
Third rail - Third rail A third rail is a method of providing electricity to power a railroad, typically a mass transit system. Well-known examples of rail transit systems utilizing a third rail include the New York City subway system, the Los Angeles and Washington, D.C Metro systems, the San Francisco BART system, the Chicago 'El', and the large suburban railway network in and around London and south-east England. Third-rail electric systems are the oldest method of supplying power to trains. Experimental third-rail systems were used as far back as the 1880s for tram (or streetcar) systems. Another method of powering electric trains is the use of electrified overhead lines that transmit power to trains by means of pantograph arms attached to the trains. On some metro/light-rail lines, part of.
Timeline of railway history - Timeline of railway history This is a Timeline of Rail Transport History c1550 Horse-drawn wagonways appear in Germany. 1761 First iron rails laid at Bath, England. 1782 Scottish engineer James Watt invents first steam engine able to turn wheels. 1804 World's first Steam locomotive built by Richard Trevithick. 1814 George Stephenson constructs his first locomotive Blucher. 1825 Stephenson's Stockton and Darlington Railway, the world's first steam operated railway opens, carrying freight from a Colliery to a river port. 1829 George and Robert Stephenson's locomotive, The Rocket, sets a speed record of 47 km/h (29 mph) at The Rainhill Trials held near Liverpool. 1830 The Liverpool and Manchester Railway opens, and the first railway passenger service is started. The line proves the viabillity of rail transport, and large scale railway construction.
Spanish railway history - FEVE. It took many years for the railway system to recover from the war, during the 1950s it was a common sight to see intercity express trains hauled by 100 year old steam locomotives on poor worn-out track. In spite of this, innovators like Goicoechea created advanced trains like the Talgo and the TER. Only since the end of Franco's regime, and the end of Spain's international isolation since the 1970s, has the Spanish railway network begun to modernise and catch up with the rest of Europe. Following the decentralisation of Spain after 1978, the narrow-gauge lines that didn't cross the limits of autonomous communities of Spain have been spinned off FEVE and transferred to the regional government, which formed Eusko Trenbideak and Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya. Madrid (Metro.
Railgun - a projectile that is initially part of the current path. The current flowing through the rails sets up a magnetic field. The current flows through the projectile perpendicularly to the current in the rail. Conveniently, this allows the resultant force to direct the projectile along (parallel to) the rails. Table of contents showTocToggle("show","hide") 1 Theory and construction 2 Railguns as weapons 3 Railguns in science fiction 4 Peaceful uses of railguns 5 Further Reading 5.1 Theory 5.2 Practice Theory and construction The theory and construction of a railgun are quite simple at first sight, but very complex beneath. An electrical current, when in a magnetic field, experiences a force perpendicular to the direction of the current and the direction of the magnetic field. This is the principle behind the operation of.
Railway signaling - where by the time the driver/engineer can see an obstacle, the train cannot stop in time to avoid colliding with it. Most forms of train control involve messages being passed from those in charge of the rail network or portions of it to the train crew; these are known as 'signals' and from this the topic of train control is known as 'signaling'. Table of contents showTocToggle("show","hide") 1 Timetable Operation 2 Timetable and Train Order 3 Signals 4 Blocks 5 History of block signaling 6 Modern railway signaling 7 Notes on U.S. Signalling 8 Notes on UK signal colour order 9 See Also 10 External Links Timetable Operation The simplest form of operation, in terms of equipment at least, is operation according to a timetable. Everything is laid down in advance.
Rail tracks - Rail tracks Railroad or railway tracks are used on railways to guide trains. They consist of two parallel steel rails, which are laid and fastened upon sleepers (or cross ties) which are embedded in ballast to form the railroad track. Rail tracks are normally laid on a bed of coarse stone chippings known as ballast, which combines resilience, some amount of flexibility, and good drainage; however, track can also be laid on or into concrete (across bridges, for example). There are different ways of joining rails together to form tracks. The traditional way of doing this, was to bolt rails together in what is known as jointed track. In this form of track, lengths of rail, usually around 20 metres (60 feet) long are laid and.
Philippine National Railways - The narrow gauge results in lateral instability and prevents the trains to run at higher speed. In fact, trains leave Tayuman, Manila at 4:00 p.m. and on a good day arrives in Legazpi around 7:00 a.m. the next day. Normally, trains arrive late because they have to slow down at at-grade crossings. Trains were involved in accidents mainly because road traffic ignore "stop-look-and-listen" signs and the train engineer's constant blowing of horn. Before World War II, trains reached all the way up Tabaco, Albay, now a city and Bicol's primary international port facing the Pacific, north of Legazpi. It also provided passenger and freight services to San Fernando, La Union, aside from prompt and regular service to the port of Legazpi. While Japan increasingly convert her tracks to standard gauge (four.
Mount Washington Cog Railway - any roll-back; during descent, both locomotive and car are braked. The only major accident in the railway's history was when the first locomotive, #1 (first named Hero and later Peppersass because of its vertical boiler's resemblance to a pepper sauce bottle) was brought out of storage in 1929 for one last run before being put on display. During the ascent, the locomotive's cog wheel broke and the locomotive jumped off the tracks and then, with no means of braking, descended the mountain at high speed. All but one of its crew jumped to safety (though some suffered broken bones) but one man did not escape and died. Although the locomotive was broken into pieces the boiler did not rupture, and the pieces were later reassembled to reconstruct the locomotive for static.
Ladbroke Grove rail disaster - Ladbroke Grove rail disaster The Ladbroke Grove rail disaster was a British rail accident that happened on 5 October 1999 in which thirty-one people died. The disaster occurred at at 08:08 and 58 seconds BST, when a three-car diesel multiple unit train operated by Thames Trains collided with a High Speed Train (8 coaches with a diesel power car (locomotive) at each end) of First Great Western at Ladbroke Grove Junction about two miles / 4km west of London Paddington Station. The trains collided almost head-on on the junction at a combined closing speed of approximately 130 mph / 205 km/h. The first car of the Thames Train, the 0806 from Paddington to Bedwyn, Wiltshire, driven by Michael Hodder, was totally destroyed in the impact, and the diesel.
KLIA Ekspres - KLIA Ekspres KLIA Ekspres is a high speed train linking KL Sentral in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia to the international airport, KLIA. The KL City Air Terminal (KLCAT), located at KL Sentral, has the IATA designation XKL and can be used by passengers to check in for flights from KLIA. The non-stop trip takes exactly 28 minutes. Trains depart at 15-minute intervals (during peak hours) and a basic one-way trip costs 35 ringgit, although a variety of discounts are available. The commuter service KLIA Transit running on the same tracks takes 9 minutes longer for the same trip, since it also stops in Bandar Tasik Selatan, Putrajaya/Cyberjaya, and Salak Tinggi. Both services use the Desiro trainset by Siemens AG. The Ekspres rail link was opened on April 14,.
HSL - color space The HSL South is the Dutch part of a new high-speed railroad being built between Schiphol Airport and Brussels. The Belgian part is called HSL4. It is expected to be operational in 2007. High Speed Alliance (HSA) will be the railway company operating the Dutch part; for domestic services it gets the exclusive rights, for international services there may be competition. There will be high-speed trains on the main line and so-called shuttle trains running partly on new, partly on old track, connecting to Den Haag Centraal and Breda; the shuttle trains are faster than regular trains on the new track but not as fast as high-speed trains. The HSL Project is the largest Public Private Partnership (PPP) contract ever awarded by the Dutch government. Fares Fares will be.
