Passenger Rail (Edited from Wikipedia)

SUMMARY

A passenger train travels between stations where passengers may embark and disembark. The oversight of the train is the duty of a guard/train manager/conductor. Passenger trains are part of public transport and often make up the stem of the service, with buses feeding to stations. Passenger trains provide longdistance intercity travel, daily commuter trips, or local urban transit services. They even include a diversity of , operating speeds, rightofway requirements, and service frequency.

Passenger trains usually can be divided into two operations: intercity railway and intracity transit. Whereas as intercity railway involve higher speeds, longer routes, and lower frequency (usually scheduled), intracity transit involves lower speeds, shorter routes, and higher frequency (especially during peak hours).

Intercity trains are longhaul trains that operate with few stops between cities. Trains typically have amenities such as a dining car. Some lines also provide overnight services with sleeping cars. Some longhaul trains have been given a specific name.

Regional trains are medium distance trains that connect cities with outlying, surrounding areas, or provide a regional service, making more stops and having lower speeds. Commuter trains serve suburbs of urban areas, providing a daily commuting service. Airport rail links provide quick access from city centers to airports.

Highspeed rail are special intercity trains that operate at much higher speeds than conventional railways, the limit being regarded at 120 to 200 mph. Highspeed trains are used mostly for longhaul service and most systems are in Western Europe and East Asia.

The speed record is 357.2 mph, set by a modified French TGV. Magnetic levitation trains such as the Shanghai airport train use underriding magnets which attract themselves upward towards the underside of a guideway and this line has achieved somewhat higher peak speeds in daytoday operation than conventional highspeed railways, although only over short distances.

1 HISTORY

George Stephenson (9 June 1781 – 12 August 1848) was an English civil engineer and mechanical engineer. Renowned as the "Father of Railways", Stephenson was considered by the Victorians a great example of diligent application and thirst for improvement. His rail gauge of 4 feet 8 1⁄2 inches (1,435 mm), sometimes called "Stephenson gauge", is the standard gauge by name and by convention for most of the world's railways.

Pioneered by Stephenson, was one of the most important technological inventions of the 19th century and a key component of the . Built by George and his son Robert's company and Company, the Locomotion No. 1 is the first steam to carry passengers on a public rail line, the Stockton and Railway in 1825. George also built the first public inter city railway line in the world to use , the and Manchester Railway which opened in 1830.

George Stephenson was born on 9 June 1781 in Wylam, , 9 miles west of . He was the second child of Robert and Mabel Stephenson, neither of whom could read or write. Robert was the fireman for Wylam Colliery pumping engine, earning a very low wage, so there was no money for schooling. At 17, Stephenson became an engineman at Water Row Pit in Newburn.

George realized the value of education and paid to study at night school to learn reading, writing and arithmetic – he was illiterate until the age of 18. In 1801 he began work at Black Callerton Colliery as a 'brakesman', controlling the winding gear at the pit. In 1802 he married Frances Henderson and moved to Willington Quay, east of Newcastle. There he worked as a brakesman while they lived in one room of a cottage. George made shoes and mended clocks to supplement his income.

Their first child Robert was born in 1803, and in 1804 they moved to West Moor, near where George worked as a brakesman at Killingworth Pit. Their second child, a daughter was born in July 1805. She was named Frances after her mother. The child died after just 3 weeks and was buried in St Bartholomew's Parish Church near Newcastle.

In 1806 George's wife Frances died of consumption (tuberculosis). She was buried in the same churchyard as their daughter on the 16th May 1806.

George decided to find work in Scotland and left Robert with a local woman while he went to work in Montrose. After a few months he returned, probably because his father

2 was blinded in a accident. He moved back into a cottage at West Moor and his unmarried sister Eleanor moved in to look after Robert. In 1811 the pumping engine at High Pit, Killingworth was not working properly and Stephenson offered to fix it. He did so with such success that he was promoted to enginewright for the collieries at Killingworth, responsible for maintaining and repairing all the colliery engines. He became an expert in steamdriven machinery.

Early Railway

Cornishman is credited with the first realistic design for a in 1802. Later, he visited Tyneside and built an engine there for a mine owner. Several local men were inspired by this, and designed their own engines.

Stephenson designed his first locomotive in 1814, a traveling engine designed for hauling on the Killingworth named Blücher after the Prussian general Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher (It was suggested the name sprang from Blücher's rapid march of his army in support of Wellington at Waterloo).

The Blücher was modeled on ’s locomotive 'Willington' which George studied at Kenton and Coxlodge colliery on Tyneside. He constructed the Blücher in the colliery workshop behind Stephenson's home, Dial Cottage, on Great Lime Road. The locomotive could haul 30 tons of coal up a hill at 4 mph. Altogether, Stephenson is said to have produced 16 locomotives at Killingworth.

The new engines were too heavy to run on wooden rails or plateway, and iron edge rails were in their infancy, with exhibiting excessive brittleness. Together with William Losh, Stephenson improved the design of cast iron edge rails to reduce breakage; rails were briefly made by Losh, Wilson and Bell at their Walker ironworks.

According to Rolt, Stephenson managed to solve the problem caused by the weight of the engine on the primitive rails. He experimented with a (to 'cushion' the weight using steam pressure acting on to support the locomotive frame), but soon followed the practice of 'distributing' weight by utilizing a number of wheels or bogies.

Stockton and Darlington Railway

In 1821, a parliamentary bill was passed to allow the building of the Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR). The 25mile railway connected collieries near Bishop Auckland to the at Stockton, passing through Darlington on the way. The original plan was to use horses to draw coal carts on metal rails, but after company

3 director Edward Pease met Stephenson, he agreed to change the plans. Stephenson surveyed the line in 1821, and assisted by his eighteenyearold son Robert, construction began the same year.

A manufacturer was needed to provide the locomotives for the line. Pease and Stephenson had jointly established a company in Newcastle to manufacture locomotives. It was set up as Robert Stephenson and Company, and George's son Robert was the managing director. A fourth partner was Michael Longridge of Ironworks. On an early trade card, Robert Stephenson & Co was described as "Engineers, Millwrights & Machinists, Brass & Iron Founders".

In September 1825 the works at Forth Street, Newcastle completed the first locomotive for the railway: originally named Active, it was renamed Locomotion and was followed by "Hope", "Diligence" and "Black Diamond". The Stockton and Darlington Railway opened on 27 September 1825. Driven by Stephenson, Locomotion hauled an 80ton load of coal and flour nine miles in two hours, reaching a speed of 24 miles per hour on one stretch.

The first purpose-built passenger car, Experiment, was attached and carried dignitaries on the opening journey. It was the first time passenger traffic had been run on a steam locomotive railway.

The wroughtiron rail gauge Stephenson chose for the line was 4 feet 8 1⁄2 inches (1,435 mm) which subsequently was adopted as the standard gauge for railways, not only in Britain, but throughout the world. The gauge refers to the separated distance between the inside wall of each rail.

Liverpool and Manchester Railway

Stephenson had ascertained by experiments at Killingworth that half the power of the locomotive was consumed by a gradient as little as 1 in 260. He concluded that railways should be kept as level as possible.

He used this knowledge while working on the Bolton and Leigh Railway, and the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR), executing a series of difficult cuttings, embankments and stone viaducts to level their routes. Defective surveying of the original route of the L&MR caused by hostility from some affected landowners meant Stephenson encountered difficulty during Parliamentary scrutiny of the original bill, especially under crossexamination by Edward Hall Alderson. The bill was rejected and a revised bill for a new alignment was submitted and passed in a subsequent session. The revised alignment presented the problem of crossing Chat Moss, an apparently

4 bottomless peat bog, which Stephenson overcame by unusual means, effectively floating the line across it.

The method he used was similar to that used by John Metcalf who constructed many miles of road across marshes in the Pennines, laying a foundation of heather and branches, which became bound together by the weight of the passing coaches, with a layer of stones on top.

As the L&MR approached completion in 1829, its directors arranged a competition to decide who would build its locomotives, and the were run in October 1829. Entries could weigh no more than six tons and had to travel along the for a total distance of 60 miles.

Stephenson's entry was Rocket, and its performance in winning the contest made it famous. George's son Robert had been working in South America from 1824 to 1827 and returned to run the Forth Street Works while George was in Liverpool overseeing the construction of the line. Robert was responsible for the detailed design of Rocket, although he was in constant postal communication with his father, who made many suggestions. One significant innovation, suggested by Henry Booth, treasurer of the L&MR, was the use of a firetube boiler, invented by French engineer Marc Seguin that gave improved heat exchange.

The opening ceremony of the L&MR, on 15 September 1830, drew luminaries from the government and industry, including the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington. The day started with a procession of eight trains setting out from Liverpool. The parade was led by "Northumbrian" driven by George Stephenson, and included "Phoenix" driven by his son Robert, "North Star" driven by his brother Robert and "Rocket" driven by assistant engineer .

The day was marred by the death of William Huskisson, the Member of Parliament for Liverpool, who was struck by Rocket. Stephenson evacuated the injured Huskisson to Eccles with a train, but he died from his injuries. Despite the tragedy the railway was a resounding success. Stephenson became famous, and was offered the position of chief engineer for a wide variety of other railways.

5