Passenger Rail (Edited from Wikipedia)
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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 long-distance intercity travel, daily commuter trips, or local urban transit services. They even include a diversity of vehicles, operating speeds, right-of-way 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 long-haul trains that operate with few stops between cities. Trains typically have amenities such as a dining car. Some lines also provide over-night services with sleeping cars. Some long-haul 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. High-speed rail are special inter-city trains that operate at much higher speeds than conventional railways, the limit being regarded at 120 to 200 mph. High-speed trains are used mostly for long-haul 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 under-riding magnets which attract themselves upward towards the underside of a guideway and this line has achieved somewhat higher peak speeds in day-to-day operation than conventional high-speed 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, rail transport was one of the most important technological inventions of the 19th century and a key component of the Industrial Revolution. Built by George and his son Robert's company Robert Stephenson and Company, the Locomotion No. 1 is the first steam locomotive to carry passengers on a public rail line, the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1825. George also built the first public inter- city railway line in the world to use locomotives, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway which opened in 1830. George Stephenson was born on 9 June 1781 in Wylam, Northumberland, 9 miles west of Newcastle upon Tyne. 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 Killingworth 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 mining 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 steam-driven machinery. Early Railway Cornishman Richard Trevithick is credited with the first realistic design for a steam locomotive 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 coal on the Killingworth wagonway 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 Matthew Murray’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 plate-way, and iron edge rails were in their infancy, with cast iron 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 steam spring (to 'cushion' the weight using steam pressure acting on pistons 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 25-mile railway connected collieries near Bishop Auckland to the River Tees 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 eighteen-year-old 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 Bedlington 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 80-ton 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 wrought-iron 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 cross-examination 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.