Rail transport is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of land transport, next to road transport. It is used for about 8% of passenger and freight transport globally, thanks to its energy efficiency and potentially high speed.
An overhead line or overhead wire is an electrical cable that is used to transmit electrical energy to electric locomotives, trolleybuses or trams. The generic term used by the International Union of Railways for the technology is overhead line. It is known variously as overhead catenary, overhead contact line (OCL), overhead contact system (OCS), overhead equipment (OHE), overhead line equipment, overhead lines (OHL), overhead wiring (OHW), traction wire, and trolley wire.
A third rail, also known as a live rail, electric rail or conductor rail, is a method of providing electric power to a railway locomotive or train, through a semi-continuous rigid conductor placed alongside or between the rails of a railway track. It is used typically in a mass transit or rapid transit system, which has alignments in its own corridors, fully or almost fully segregated from the outside environment. Third-rail systems are usually supplied from direct current electricity.
Maintenance of way refers to the maintenance, construction, and improvement of rail infrastructure, including tracks, ballast, grade, and lineside infrastructure such as signals and signs.
A pantograph is an apparatus mounted on the roof of an electric train, tram or electric bus to collect power through contact with an overhead line. The term stems from the resemblance of some styles to the mechanical pantographs used for copying handwriting and drawings.
Commuter rail services in the United States, Canada, Cuba, Mexico, Panama, and Costa Rica provide common carrier passenger transportation along railway tracks, with scheduled service on fixed routes on a non-reservation basis, primarily for short-distance (local) travel between a central business district and adjacent suburbs and regional travel between cities of a conurbation. It does not include rapid transit or light rail service.
The New Haven Line is a 72.7 mi (117.0 km) commuter rail line operated by the Metro-North Railroad in the U.S. states of New York and Connecticut. Running from New Haven, Connecticut, to New York City, the New Haven Line joins the Harlem Line in Mount Vernon, New York, and continues south to Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan. The New Haven Line carries 125,000 passengers every weekday and 39 million passengers a year. The busiest intermediate station is Stamford, with 8.4 million passengers, or 21% of the line's ridership.
The Keystone Corridor is a 349-mile (562 km) railroad corridor between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, that consists of two rail lines: Amtrak and SEPTA's Philadelphia-to-Harrisburg main line, which hosts SEPTA's Paoli/Thorndale Line commuter rail service, and Amtrak's Keystone Service and Pennsylvanian inter-city trains; and the Norfolk Southern Pittsburgh Line. The corridor was originally the Main Line of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Railroad electrification in the United States began at the turn of the 20th century and comprised many different systems in many different geographical areas, few of which were connected. Despite this situation, these systems shared a small number of common reasons for electrification.
A tamping machine or ballast tamper, informally simply a tamper, is a self-propelled, rail-mounted machine used to pack the track ballast under railway tracks to make the tracks and roadbed more durable and level. 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, tamping machines are essential for the use of concrete sleepers since they are too heavy to be lifted by hand.
Arva Industries was founded in 1979 by Fred Smith and LaVern Eck.
A track geometry car is an automated track inspection vehicle on a rail transport system used to test several parameters of the track geometry without obstructing normal railroad operations. Some of the parameters generally measured include position, curvature, alignment of the track, smoothness, and the crosslevel of the two rails. The cars use a variety of sensors, measuring systems, and data management systems to create a profile of the track being inspected.
A work train is one or more rail cars intended for internal non-revenue use by the railroad's operator. Work trains serve functions such as track maintenance, maintenance of way, revenue collection, system cleanup and waste removal, heavy duty hauling, and crew member transport.
A ballast regulator is a piece of rail transport maintenance of way equipment used to shape and distribute the gravel track ballast that supports the ties in rail tracks. They are often used in conjunction with ballast tampers when maintaining track.
Amtrak's 25 Hz traction power system is a traction power network for the southern portion of the Northeast Corridor (NEC), the Keystone Corridor, and several branch lines between New York City and Washington D.C. The system was constructed by the Pennsylvania Railroad between 1915 and 1938 before the North American power transmission grid was fully established. This is the reason the system uses 25 Hz, as opposed to 60 Hz, which is the standard for power transmission in North America. In 1976, Amtrak inherited the system from Penn Central, the successor to the Pennsylvania Railroad, along with the rest of the NEC infrastructure.
Plasser & Theurer is an Austrian manufacturer of rail track maintenance and track laying machines.
The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) operates a 25 Hz traction power system in the vicinity of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that it inherited from the Reading Company. This system is separate from but similar to the system designed by the Pennsylvania Railroad, which is now operated by Amtrak. SEPTA's trains can run over either system because the voltage and frequency presented to the locomotive are essentially identical. However, the ex-Reading system is not electrically connected to the ex-PRR system.
Amtrak operates a 60 Hz traction power system along the Northeast Corridor between New Haven, Connecticut, and Boston, Massachusetts. This system was built in the late 1990s and supplies locomotives with power from an overhead catenary system at 25 kV alternating current with a frequency of 60 Hz. The system is also commonly known as the Northend Electrification, in contrast to the Southend Electrification that runs between New York City and Washington, D.C.
The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad pioneered electrification of main line railroads using high-voltage, alternating current, single-phase overhead catenary. It electrified its mainline between Stamford, Connecticut, and Woodlawn, New York, in 1907 and extended the electrification to New Haven, Connecticut, in 1914. While single-phase AC railroad electrification has become commonplace, the New Haven's system was unprecedented at the time of construction. The significance of this electrification was recognized in 1982 by its designation as a Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).
A Tie exchanger is a self-propelled railroad maintenance of way vehicle that removes old railroad ties from tracks and inserts new ones. By using mechanical and hydraulic force, a tie extractor/inserter can replace ties much faster and with more precision than is possible by hand.
