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Charles Osmond Frederick is a British engineer who worked on interaction of rails and wheels at the British Railway Technical Centre, Derby.
Together with P.J. Armstrong he developed the Armstrong-Frederick plasticity models, which are applied in the theory of inelastic deformations. In the early 60's, he investigated stress phenomena in nuclear fuel elements for the UK Atomic Energy Authority. Since around 1970, he was employed by the research centre of British Rail.
In 2006, patent-spotters rediscovered a patent attributed in 1973 to the British Railways Board on a nuclear driven space vehicle, dubbed the British Rail flying saucer. The patent was based on work performed by Frederick, which originally was directed towards a lifting platform and finally culminated in a nuclear fusion powered passenger craft for interplanetary travel.
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A locomotive or engine is a rail transport vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. If a locomotive is capable of carrying a payload, it is usually rather referred to as a multiple unit, motor coach, railcar or power car; the use of these self-propelled vehicles is increasingly common for passenger trains, but rare for freight.
Rail transport or train transport is a means of transferring passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are located on tracks. In contrast to road transport, where vehicles run on a prepared flat surface, rail vehicles are directionally guided by the tracks on which they run. Tracks usually consist of steel rails, installed on ties (sleepers) set in ballast, on which the rolling stock, usually fitted with metal wheels, moves. Other variations are also possible, such as slab track. This is where the rails are fastened to a concrete foundation resting on a prepared subsurface.
In a traditional nuclear photonic rocket, an onboard nuclear reactor would generate such high temperatures that the blackbody radiation from the reactor would provide significant thrust. The disadvantage is that it takes a lot of power to generate a small amount of thrust this way, so acceleration is very low. The photon radiators would most likely be constructed using graphite or tungsten. Photonic rockets are technologically feasible, but rather impractical with current technology based on an onboard nuclear power source. However, the recent development of Photonic Laser Thruster (PLT), the Beamed Laser Propulsion (BLP) with photon recycling, promises to overcome these issues by separating the nuclear power source and the spacecraft and by increasing the thrust to nuclear power ratio by orders of magnitude.
The Bussard ramjet is a theoretical method of spacecraft propulsion proposed in 1960 by the physicist Robert W. Bussard, popularized by Poul Anderson's novel Tau Zero, Larry Niven in his Known Space series of books, Vernor Vinge in his Zones of Thought series, and referred to by Carl Sagan in the television series and book Cosmos.
Nuclear pulse propulsion or external pulsed plasma propulsion is a hypothetical method of spacecraft propulsion that uses nuclear explosions for thrust. It was first developed as Project Orion by DARPA, after a suggestion by Stanislaw Ulam in 1947. Newer designs using inertial confinement fusion have been the baseline for most post-Orion designs, including Project Daedalus and Project Longshot.
A rack railway is a steep grade railway with a toothed rack rail, usually between the running rails. The trains are fitted with one or more cog wheels or pinions that mesh with this rack rail. This allows the trains to operate on steep grades above 10%, which is the maximum for friction-based rail. Most rack railways are mountain railways, although a few are transit railways or tramways built to overcome a steep gradient in an urban environment.
The history of rail transport began in 6th century BC in Ancient Greece. It can be divided up into several discrete periods defined by the principal means of track material and motive power used.
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 dependable surface for their wheels to roll upon. For clarity it is often referred to as railway track or railroad track. Tracks where electric trains or electric trams run are equipped with an electrification system such as an overhead electrical power line or an additional electrified rail.
William Henry Barlow FRS FRSE FICE MIMechE was an English civil engineer of the 19th century, particularly associated with railway engineering projects. Barlow was involved in many engineering enterprises. He was engineer for the Midland Railway on its London extension and designed the company's London terminus at St Pancras.
Alternative fuels, known as non-conventional and advanced fuels, are any materials or substances that can be used as fuels, other than conventional fuels like; fossil fuels, as well as nuclear materials such as uranium and thorium, as well as artificial radioisotope fuels that are made in nuclear reactors.
A railgrinder is a maintenance of way vehicle or train used to restore the profile and remove irregularities from worn tracks to extend its life and to improve the ride of trains using the track. Rail grinders were developed to increase the lifespan of the tracks being serviced for rail corrugation. Rail grinding is a process that is done to stop the deformation due to use and friction on railroad tracks by removing deformations and corrosion. Railroad tracks that experience continual use are more likely to experience corrugation and overall wear. Rail grinders are used to grind the tracks when rail corrugation is present, or before corrugation begins to form on the tracks. Major freight train tracks use rail grinders for track maintenance based the interval of tonnage, rather than time. Transit systems and subways in major cities continue to use scheduled rail grinding processes to combat the corrugation common to heavily used tracks. Rail-grinding equipment may be mounted on a single self-propelled vehicle or on a dedicated rail-grinding train which, when used on an extensive network, may include crew quarters. The grinding wheels, of which there may be more than 100, are set at controlled angles to restore the track to its correct profile.
A derailment occurs when a vehicle such as a train runs off its rails. Although many derailments are minor, all result in temporary disruption of the proper operation of the railway system and they are potentially seriously hazardous to human health and safety. Usually, the derailment of a train can be caused by a collision with another object, an operational error, the mechanical failure of tracks, such as broken rails, or the mechanical failure of the wheels. In emergency situations, deliberate derailment with derails or catch points is sometimes used to prevent a more serious accident.
Anil Kakodkar is an Indian nuclear physicist and mechanical engineer. He was the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission of India and the Secretary to the Government of India, he was the Director of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay from 1996–2000. He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian honour, on 26 January 2009.
Alan Bond is a British mechanical and aerospace engineer, as well as Managing Director of Reaction Engines Ltd and associated with Project Daedalus, Blue Streak missile, HOTOL, Reaction Engines Skylon and the Reaction Engines A2 hypersonic passenger aircraft.
In rail terminology, a fishplate, splice bar or joint bar is a metal bar that is bolted to the ends of two rails to join them together in a track. The name is derived from fish, a wooden bar with a curved profile used to strengthen a ship's mast. The top and bottom edges are tapered inwards so the device wedges itself between the top and bottom of the rail when it is bolted into place. In rail transport modelling, a fishplate is often a small copper or nickel silver plate that slips onto both rails to provide the functions of maintaining alignment and electrical continuity.
The British Rail flying saucer, officially known simply as space vehicle, was a proposed interplanetary spacecraft designed by Charles Osmond Frederick. Although the proposed craft required controlled thermonuclear fusion and other futuristic technologies, a patent application was filed on behalf of British Rail in December 1970 and granted on 21 March 1973.
John Birkinshaw was a 19th-century railway engineer from Bedlington, Northumberland noted for his invention of wrought iron rails in 1820 (patented on October 23, 1820
Lyle Benjamin Borst was an American nuclear physicist and inventor. He worked with Enrico Fermi in Chicago, was involved with the Manhattan District Project, and worked with Ernest O. Wollan to conduct neutron scattering and neutron diffraction studies.
The South African Railways Dutton road-rail tractors of 1923 were road-rail steam tractors.
Marc W. Goldsmith is an American mechanical and nuclear engineer and consulting engineer, who served as 131st president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers for the year 2012‐2013.