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A locomotive 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 trains.
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.
A funicular is a type of cable railway system that connects points along a railway track laid on a steep slope. The system is characterized by two counterbalanced carriages permanently attached to opposite ends of a haulage cable, which is looped over a pulley at the upper end of the track. The result of such a configuration is that the two carriages move synchronously: as one ascends, the other descends at an equal speed. This feature distinguishes funiculars from inclined elevators, which have a single car that is hauled uphill.
A rubber-tyred metro or rubber-tired metro is a form of rapid transit system that uses a mix of road and rail technology. The vehicles have wheels with rubber tires that run on a roll way inside guide bars for traction. Traditional, flanged steel wheels running on rail tracks provide guidance through switches and act as backup if tyres fail. Most rubber-tyred trains are purpose-built and designed for the system on which they operate. Guided buses are sometimes referred to as 'trams on tyres', and compared to rubber-tyred metros.
A mountain railway is a railway that operates in a mountainous region. It may operate through the mountains by following mountain valleys and tunneling beneath mountain passes, or it may climb a mountain to provide transport to and from the summit.
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 gradients of 100% or more, well above the 10% maximum for friction-based rail. The rack and pinion mechanism also provides more controlled braking and reduces the effects of snow or ice on the rails. 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 first cog railway was the Middleton Railway between Middleton and Leeds in West Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom, where the first commercially successful steam locomotive, Salamanca, ran in 1812. This used a rack and pinion system designed and patented in 1811 by John Blenkinsop.
The grade (US) or gradient (UK) of a physical feature, landform or constructed line refers to the tangent of the angle of that surface to the horizontal. It is a special case of the slope, where zero indicates horizontality. A larger number indicates higher or steeper degree of "tilt". Often slope is calculated as a ratio of "rise" to "run", or as a fraction in which run is the horizontal distance and rise is the vertical distance.
The Fell system was the first third-rail system for railways that were too steep to be worked by adhesion on the two running rails alone. It used a raised centre rail between the two running rails to provide extra traction and braking, or braking alone. Trains were propelled by wheels horizontally applied and retracted by springs onto the centre rail, controlled from the cab, as well as by the normal running wheels. In practice, the running wheels could be allowed to run freely to reduce wear, but the centre brake shoes needed to be replaced frequently. For example: the locomotives' shoes were replaced after each journey on the Mont Cenis Pass Railway. Extra brake shoes were fitted to specially designed or adapted Fell locomotives and brake vans, and for traction the prototype locomotive had an auxiliary engine powering the horizontal wheels. The Fell system was developed in the 1860s and was soon superseded by various types of rack railway for new lines, but some Fell systems remained in use into the 1960s. The Snaefell Mountain Railway still uses the Fell system for (emergency) braking, but not for traction.
Hillclimbing is a problem faced by railway systems when a load must be carried up an incline. While railways have a great ability to haul very heavy loads, this advantage is only significant when the tracks are fairly level. As soon as the gradients increase, the tonnage that can be hauled is greatly diminished.
The Pilatus Railway is a mountain railway in Switzerland and the steepest rack railway in the world, with a maximum gradient of 48% and an average gradient of 35%. The line runs from Alpnachstad, on Lake Alpnach, to a terminus near the Esel summit of Pilatus at an elevation of 2,073 m (6,801 ft), which makes it the highest railway in the canton of Obwalden and the second highest in Central Switzerland after the Furka line. At Alpnachstad, the Pilatus Railway connects with steamers on Lake Lucerne and with trains on the Brünigbahn line of Zentralbahn.
A cable railway is a railway that uses a cable, rope or chain to haul trains. It is a specific type of cable transportation.
The Hopton Incline was the steepest stretch of conventional, adhesion-worked standard gauge railway in the UK. The incline was situated in sparsely populated, exposed limestone uplands in the Peak District of Derbyshire, England.
The term ruling grade is usually used as a synonym for "steepest climb" between two points on a railroad. More simply, the steepest grade to be climbed dictates how powerful the motive power must be in order for the run to be made without assistance. Even if 99% of the line could be run with a low-powered locomotive, if at some point on the line there is a steeper gradient than such train would be able to climb, this gradient "rules" that a more powerful locomotive must be used, in spite of it being far too powerful for the rest of the line. This is why special "helper engines" are often stationed near steep grades on otherwise mild tracks. It is cheaper than running a too-powerful locomotive over the entire track mileage just in order to make the grade, especially when multiple trains run over the line each day.
The Aigle–Leysin railway line is a narrow-gauge railway line in the Chablais area of southwest Switzerland. The line was opened on 5 May 1900, a 1,000 mm -gauge cog-wheel railway using the Abt rack system. It was the first such line in the region. The line was built by the Chemin de fer Aigle–Leysin.
The minimum railway curve radius is the shortest allowable design radius for the centerline of railway tracks under a particular set of conditions. It has an important bearing on construction costs and operating costs and, in combination with superelevation in the case of train tracks, determines the maximum safe speed of a curve. The minimum radius of a curve is one parameter in the design of railway vehicles as well as trams; monorails and automated guideways are also subject to a minimum radius.
The Pöstlingbergbahn is a narrow-gauge electric railway, or "mountain tramway", in Linz, Austria. It connects the main square in the centre of Linz with the district of Pöstlingberg, located at the top of a hill at the northern end of the city. Opened in 1898, for 110 years the metre-gauge railway ran from a terminal station in Linz's Urfahr neighbourhood, located across from the terminus of urban tram route 3, to Pöstlingberg. In 2009, service was extended from Urfahr to the city centre. To permit this change, the railway was regauged from 1,000 mmmetre gauge to 900 mm and a track connection to the Linz tram network was built. Service was suspended from March 2008 until May 2009 for this work. With a maximum grade of 11.6%, the Pöstlingbergbahn is one of the steepest adhesion railways in the world. There are steeper grades on at least one other tram system, that of Lisbon, but the Pöstlingbergbahn is still among the world's steepest adhesion railways and has the steepest grade of any in Austria.
The Merthyr Tramroad was a 9.75-mile-long (15.69 km) line that opened in 1802, connecting the private lines belonging to the Dowlais and Penydarren Ironworks with the Glamorganshire Canal at Abercynon, also serving the Plymouth Ironworks along the way. It is famous as the line, on which Richard Trevithick's experimental locomotive hauled the first train to carry a load. It was largely superseded when the Taff Vale Railway opened in 1841, and sections gradually went out of use over two decades, from about 1851.
A steep grade railway is a railway that ascends and descends a slope that has a steep grade. Such railways can use a number of different technologies to overcome the steepness of the grade.
Trams in Linz is a network of tramways forming the backbone of the urban public transport system in Linz, which is the capital city of the federal state of Upper Austria in Austria.
Beckhole Incline was a steep, rope-worked gradient on the railway line between Whitby and Pickering, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, England. Opened in May 1836 as part of the horse-worked Whitby & Pickering Railway, the line was operated by three railway companies before becoming redundant on the opening of a diversionary line to the east that allowed through working by steam engines on the entire line. Although the incline was closed to regular traffic in 1865, it was used for a very brief period in 1872, to test a special locomotive intended for railways with steep gradients.
References
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- ↑ Taplin, Michael; and Russell, Michael (2002). Trams in Western Europe, p. 8. Harrow Weald, Middlesex (UK): Capital Transport Publishing. ISBN 1-85414-265-8.
- ↑ "General Information". San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. Archived from the original on December 3, 2016. Retrieved June 21, 2019.
- ↑ "Pantele din Iaşi pun probleme ofertanţilor" (in Romanian). Retrieved 2019-09-09.
- ↑ "Worldwide Review [regular news section]". Tramways & Urban Transit . UK: Ian Allan Publishing. August 2013. p. 352. ISSN 1460-8324.
- ↑ Peix (4 December 2007). "START FÜR NEUE U 15" (PDF). p. 37. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
- ↑ "Technical features". Trieste Trasporti Spa. Retrieved 2022-04-13.
- ↑ "79-Promille-Rampe" (in German). Retrieved 2017-08-24.
- ↑ "Bahn S4/S10 - Sihltal Zürich Uetliberg Bahn SZU" (in German). Retrieved 2017-08-24.
- ↑ Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (2017-03-06). MBTA Green Line Track Charts. pp. 14–15.
- 1 2 "Andrews to Murphy (A2M) Rail Reactivation Study" (PDF). NCDOT Rail Division. February 2015. p. 28.
- ↑ Sebree, Mac (1994). "Portland's Westside Tunnel: An LRT Breakthrough". 1994 Light Rail Annual & User's Guide. North American Light Rail Annual and User's Guide for. Pasadena, CA: Pentrex. pp. 10–14. ISSN 0160-6913.
- ↑ Sheldrake, Arlen; et al. (2012). Steel Over the Willamette. Portland, Oregon: Pacific Northwest Chapter, National Railway Historical Society. p. 42. ISBN 978-0-9851207-0-2.
- ↑ "Boston's Light Rail Transit Prepares for the Next Hundred Years" (PDF). onlinepubs.trb.org. Retrieved 2021-02-23.
- ↑ Daniel, Mac (11 November 2005). "Lechmere, Science Park stations reopen". Boston.com. Archived from the original on 2007-03-06. Retrieved 2021-02-23.
- ↑ "The Madison Incline: Steepest Railroad Grade in North America". Delay In Block Productions. Archived from the original on 2021-12-15. Retrieved May 7, 2018.
- ↑ "Tateyama Sabo's Erosion Control Works Service Train". hrr.mlit.go.jp. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016.
- ↑ Trains , November 1984, p26
- 1 2 Railway World , April 1963, p159
- ↑ nswrail.net
- ↑ "BRITISH ENTERPRISE IN SOUTH AMERICA". mikes.railhistory.railfan.net.
- ↑ Modern Railways, Nov 2009, p10; Railway World, February 1963, p76
- ↑ "The Sydney Morning Herald". 1868-09-21. p. 6. Retrieved 2021-05-05.