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Birdsboro Station (Reading Railroad)
The Reading Company used two passenger railway stations in or near Birdsboro, Pennsylvania. The Philadelphia and Reading Railroad built a station (1878, demolished?) on its Main Line in Exeter Township, on the opposite side of the Schuylkill River from Birdsboro. The Wilmington and Northern Railroad established a freight line to Birdsboro in 1870, but it was not until after its merger with the Reading Company that its passenger station (1884–1885, demolished 1963) was built in the borough. Reading Railroad The Main Line of the Reading Railroad opened in 1842, and ran along the left bank of the Schuylkill River.Laura Catalano and Kurt D. Zwikl, ''Along the Schuylkill River'' (Arcadia Publishing, 2009). This was built to compete with the Schuylkill Canal, which ran along the river's right bank (and through Birdsboro). Transportation by rail was much more expensive, but the Reading could deliver coal (or other freight) to Philadelphia in 5 hours, versus 6 days via the canal. ...
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Birdsboro, Pennsylvania
Birdsboro is a borough in Berks County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located along the Schuylkill River southeast of Reading. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 5,163. Birdsboro's economy had historically been rooted in large foundries and machine shops, none of which remain in operation today. History Birdsboro was named for ironmaker William Bird, who established a forge on Hay Creek about 1740. His son Marcus founded Hopewell Furnace in 1771, which was the largest domestic producer of iron by the time of the American Revolution. The Schuylkill Canal, running parallel to the river, was completed in 1827. The Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, constructed to haul anthracite coal, was completed in 1843. Edward and George Brooke, descendants of the Birds, established the Birdsboro Iron Foundry Company (1867), which became Birdsboro Steel Company (1905). The principal employer for 120 years, the steel plant closed in 1988, following a lengthy strike. The ...
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Norfolk Southern Railway
The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad in the United States formed in 1982 with the merger of Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. With headquarters in Atlanta, the company operates 19,420 route miles (31,250 km) in 22 eastern states, the District of Columbia, and has rights in Canada over the Albany to Montréal route of the Canadian Pacific Railway. NS is responsible for maintaining , with the remainder being operated under trackage rights from other parties responsible for maintenance. Intermodal containers and trailers are the most common commodity type carried by NS, which have grown as coal business has declined throughout the 21st century; coal was formerly the largest source of traffic. The railway offers the largest intermodal rail network in eastern North America. NS was also the pioneer of Roadrailer service. Norfolk Southern and its chief competitor, CSX Transportation, have a duopoly on the transcontinental freight rail li ...
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Former Reading Company Stations
A former is an object, such as a template, gauge or cutting die, which is used to form something such as a boat's hull. Typically, a former gives shape to a structure that may have complex curvature. A former may become an integral part of the finished structure, as in an aircraft fuselage, or it may be removable, being using in the construction process and then discarded or re-used. Aircraft formers Formers are used in the construction of aircraft fuselage, of which a typical fuselage has a series from the nose to the empennage, typically perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the aircraft. The primary purpose of formers is to establish the shape of the fuselage and reduce the column length of stringers to prevent instability. Formers are typically attached to longerons, which support the skin of the aircraft. The "former-and-longeron" technique (also called stations and stringers) was adopted from boat construction, and was typical of light aircraft built until the ad ...
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Frank Furness Buildings
Frank or Franks may refer to: People * Frank (given name) * Frank (surname) * Franks (surname) * Franks, a medieval Germanic people * Frank, a term in the Muslim world for all western Europeans, particularly during the Crusades - see Farang Currency * Liechtenstein franc or frank, the currency of Liechtenstein since 1920 * Swiss franc or frank, the currency of Switzerland since 1850 * Westphalian frank, currency of the Kingdom of Westphalia between 1808 and 1813 * The currencies of the German-speaking cantons of Switzerland (1803–1814): ** Appenzell frank ** Argovia frank ** Basel frank ** Berne frank ** Fribourg frank ** Glarus frank ** Graubünden frank ** Luzern frank ** Schaffhausen frank ** Schwyz frank ** Solothurn frank ** St. Gallen frank ** Thurgau frank ** Unterwalden frank ** Uri frank ** Zürich frank Places * Frank, Alberta, Canada, an urban community, formerly a village * Franks, Illinois, United States, an unincorporated community * Franks, Missouri ...
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Brooke Mansion (Birdsboro, Pennsylvania)
The Edward Brooke II Mansion (1887–88), also known as "Brookeholm," is a Queen Anne architecture in the United States, Queen Anne country house at 301 Washington Street in Birdsboro, Pennsylvania.George E. Thomas, et al., ''Frank Furness: The Complete Works'', (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, revised 1996), pp. 284–86. Designed by architect Frank Furness and completed in 1888, it was Edward Brooke II's wedding present to his bride, Anne Louise Clingan.Janet W. Foster, "Edward Brooke House, Birdsboro, Pennsylvania," ''The Queen Anne House: America's Victorian Vernacular'', (New York: Abrams, 2006, pp. 56–65). Five years later, Edward II himself designed a major addition to the mansion.George M. Meiser and Gloria Jean Meiser, "The Birdsboro Mansion of Edward and Anne Brooke," ''The Passing Scene, Volume 13'', (Reading, PA: Historical Society of Berks County, 2005), pp. 224–39. Following their parents' deaths, the Brooke children sold the property in the 1940s. The man ...
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Greek Revival Architecture
The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but also in Greece itself following independence in 1832. It revived many aspects of the forms and styles of ancient Greek architecture, in particular the Greek temple, with varying degrees of thoroughness and consistency. A product of Hellenism, it may be looked upon as the last phase in the development of Neoclassical architecture, which had for long mainly drawn from Roman architecture. The term was first used by Charles Robert Cockerell in a lecture he gave as Professor of Architecture to the Royal Academy of Arts, London in 1842. With a newfound access to Greece and Turkey, or initially to the books produced by the few who had visited the sites, archaeologist-architects of the period studied the Doric and Ionic orders. Despite its univ ...
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Finial
A finial (from '' la, finis'', end) or hip-knob is an element marking the top or end of some object, often formed to be a decorative feature. In architecture, it is a small decorative device, employed to emphasize the Apex (geometry), apex of a dome, spire, tower, roof, or gable or any of various distinctive ornaments at the top, end, or corner of a building or structure. A finial is typically carved in stone. Where there are several such elements they may be called pinnacles. The very top of a finial can be a floral or foliated element called a bouquet. Smaller finials in materials such as metal or wood are used as a decorative ornament on the tops or ends of poles or rods such as tent-poles or curtain rods or any object such as a piece of furniture. These are frequently seen on top of bed posts or clocks. Decorative finials are also commonly used to fasten lampshades, and as an ornamental element at the end of the handles of souvenir spoons. The charm at the end of a pull chain ...
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Cresting (architecture)
Cresting, in architecture, is ornamentation attached to the ridge of a roof, cornice, coping or parapet, usually made of a metal such as iron or copper. Cresting is associated with Second Empire architecture Second Empire style, also known as the Napoleon III style, is a highly eclectic style of architecture and decorative arts, which uses elements of many different historical styles, and also made innovative use of modern materials, such as i ..., where such decoration stands out against the sharp lines of the mansard roof.Cresting
", ''Old House Online''. It became popular in the late 19th century, with mass-produced sheet metal cresting patterns available by the 1890s."Ask OHJ: Cresting Question", ''Old-House Journal'' (May–June 1996), p. 14-16. Cresting is typically attached to the roof by
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Hip Roof
A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope (although a tented roof by definition is a hipped roof with steeply pitched slopes rising to a peak). Thus, a hipped roof has no gables or other vertical sides to the roof. A square hip roof is shaped like a pyramid. Hip roofs on houses may have two triangular sides and two trapezoidal ones. A hip roof on a rectangular plan has four faces. They are almost always at the same pitch or slope, which makes them symmetrical about the centerlines. Hip roofs often have a consistent level fascia, meaning that a gutter can be fitted all around. Hip roofs often have dormer slanted sides. Construction Hip roofs are more difficult to construct than a gabled roof, requiring more complex systems of rafters or trusses. Hip roofs can be constructed on a wide variety of plan shapes. Each ridge is central over the rectangle of the building below it. The t ...
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Tracery
Tracery is an architecture, architectural device by which windows (or screens, panels, and vaults) are divided into sections of various proportions by stone ''bars'' or ''ribs'' of Molding (decorative), moulding. Most commonly, it refers to the stonework elements that support the glass in a window. The term probably derives from the tracing floors on which the complex patterns of windows were laid out in late Gothic architecture. Tracery can also be found on the interior of buildings and the exterior. There are two main types: plate tracery and the later bar tracery.Hugh Honour, Honour, H. and J. Fleming, (2009) ''A World History of Art''. 7th edn. London: Laurence King Publishing, p. 948. The evolving style from Romanesque architecture, Romanesque to Gothic architecture and changing features, such as the thinning of lateral walls and enlarging of windows, led to the innovation of tracery. The earliest form of tracery, called plate tracery, began as openings that were pierced fro ...
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Bracket (architecture)
A bracket is an architectural element: a structural or decorative member. It can be made of wood, stone, plaster, metal, or other media. It projects from a wall, usually to carry weight and sometimes to "...strengthen an angle". A corbel or console are types of brackets. In mechanical engineering a bracket is any intermediate component for fixing one part to another, usually larger, part. What makes a bracket a bracket is that it is intermediate between the two and fixes the one to the other. Brackets vary widely in shape, but a prototypical bracket is the L-shaped metal piece that attaches a shelf (the smaller component) to a wall (the larger component): its vertical arm is fixed to one (usually large) element, and its horizontal arm protrudes outwards and holds another (usually small) element. This shelf bracket is effectively the same as the architectural bracket: a vertical arm mounted on the wall, and a horizontal arm projecting outwards for another element to be attached o ...
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Street Grid
In urban planning, the grid plan, grid street plan, or gridiron plan is a type of city plan in which streets run at right angles to each other, forming a grid. Two inherent characteristics of the grid plan, frequent intersections and orthogonal geometry, facilitate movement. The geometry helps with orientation and wayfinding and its frequent intersections with the choice and directness of route to desired destinations. In ancient Rome, the grid plan method of land measurement was called centuriation. The grid plan dates from antiquity and originated in multiple cultures; some of the earliest planned cities were built using grid plans in Indian subcontinent. History Ancient grid plans By 2600 BC, Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, major cities of the Indus Valley civilization, were built with blocks divided by a grid of straight streets, running north–south and east–west. Each block was subdivided by small lanes. The cities and monasteries of Sirkap, Taxila and Thimi (in the Indus ...
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