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British Narrow-gauge Railways
There were more than a thousand British narrow-gauge railways ranging from large, historically significant common carriers to small, short-lived industrial railways. Many notable events in British railway history happened on narrow-gauge railways including the first use of steam locomotives, the first public railway and the first preserved railway. History Early railways: before 1865 The earliest narrow-gauge railways were crude wooden trackways used in coal mines to guide wooden tubs. Because of the restricted loading gauge of the tunnels and the need for the tubs to be small enough to be pushed by one man, these railways were almost all narrow gauge. These underground lines often had short above-ground sections as well. After the start of the Industrial Revolution it became possible to create railways with iron tracks and wheels, which reduced the friction involved in moving wagons and made longer horse-hauled trains possible. These could move more material over longer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Penydarren
: ''For Trevithick's Pen-y-darren locomotive, see Richard Trevithick#"Pen-y-Darren" locomotive, Richard Trevithick.'' Penydarren is a Community (Wales), community and electoral ward in Merthyr Tydfil County Borough in Wales. Description The area is most notable for being the site of a 1st-century Roman fort, and during the Industrial Revolution it housed Penydarren Ironworks the third largest of the great Merthyr works. Penydarren was also used by Richard Trevithick as the location for his experiments into steam locomotion. The community and ward has a population of 5,253, increasing to 5,419 at the 2011 Census. Penydarren Park, the site of the Roman fort and the football ground, is today outside the community boundary. Roman fort Being located on a spur of land above sea level, just southwest of the River Taff, made Pen-y-Darren an ideal location to build an occupation outpost fort for the Romans in AD75, during the governorship of Sextus Julius Frontinus. It was during this ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bethesda, Wales
Bethesda (; ) is a town and community on the River Ogwen and the A5 road on the edge of Snowdonia, in Gwynedd, north-west Wales. It is the fifth-largest community in Gwynedd. History The settlement's ancient name was Cilfoden, formerly known as Glanogwen. In 1823, the Bethesda Chapel was built and the town subsequently grew around and later named after it. The chapel was rebuilt in 1840. The town grew around the slate quarrying industries; the largest of the local quarries is the Penrhyn Quarry. At its peak, the town exported purple slate all over the world. Penrhyn Quarry suffered a three-year strike led by the North Wales Quarrymen's Union between 1900 and 1903 – the longest industrial dispute in British history. This led to the creation of the nearby village of Tregarth, built by the quarry owners, which housed the families of those workers who had not struck. It also led to the formation of three co-operative quarries, the largest of which Pantdreiniog dominated the t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Slate
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. Foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering, but instead is in planes perpendicular to the direction of metamorphic compression. The foliation in slate is called "slaty cleavage". It is caused by strong compression causing fine grained clay flakes to regrow in planes perpendicular to the compression. When expertly "cut" by striking parallel to the foliation, with a specialized tool in the quarry, many slates will display a property called fissility, forming smooth flat sheets of stone which have long been used for roofing, floor tiles, and other purposes. Slate is frequently grey in color, especially when seen, en masse, covering roofs. However, slate occurs in a variety of colors even from a single locality; for ex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and many smaller islands within the British Isles. Northern Ireland shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland; otherwise, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea and the Irish Sea. The total area of the United Kingdom is , with an estimated 2020 population of more than 67 million people. The United Kingdom has evolved from a series of annexations, unions and separations of constituent countries over several hundred years. The Treaty of Union between the Kingdom of England (which included Wales, annexed in 1542) and the Kingdom of Scotland in 170 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Welshpool To Llanfair Caereinion Railway Line (12989519473)
Welshpool ( cy, Y Trallwng) is a market town and community in Powys, Wales, historically in the county of Montgomeryshire. The town is from the Wales–England border and low-lying on the River Severn; its Welsh language name ''Y Trallwng'' means "the marshy or sinking land". The community includes Cloddiau and Pool Quay. In English it was initially known as Pool but its name was changed to Welshpool in 1835 to distinguish it from the English town of Poole. The community had a population of 6,664 (as of the 2011 United Kingdom census), with the town having 5,948. It contains much Georgian architecture and is just north of Powis Castle. History St Cynfelin is reputed to be the founder of two churches in the town, St Mary's and St Cynfelin's, during "the age of the saints in Wales" in the 5th and 6th centuries. The parish of Welshpool roughly coincides with the medieval commote of Ystrad Marchell in the cantref of Ystlyg in the Kingdom of Powys. The Long Mountain, whic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles At Penrhyn Castle (geograph 2157370)
Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was "free man". The Old English descendant of this word was '' Ċearl'' or ''Ċeorl'', as the name of King Cearl of Mercia, that disappeared after the Norman conquest of England. The name was notably borne by Charlemagne (Charles the Great), and was at the time Latinized as ''Karolus'' (as in ''Vita Karoli Magni''), later also as '' Carolus''. Some Germanic languages, for example Dutch and German, have retained the word in two separate senses. In the particular case of Dutch, ''Karel'' refers to the given name, whereas the noun ''kerel'' means "a bloke, fellow, man". Etymology The name's etymology is a Common Germanic noun ''*karilaz'' meaning "free man", which survives in English as churl (< Old English ''ċeorl''), which developed its de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Standard Gauge
A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), International gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge and European gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It is the most widely used track gauge around the world, with approximately 55% of the lines in the world using it. All high-speed rail lines use standard gauge except those in Russia, Finland, and Uzbekistan. The distance between the inside edges of the rails is defined to be 1435 mm except in the United States and on some heritage British lines, where it is defined in U.S. customary/Imperial units as exactly "four feet eight and one half inches" which is equivalent to 1435.1mm. History As railways developed and expanded, one of the key issues was the track gauge (the distance, or width, between the inner sides of the rails) to be used. Different railways used different gauges, and where rails of different gauge met – ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Regulating The Gauge Of Railways Act 1846
The Railway Regulation (Gauge) Act 1846 (9 & 10 Vic. c.57) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, that was designed to standardise railway tracks. It achieved royal assent on 18 August 1846, during the reign of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It mandated that the track gauge – which was the distance between the two running rails' inner faces – of 4 feet 8 inches to be the standard for Great Britain and 5 feet 3 inches to be the standard for Ireland.The metric equivalents of the dimensions specified are 1435 and 1600 millimetres respectively. The Act The Act stipulated that: Furthermore, it also provided that, following the Act's passing, it would be illegal to alter a railway gauge that was in use for the conveyance, i.e. transport, of passengers. Assessment The Act continued legislative approval of the broad-gauge railways constructed by the Great Western Railway engineer Isambard Kingdom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Porthmadog
Porthmadog (; ), originally Portmadoc until 1974 and locally as "Port", is a Welsh coastal town and community in the Eifionydd area of Gwynedd and the historic county of Caernarfonshire. It lies east of Criccieth, south-west of Blaenau Ffestiniog, north of Dolgellau and south of Caernarfon. The community population of 4,185 in the 2011 census was put at 4,134 in 2019. It grew in the 19th century as a port for local slate, but as the trade declined, it continued as a shopping and tourism centre, being close to Snowdonia National Park and the Ffestiniog Railway. The 1987 National Eisteddfod was held there. It includes nearby Borth-y-Gest, Morfa Bychan and Tremadog. History Porthmadog came about after William Madocks built a sea wall, the ''Cob'', in 1808–1811 to reclaim much of Traeth Mawr from the sea for farming use. Diversion of the Afon Glaslyn caused it to scour out a new natural harbour deep enough for small ocean-going sailing ships,John Dobson and Roy Woods, ''Ffe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blaenau Ffestiniog
Blaenau Ffestiniog is a town in Gwynedd, Wales. Once a slate mining centre in historic Merionethshire, it now relies much on tourists, drawn for instance to the Ffestiniog Railway and Llechwedd Slate Caverns. It reached a population of 12,000 at the peak development of the slate industry, but fell with the decline in demand for slate. The population of the community, including the nearby village Llan Ffestiniog, was 4,875 in the 2011 census: the fourth most populous in Gwynedd after Bangor, Caernarfon and Llandeiniolen. The population not including Llan is now only about 4,000. Etymology and pronunciation The meaning of Blaenau Ffestiniog is "uplands of Ffestiniog". The Welsh word ' is the plural of ' "upland, remote region". Ffestiniog here is probably "territory of Ffestin" (Ffestin being a personal name) or could possibly mean "defensive place". The English pronunciation of Blaenau Ffestiniog suggested by the ''BBC Pronouncing Dictionary of British Names'' is , but the f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Slate Industry
The slate industry is the industry related to the extraction and processing of slate. Slate is either quarried from a ''slate quarry'' or reached by tunneling in a ''slate mine''. Common uses for slate include as a roofing material, a flooring material, gravestones and memorial tablets, and for electrical insulation. Slate mines are found around the world. 90% of Europe's natural slate used for roofing originates from the Slate Industry in Spain.European Association of Mining Industries website retrieved on 26/01/2010 The major slate mining region in the United Kingdom is ; in |
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