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Carpet Railway
Birmingham Dribbler or carpet railway describes a type of very early model railway. It is a bit of a misnomer, as the railway featured a model live steam railway locomotive, but no track – the locomotive was simply run across the floor. In some cases, the front wheels were even made steerable so that they could be run in a circle without track. Evidence is required of individual examples, but it is believed they first appeared in the 1850s and became generally popular in the latter part of the 19th through to the early 20th century. The steam locomotives were very simple, usually made in brass, with a pair of simple oscillating cylinders driving the main wheels. They were basically a boiler mounted on wheels, although simple decoration (usually bands of lacquer) was sometimes applied. Track was not used – the boiler was filled with water, the burner lit, and when steam was being produced, the locomotive was placed on the floor and allowed to run until either the water or fu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Model Railroad
Railway modelling (UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland) or model railroading (US and Canada) is a hobby in which rail transport systems are modelled at a reduced scale. The scale models include locomotives, rolling stock, streetcars, tracks, signalling, cranes, and landscapes including: countryside, roads, bridges, buildings, vehicles, harbors, urban landscape, model figures, lights, and features such as rivers, hills, tunnels, and canyons. The earliest model railways were the 'carpet railways' in the 1840s. The first documented model railway was the Railway of the Prince Imperial (French: Chemin de fer du Prince impérial) built in 1859 by emperor Napoleon III for his then 3-year-old son, also Napoleon, in the grounds of the Château de Saint-Cloud in Paris. It was powered by clockwork and ran in a figure-of-eight. Electric trains appeared around the start of the 20th century, but these were crude likenesses. Model trains today are more realistic, in addition to bein ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Live Steam
Live steam is steam under pressure, obtained by heating water in a boiler. The steam is used to operate stationary or moving equipment. A live steam machine or device is one powered by steam, but the term is usually reserved for those that are replicas, scale models, toys, or otherwise used for heritage, museum, entertainment, or recreational purposes, to distinguish them from similar devices powered by electricity, internal combustion, or some other more convenient method but designed to look as if they are steam-powered. Revenue-earning steam-powered machines such as mainline and narrow gauge steam locomotives, full-sized steamships, and the worldwide electric power-generating industry steam turbines are not normally referred to as "live steam". Steamrollers and traction engines are popular, in 1:4 or 1:3 scale, as are model stationary steam engines, ranging from pocket-size to 1:2 scale. Railroads or railways Ridable, large-scale live steam railroading on a backyard ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steam Locomotive
A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomotive's boiler to the point where it becomes gaseous and its volume increases 1,700 times. Functionally, it is a steam engine on wheels. In most locomotives, the steam is admitted alternately to each end of its cylinders, in which pistons are mechanically connected to the locomotive's main wheels. Fuel and water supplies are usually carried with the locomotive, either on the locomotive itself or in a tender coupled to it. Variations in this general design include electrically-powered boilers, turbines in place of pistons, and using steam generated externally. Steam locomotives were first developed in the United Kingdom during the early 19th century and used for railway transport until the middle of the 20th century. Richard Trevithick ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brass
Brass is an alloy of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn), in proportions which can be varied to achieve different mechanical, electrical, and chemical properties. It is a substitutional alloy: atoms of the two constituents may replace each other within the same crystal structure. Brass is similar to bronze, another copper alloy, that uses tin instead of zinc. Both bronze and brass may include small proportions of a range of other elements including arsenic (As), lead (Pb), phosphorus (P), aluminium (Al), manganese (Mn), and silicon (Si). Historically, the distinction between the two alloys has been less consistent and clear, and modern practice in museums and archaeology increasingly avoids both terms for historical objects in favor of the more general "copper alloy". Brass has long been a popular material for decoration due to its bright, gold-like appearance; being used for drawer pulls and doorknobs. It has also been widely used to make utensils because of its low melting ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oscillating Cylinder Steam Engine
An oscillating cylinder steam engine (also known as a wobbler in the US) is a simple steam-engine design (proposed by William Murdoch at the end of 18th century) that requires no valve gear. Instead the cylinder rocks, or oscillates, as the crank moves the piston, pivoting in the mounting trunnion so that ports in the cylinder line up with ports in a fixed port face alternately to direct steam into or out of the cylinder. Oscillating cylinder steam engines are now mainly used in toys and models but, in the past, have been used in full-size working engines, mainly on ships and small stationary engines. They have the advantage of simplicity and, therefore, low manufacturing costs. They also tend to be more compact than other types of cylinder of the same capacity, which makes them advantageous for use in ships. Operation alt=oscillating cylinder diagram, Operation of a simple oscillating cylinder steam engine The steam needs to be fed into the end of the cylinder at just the rig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boiler
A boiler is a closed vessel in which fluid (generally water) is heated. The fluid does not necessarily boil. The heated or vaporized fluid exits the boiler for use in various processes or heating applications, including water heating, central heating, boiler-based power generation, cooking, and sanitation. Heat sources In a fossil fuel power plant using a steam cycle for power generation, the primary heat source will be combustion of coal, oil, or natural gas. In some cases byproduct fuel such as the carbon monoxide rich offgasses of a coke battery can be burned to heat a boiler; biofuels such as bagasse, where economically available, can also be used. In a nuclear power plant, boilers called steam generators are heated by the heat produced by nuclear fission. Where a large volume of hot gas is available from some process, a heat recovery steam generator or recovery boiler can use the heat to produce steam, with little or no extra fuel consumed; such a configuration is common ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West Midlands metropolitan county, and approximately 4.3 million in the wider metropolitan area. It is the largest UK metropolitan area outside of London. Birmingham is known as the second city of the United Kingdom. Located in the West Midlands region of England, approximately from London, Birmingham is considered to be the social, cultural, financial and commercial centre of the Midlands. Distinctively, Birmingham only has small rivers flowing through it, mainly the River Tame and its tributaries River Rea and River Cole – one of the closest main rivers is the Severn, approximately west of the city centre. Historically a market town in Warwickshire in the medieval period, Birmingham grew during the 18th century during the Midla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Buffer Beam
A headstock of a rail vehicle is a transverse structural member located at the extreme end of the vehicle's underframe. The headstock supports the coupling at that end of the vehicle, and may also support buffers, in which case it may also be known as a buffer beam. The headstocks form part of the underframe of a locomotive or a railroad car. The headstocks of locomotives, railcars and cabcars also support headlamps and the hoses for air brakes, vacuum brakes as well as the cables for train control and head end power. Length over headstocks A commonly used measurement relating to a rail vehicle is its length over headstocks, which is the length of the vehicle excluding its couplings or buffers (if any). Alternative expressions for length over headstocks are length over coupler pulling faces, usually applied to Janney couplers, and length over buffers. See also * Anticlimber * Buff strength * Bumper * Crashworthiness * Glossary of rail transport terms * Glossary ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Buffer (rail Transport)
A buffer is a part of the buffers-and-chain coupling system used on the railway systems of many countries, among them most of those in Europe, for attaching railway vehicles to one another. Description Fitted at the ends of the vehicle frames on the buffer beam, one at each corner, the buffers are projecting, shock-absorbing pads which, when vehicles are coupled, are brought into contact with those on the next vehicle. The buffer itself comprises the buffer plates which take the impact. The draw chain used between each pair of vehicles includes a screw which is tightened after coupling to shorten the chain and keep the buffers pressed together. Such is known as a 'screw coupling'. Historically, coupling chains were no more than that, a short length of heavy chain (typically three links long) with no adjustment. These would result in a 'loose-coupled train' in which the buffers of adjacent vehicles would only touch when the coupling chain was fully slack, such as when being pus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steam Whistle
A steam whistle is a device used to produce sound in the form of a whistle using live steam, which creates, projects, and amplifies its sound by acting as a vibrating system (compare to train horn). Operation The whistle consists of the following main parts, as seen on the drawing: the whistle bell (1), the steam orifice or aperture (2), and the valve (9). When the lever (10) is actuated (usually via a pull cord), the valve opens and lets the steam escape through the orifice. The steam will alternately compress and rarefy in the bell, creating the sound. The pitch, or tone, is dependent on the length of the bell; and also how far the operator has opened the valve. Some locomotive engineers invented their own distinctive style of whistling. Uses of steam whistles Steam whistles were often used in factories, and similar places to signal the start or end of a shift, etc. steam-powered railway locomotives, traction engines, and steam ships have traditionally been fitted wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
