London Underground Sleet Locomotives
Sleet locomotives were redundant London Underground cars converted to help with the removal of ice that built up on the conductor rails. The main batch of eighteen tube-gauge locomotives were built between 1938 and 1941 from motor cars originally built in 1903. They were refurbished in the 1960s using equipment removed from redundant T-stock vehicles, and were joined by a pair of surface-gauge locomotives in 1961. In addition to de-icing duties, some of them were used for experiments in clearing leaves from the running rails. They all ceased to operate by 1985. One of the tube-gauge locomotives went to the London Transport Museum, and the surface-gauge cars went to the Spa Valley Railway. ESL100 - ESL117 Following the start of the 1935/40 Programme, which included large scale stock replacement, a number of motor cars from the Central London Railway became available. Forty cars, all built in 1903/4, were set aside for conversion into sleet locomotives. Each was built from ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Direct Current
Direct current (DC) is one-directional flow of electric charge. An electrochemical cell is a prime example of DC power. Direct current may flow through a conductor such as a wire, but can also flow through semiconductors, insulators, or even through a vacuum as in electron or ion beams. The electric current flows in a constant direction, distinguishing it from alternating current (AC). A term formerly used for this type of current was galvanic current. The abbreviations ''AC'' and ''DC'' are often used to mean simply ''alternating'' and ''direct'', as when they modify ''current'' or ''voltage''. Direct current may be converted from an alternating current supply by use of a rectifier, which contains electronic elements (usually) or electromechanical elements (historically) that allow current to flow only in one direction. Direct current may be converted into alternating current via an inverter. Direct current has many uses, from the charging of batteries to large power sup ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and with the Royal Opera House, itself known as "Covent Garden". The district is divided by the main thoroughfare of Long Acre, north of which is given over to independent shops centred on Neal's Yard and Seven Dials, while the south contains the central square with its street performers and most of the historical buildings, theatres and entertainment facilities, including the London Transport Museum and the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. The area was fields until briefly settled in the 7th century when it became the heart of the Anglo-Saxon trading town of Lundenwic, then abandoned at the end of the 9th century after which it returned to fields. By 1200 part of it had been walled off by the Abbot of Westminster Abbey for use as arable l ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Acton Works
Acton Works is a London Underground maintenance facility in West London, England. It is accessed from the District line and Piccadilly line tracks to the east of Acton Town station, and was opened in 1922. It was responsible for the overhaul of rolling stock, and gradually took on this role for more lines, until the formation of the London Passenger Transport Board in 1933, when all major overhauls of underground vehicles were carried out at the works. By 1985, when rolling stock had become more reliable and maintenance intervals had increased, this function was devolved to depots on each line. Subsequently, Acton continued to overhaul major items after they had been removed from trains at the depots, and tendered for work, which included the conversion of the A60 Stock to One Person Operation. It is likely to be reorganised and expanded to house the departments displaced from Lillie Bridge Depot which is being demolished as part of the redevelopment of Earls Court Exhibition C ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Buckinghamshire Railway Centre, Quainton Road
Buckinghamshire Railway Centre is a railway museum operated by the Quainton Railway Society Ltd. at Quainton Road railway station, about west of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, England. The site is divided into two halves which are joined by two foot-bridges, one of which provides wheelchair access. Each side has a demonstration line with various workshop buildings as well as museum buildings. History In 1962, the London Railway Preservation Society was formed. It bought a series of former London Underground vehicles and collectables, and holds the largest collection of London and North Western Railway memorabilia. These were held at various sites around London, mainly two government depots at Luton and Bishop's Stortford, making both access, restoration and preservation difficult. While other closed stations on the former MR lines north of were generally demolished or sold, in 1969 the Quainton Railway Society was formed to operate a working museum at the station. On 24 Apri ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Stainless Steel
Stainless steel is an alloy of iron that is resistant to rusting and corrosion. It contains at least 11% chromium and may contain elements such as carbon, other nonmetals and metals to obtain other desired properties. Stainless steel's corrosion resistance, resistance to corrosion results from the chromium, which forms a Passivation (chemistry), passive film that can protect the material and self-healing material, self-heal in the presence of oxygen. The alloy's properties, such as luster and resistance to corrosion, are useful in many applications. Stainless steel can be rolled into Sheet metal, sheets, plates, bars, wire, and tubing. These can be used in cookware, cutlery, surgical instruments, major appliances, vehicles, construction material in large buildings, industrial equipment (e.g., in paper mills, chemical plants, water treatment), and storage tanks and tankers for chemicals and food products. The biological cleanability of stainless steel is superior to both alumi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Chromium
Chromium is a chemical element with the symbol Cr and atomic number 24. It is the first element in group 6. It is a steely-grey, lustrous, hard, and brittle transition metal. Chromium metal is valued for its high corrosion resistance and hardness. A major development in steel production was the discovery that steel could be made highly resistant to corrosion and discoloration by adding metallic chromium to form stainless steel. Stainless steel and chrome plating (electroplating with chromium) together comprise 85% of the commercial use. Chromium is also greatly valued as a metal that is able to be highly polished while resisting tarnishing. Polished chromium reflects almost 70% of the visible spectrum, and almost 90% of infrared light. The name of the element is derived from the Greek word χρῶμα, ''chrōma'', meaning color, because many chromium compounds are intensely colored. Industrial production of chromium proceeds from chromite ore (mostly FeCr2O4) to produce ferro ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Metropolitan Railway Electric Locomotives
Metropolitan Railway electric locomotives were used on London's Metropolitan Railway with conventional carriage stock. On the outer suburban routes an electric locomotive was used at the Baker Street end that was exchanged for a steam locomotive en route (latterly at Rickmansworth). The first ten had a central cab and were known as camel-backs, and these entered service in 1906. A year later another ten units with a box design and a driving position at each end arrived. These were replaced by more powerful units in the early 1920s. The locomotives were withdrawn from passenger service in 1962 after electrification reached Amersham and the A Stock electric multiple units entered service. One locomotive, No. 5 ''John Hampden'', is preserved as a static display at London Transport Museum, and another, No. 12 ''Sarah Siddons'', has been used for heritage events. Westinghouse The Metropolitan Railway ordered electric locomotives from British Westinghouse and made by Metropolitan Am ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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General Electric Company
The General Electric Company (GEC) was a major British industrial conglomerate involved in consumer and defence electronics, communications, and engineering. The company was founded in 1886, was Britain's largest private employer with over 250,000 employees in the 1980s, and at its peak in the 1990s, made profits of over £1 billion a year. In June 1998, GEC sold its share of the joint venture GEC-Alsthom on the Paris stock exchange. In December 1999, GEC's defence arm, Marconi Electronic Systems, was sold to British Aerospace, forming BAE Systems. The rest of GEC, mainly telecommunications equipment manufacturing, continued as Marconi Communications. After buying several US telecoms manufacturers at the top of the market, losses following the bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2001 led to the restructuring in 2003 of Marconi plc into Marconi Corporation plc. In 2005, Ericsson acquired the bulk of that company. What was left of the business was renamed Telent. History ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Birmingham Railway Carriage & Wagon Company
The Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon Company (BRC&W) was a railway locomotive and carriage builder, founded in Birmingham, England and, for most of its existence, located at nearby Smethwick, with the factory divided by the boundary between the two places. The company was established in 1854. Production BRC&W made not only carriages and wagons, but a range of vehicles, from aeroplanes and military gliders to buses, trolleybuses and tanks. Nevertheless, it is as a builder of railway rolling stock that the company is best remembered, exporting to most parts of the new and old worlds. It supplied vehicles to all four of the pre-nationalisation "big four" railway companies ( LMS, SR, LNER and GWR), British Rail, Pullman (some of which are still in use) and Wagons-Lits, plus overseas railways with diverse requirement including Egypt, India, Iraq, Malaya, Mandate Palestine, South Africa and Nigeria. The company even built, in 1910, Argentina's presidential coach, which sti ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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London Underground A60 Stock
The London Underground A60 and A62 Stock, commonly referred to as A Stock, was a type of sub-surface rolling stock which operated on the Metropolitan line of the London Underground from 12 June 1961 to 26 September 2012, and on the East London line from 1977 until 22 December 2007, when it closed to be converted into London Overground (except in 1986, when one-man operation conversion of the fleet took place). The stock was built in two batches (A60 and A62) by Cravens of Sheffield in the early 1960s, and replaced all other trains on the line. At the time of its withdrawal in September 2012, the stock was the oldest on the Underground. It was the only stock to have luggage racks, umbrella hooks and separate power and braking controls, and the last stock not to have any automated announcements. Development and introduction The design was formulated by W S Graff-Baker of the London Passenger Transport Board, as part of the electrification of the Metropolitan line from to Ame ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Railway Electrification System
A railway electrification system supplies electric power to railway trains and trams without an on-board prime mover or local fuel supply. Electric railways use either electric locomotives (hauling passengers or freight in separate cars), electric multiple units (passenger cars with their own motors) or both. Electricity is typically generated in large and relatively efficient generating stations, transmitted to the railway network and distributed to the trains. Some electric railways have their own dedicated generating stations and transmission lines, but most purchase power from an electric utility. The railway usually provides its own distribution lines, switches, and transformers. Power is supplied to moving trains with a (nearly) continuous conductor running along the track that usually takes one of two forms: an overhead line, suspended from poles or towers along the track or from structure or tunnel ceilings, or a third rail mounted at track level and contacted by a s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Metropolitan Line
The Metropolitan line, colloquially known as the Met, is a London Underground line between in the City of London and and in Buckinghamshire, with branches to in Hertfordshire and in Hillingdon. Printed in magenta on the tube map, the line is in length and serves 34 stations (9 of which are step free). Between Aldgate and , the track is mostly in shallow "cut and cover" tunnels, apart from short sections at and Farringdon stations. The rest of the line is above ground, with a loading gauge of a similar size to those on main lines. Just under passenger journeys were made on the line in 2011/12. The line is one of just two Underground lines to cross the Greater London boundary (the other being the Central line). It is the only Underground line with an express service at peak times; the resulting longer distance between stations means trains can achieve the system's highest speeds of over on some sections. In 1863, the Metropolitan Railway began the world's first undergr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |