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Niklaus Riggenbach
Niklaus Riggenbach (21 May 1817 – 25 July 1899) was the inventor of the Riggenbach rack system and the counter-pressure brake. He was also an engineer and locomotive builder. Niklaus Riggenbach, from Rünenberg, Basel-Landschaft, Switzerland, was born in Guebwiller, Alsace. After the death of his father, his mother returned to Basel with her eight young children. At age 16 Riggenbach began an apprenticeship as a mechanic, going abroad after completing his training. In 1837 he found his way to Paris, where he accepted employment. By taking technical courses in night school, he acquired considerable knowledge in mathematics and physics. With the opening of the Paris-St. Germain railroad line in 1839 he found his vocation to build locomotives. In June 1840 he moved to Karlsruhe, Germany, and found employment in the machine works of Emil Kessler. Here he soon rose to managing director and was involved in the construction of no less than 150 locomotives. One of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Niklaus Riggenbach
Niklaus Riggenbach (21 May 1817 – 25 July 1899) was the inventor of the Riggenbach rack system and the counter-pressure brake. He was also an engineer and locomotive builder. Niklaus Riggenbach, from Rünenberg, Basel-Landschaft, Switzerland, was born in Guebwiller, Alsace. After the death of his father, his mother returned to Basel with her eight young children. At age 16 Riggenbach began an apprenticeship as a mechanic, going abroad after completing his training. In 1837 he found his way to Paris, where he accepted employment. By taking technical courses in night school, he acquired considerable knowledge in mathematics and physics. With the opening of the Paris-St. Germain railroad line in 1839 he found his vocation to build locomotives. In June 1840 he moved to Karlsruhe, Germany, and found employment in the machine works of Emil Kessler. Here he soon rose to managing director and was involved in the construction of no less than 150 locomotives. One of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maschinenfabrik Esslingen
Maschinenfabrik Esslingen (ME), was a German engineering firm that manufactured locomotives, tramways, railway wagons, roll-blocks, technical equipment for the railways, (turntables and traversers), bridges, steel structures, pumps and boilers. Founding It was founded by Emil Kessler on 11 March 1846 in Stuttgart, as a result of an initiative of the Kingdom of Württemberg to create a railway industry that was not dependent on foreign manufacturers. Emil Kessler brought vital experience from his time with the engineering works in Karlsruhe, where he had been a member of the board since 1837 and the sole director since 1842. The foundation stone of the new factory was laid at Esslingen am Neckar on 4 May 1846. One year later, in October 1847, the first locomotive ordered by the Royal Württemberg State Railways (''Königlich Württembergische Staats-Eisenbahnen'') or ''K.W.St. E.'' was delivered. History After the death of Emil Kessler in 1867 his 26-year-old son, Emil Ke ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grade (slope)
The grade (also called slope, incline, gradient, mainfall, pitch or rise) 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 ("rise over run") in which ''run'' is the horizontal distance (not the distance along the slope) and ''rise'' is the vertical distance. Slopes of existing physical features such as canyons and hillsides, stream and river banks and beds are often described as grades, but typically grades are used for human-made surfaces such as roads, landscape grading, roof pitches, railroads, aqueducts, and pedestrian or bicycle routes. The grade may refer to the longitudinal slope or the perpendicular cross slope. Nomenclature There are several ways to express slope: # as an ''angle'' of inc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rack Railway
A rack railway (also rack-and-pinion railway, cog railway, or cogwheel 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 grades above 10%, which is the maximum for friction-based rail. 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 first mountain cog railway was the Mount Washington Cog Railway in the U.S. state of New Hampshire, which carried its first fare-paying passengers in 1868. The track was comple ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rail Adhesion
An adhesion railway relies on adhesion traction to move the train. Adhesion traction is the friction between the drive wheels and the steel rail. The term "adhesion railway" is used only when it is necessary to distinguish adhesion railways from railways moved by other means, such as by a stationary engine pulling on a cable attached to the cars or by railways that are moved by a pinion meshing with a rack. The friction between the wheels and rails occurs in the wheel-rail interface or contact patch. The traction force, the braking forces and the centering forces, all contribute to stable running. However, running friction increases costs by requiring higher fuel consumption and by increasing the maintenance needed to address fatigue (material) damage, wear on rail heads and on the wheel rims and rail movement from traction and braking forces. Variation of friction coefficient Traction or friction is reduced when the top of the rail is wet or frosty or contaminated with grea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Friction
Friction is the force resisting the relative motion of solid surfaces, fluid layers, and material elements sliding against each other. There are several types of friction: *Dry friction is a force that opposes the relative lateral motion of two solid surfaces in contact. Dry friction is subdivided into ''static friction'' ("stiction") between non-moving surfaces, and ''kinetic friction'' between moving surfaces. With the exception of atomic or molecular friction, dry friction generally arises from the interaction of surface features, known as asperities (see Figure 1). *Fluid friction describes the friction between layers of a viscous fluid that are moving relative to each other. *Lubricated friction is a case of fluid friction where a lubricant fluid separates two solid surfaces. *Skin friction is a component of drag, the force resisting the motion of a fluid across the surface of a body. *Internal friction is the force resisting motion between the elements making up a so ... [...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] |
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous city and state. A landlocked country, Austria is bordered by Germany to the northwest, the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia to the northeast, Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The country occupies an area of and has a population of 9 million. Austria emerged from the remnants of the Eastern and Hungarian March at the end of the first millennium. Originally a margraviate of Bavaria, it developed into a duchy of the Holy Roman Empire in 1156 and was later made an archduchy in 1453. In the 16th century, Vienna began serving as the empire's administrative capital and Austria thus became the heartland of the Habsburg monarchy. After the dissolution of the H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south. The country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain, which lies in the North Atlantic, and includes over 100 smaller islands, such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight. The area now called England was first inhabited by modern humans during the Upper Paleolithic period, but takes its name from the Angles, a Germanic tribe deriving its name from the Anglia peninsula, who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in the 10th century and has had a significant cultural and legal impact on the wider world since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century. The English language, the Anglican Church, and Engli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swiss Central Rail Association
The Swiss Central Railway (''Schweizerische Centralbahn''; SCB or S.C.B.) was one of the five major private railway companies of Switzerland. The SCB with a track length of 332 kilometres was integrated into the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) in 1902. History The SCB based in Basel was founded on 4 February 1853 by Johann Jakob Speiser, Achilles Bischoff and Karl Geigy. The shares were mainly owned by Parisian banks. But Basel banks and the cantons of Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft were also involved. The issue of shares worth Swiss Francs (CHF) 36 million and bonds worth CHF 12 million were planned. Speculation on the Paris stock exchange, however, led to a sharp fall in prices. Thus, the value of the SCB shares fell from CHF 500 to 200 and the share capital finally amounted to only CHF 14.5 million. The cantons of Luzern and Bern and Bernese municipalities rescued the company by buying shares and subsidies totaling CHF 6 million. The main goal of the SCB was the construc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Basel-Olten Line
The Hauenstein Railway is a major railway line in Switzerland connecting the cities of Basel and Olten. The original line was built between 1853 and 1858 under the Unterer Hauenstein Pass, an ancient pass through the Jura Mountains, including a long tunnel under the village of Hauenstein. Between 1912 and 1916 a new line with an long base tunnel was built further east, by-passing the steeper sections of the line. Normally long-distance trains use the base tunnel line, and the old summit line is only used by trains serving the local people ('' Läufelfingerli''). Sometimes during disruptions inter-city trains operate on the old line, but it is reasonably fast and diverted trains take only about four minutes longer than normal services. Freight trains rarely use the summit line because of its large gradients. Hauenstein summit tunnel The first railway in Switzerland was the extension of the French Strasbourg–Basel Railway (French: ''Chemin de fer de Strasbourg à Bâle'') fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
