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Sandite
Sandite is a substance used on railways in the UK, Ireland, US, the Netherlands and Belgium to combat leaves on the line, which can cause train wheels to slip and become damaged with flat spots. Sandite consists of a mixture of sand, antifreeze and steel shot. Leaf build up on the railhead can also cause signalling issues and 'disappearing trains' on the rail control systems (because of the electrically insulating effect of the leaves, which can prevent operation of track circuits). British Rail conducted research, in 1976, to determine the suitability of Sandite for use as an adhesion improver. Application Sandite is usually applied by a special train which first clears fallen leaves from the rails using high-pressure water, then sprays the sandite onto the rail surface. To assist the staff on the Sandite train in locating the sites concerned, in England and Wales black on yellow lineside markers were installed: *The first sign, with three stripes gives advance warning ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Slippery Rail
Slippery rail, or low railhead adhesion, is a condition of railways (railroads) where contamination of the railhead reduces the traction between the wheel and the rail. This can lead to wheelslip when the train is taking power, and wheelslide when the train is braking. One common cause of contamination is fallen leaves that adhere to the railhead (top surface) of railway tracks. The condition results in significant reduction in friction between train wheels and rails, and in extreme cases can render the track temporarily unusable. In Britain, the situation is colloquially referred to as "leaves on the line". Low adhesion caused by weather Railhead contamination caused by weather conditions can occur at any time of year. The leaf fall season causes the most disruption to rail operations. In heavily deciduous forested areas like the American Mid-Atlantic states, New England, many parts of Europe including the UK, and Southern Ontario, Canada, the problem can arise. Where the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chemical Substance
A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Some references add that chemical substance cannot be separated into its constituent elements by physical separation methods, i.e., without breaking chemical bonds. Chemical substances can be simple substances (substances consisting of a single chemical element), chemical compounds, or alloys. Chemical substances are often called 'pure' to set them apart from mixtures. A common example of a chemical substance is pure water; it has the same properties and the same ratio of hydrogen to oxygen whether it is isolated from a river or made in a laboratory. Other chemical substances commonly encountered in pure form are diamond (carbon), gold, table salt ( sodium chloride) and refined sugar ( sucrose). However, in practice, no substance is entirely pure, and chemical purity is specified according to the intended use of the chemical. Chemical substances exist as so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scottish Region Of British Railways
The Scottish Region (ScR) was one of the six regions created on British Railways (BR) and consisted of ex-London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) and ex-London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) lines in Scotland. It existed from the creation of BR in 1948, and was renamed to ScotRail in the mid-1980s (see separate entity for details). History World War II had seriously disrupted Scotland's railways due to the LMS and LNER rolling stock in Scotland being transferred to the major cities in Northern England in order to replace what had been destroyed by German air-raids. At the time, the Government believed that only state intervention could provide the necessary re-supplying of rolling stock and save several unprofitable routes from closure. Following the election of the Labour government in 1945, the railways were nationalised on 1 January 1948 under the terms of the Transport Act 1947. Through the creation of the Scottish Region of British Railways, all Scotland's railways ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adhesion Railway
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 greas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BBC News
BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online news coverage. The service maintains 50 foreign news bureaus with more than 250 correspondents around the world. Deborah Turness has been the CEO of news and current affairs since September 2022. In 2019, it was reported in an Ofcom report that the BBC spent £136m on news during the period April 2018 to March 2019. BBC News' domestic, global and online news divisions are housed within the largest live newsroom in Europe, in Broadcasting House in central London. Parliamentary coverage is produced and broadcast from studios in London. Through BBC English Regions, the BBC also has regional centres across England and national news ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Rail MPV
The Multiple-purpose Vehicle or MPV is a purpose-built departmental derivative of a diesel multiple unit. Twenty-five two-car units were ordered by Railtrack to enable it to replace its varied collection of ageing departmental vehicles, many of which were converted from redundant passenger stock. The vehicles were built in Germany by Windhoff. The design is based on the Windhoff " CargoSprinter" units that are operated by Deutsche Bahn (Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...) and CRT Group (Australia). Normally a unit consists of one powered vehicle fitted with twin Railpac diesel engines, semi-permanently coupled to an unpowered slave unit without engines. The later orders for the South East of England and for overhead line replacement are instead compos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Direct Rail Services
Direct Rail Services (DRS) is a rail freight company in Great Britain. As of 2022, it is one of seven publicly owned railway companies in the United Kingdom, the others being NI Railways (the passenger rail operator in Northern Ireland), LNER, Northern Trains, Southeastern, Transport for Wales Rail and ScotRail. DRS was created as a wholly-owned subsidiary of British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL) during late 1994 with the primary purpose of taking over the rail-based handling of nuclear material from British Rail. As early as 1997, the company begun diversified into other operations, initially bidding for contracts to haul freight traffic for other companies such as Tesco and Eddie Stobart Group. Furthermore, DRS has branched into passenger services, these have included charters, such as the Northern Belle, and contracts with operators such as National Express East Anglia, Chiltern Railways, and Arriva Rail North. Additional rolling stock, such as the Class 57 and Class 88 lo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
DB Cargo UK
DB Cargo UK (formerly DB Schenker Rail UK and English, Welsh & Scottish Railway (EWS)), is a British rail freight company headquartered in Doncaster, England. The company was established in early 1995 as ''North & South Railways'', successfully acquiring and merging five of the six freight companies that were sold during the privatisation of British Rail,The sixth rail freight company created during privatisation, Freightliner, was privatised through a management buyout. On 25 April 1996, the EWS brand was revealed and implemented over successive months. By the end of March 1997, it controlled 90% of the UK rail freight market, operated a fleet of 900 locomotives and 19,000 wagons, and had 7,000 employees. During the late 1990s, EWS invested heavily into rolling stock renewal, procuring a large number of British Rail Class 66 diesel locomotives, headcount was also reduced. It also acquired National Power's open-access freight operator in April 1998. During January 2001, the C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colas Rail
Colas Rail is a railway infrastructure and rail freight company primarily active in the United Kingdom. It is a subsidiary of the French industrial group Bouygues. Colas Rail was originally created as ''Seco Rail'', named after its then-parent company SECO (''Société d'Études et de Construction d'Outillage''). In the twentieth century, its main activities were railway construction and maintenance. Seco Rail participated in various major projects, such as in the construction of phase one of High Speed 1. During 2006, it became a rail freight operator in the British market, initially transporting aggregates using leased rolling stock. Seco Rail acquired its first locomotives and regular freight customer, Kronospan, during the following year. In early 2008, Colas Group opted to reorganise its rail subsidiaries following recent acquisitions, merging Seco Rail with AMEC-Spie and Carillion Rail's former plant division under the name Colas Rail. During the late 2000s and early ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Top And Tail
A top-and-tail railway train has locomotives at both ends, for ease of changing direction, especially where the terminal station has no run-round loop. This is a British term. It is normal for only the leading locomotive to power the train when in top-and-tail mode. It is properly distinct from a push-pull train, which has a locomotive at one end and a control cab at the other end. Trains going up zig zags of the Khyber Pass are top-and-tailed, although Pakistan Railways calls this by a different term. In Japan, the term " push-pull" is confusingly used to describe trains top-and-tailed with a locomotive at either end. (True push-pull operation with a locomotive at one end is not seen on Japanese mainline railways.) Australia In New South Wales the XPT is a train with a light weight locomotive at either end. It is based on the British HST. The locomotive at the front operates at full traction power, while the locomotive at the rear operates at half power, the other ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Network Rail
Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. Network Rail is an "arm's length" public body of the Department for Transport with no shareholders, which reinvests its income in the railways. Network Rail's main customers are the private train operating companies (TOCs), responsible for passenger transport, and freight operating companies (FOCs), who provide train services on the infrastructure that the company owns and maintains. Since 1 September 2014, Network Rail has been classified as a "public sector body". To cope with fast-increasing passenger numbers, () Network Rail has been undertaking a £38 billion programme of upgrades to the network, including Crossrail, electrification of lines and upgrading Thameslink. In May 2021, the Government announced its intent to replace Network Rail in 2023 with a n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Railway Magazine
''The Railway Magazine'' is a monthly British railway magazine, aimed at the railway enthusiast market, that has been published in London since July 1897. it was, for three years running, the railway magazine with the largest circulation in the United Kingdom, having a monthly average sale during 2009 of 34,715 (the figure for 2007 being 34,661). It was published by IPC Media until October 2010, with , and in 2007 won IPC's 'Magazine of the Year' award. Since November 2010, ''The Railway Magazine'' has been published by Mortons of Horncastle. History ''The Railway Magazine'' was launched by Joseph Lawrence and ex-railwayman Frank E. Cornwall of Railway Publishing Ltd, who thought there would be an amateur enthusiast market for some of the material they were then publishing in a railway staff magazine, the ''Railway Herald''. They appointed as its first editor a former auctioneer, George Augustus Nokes (1867–1948), who wrote under the pseudonym "G. A. Sekon". He quickly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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