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Gandy Dancer
Gandy dancer is a slang term used for early railroad workers in the United States, more formally referred to as "section hands", who laid and maintained railroad tracks in the years before the work was done by machines. The British equivalents of the term gandy dancer are "navvy" (from "navigator"), originally builders of canals or "inland navigations", for builders of railway lines, and "platelayer" for workers employed to inspect and maintain the track. In the Southwestern United States and Mexico, Mexican and Mexican-American track workers were colloquially "traqueros". In the United States, early section crews were often made up of recent immigrants and ethnic minorities who vied for steady work despite poor wages and working conditions, and hard physical labor. The Chinese, Mexican Americans, and Native Americans in the Western United States, the Irish in the Midwestern United States, African Americans in the Southern United States, and East Europeans and Italians in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corporation
Simmons-Boardman Publishing is an American publisher, specializing in industry publications. It is headquartered in New York City, New York, and has offices in Chicago, Omaha, and Falmouth, Cornwall, UK. The company was created from a merger of ''The Railroad Gazette'' and ''Railway Age'' in 1908; the company's name was derived from ''Gazette''s vice president, E. A. Simmons, and editor, William H. Boardman. Publications *''Bar Business Magazine'' *''International Railway Journal'' *''Marine Log'' *''Railway Age'' *''Railway Track & Structures'' *''Sign Builder Illustrated Magazine'' Mergers and acquisitions *Davison Publishing Davison may refer to: *Davison (surname) Places in the United States *Davison, Michigan, a suburb of Flint *Davison Township, Michigan *Davison Freeway, a highway in Detroit, Michigan *Davison County, South Dakota Other uses *Davison Design & Deve ... (2006) References Professional and trade magazines Companies based in New York City {{US-media ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ballast Tamper
Ballast is material that is used to provide stability to a vehicle or structure. Ballast, other than cargo, may be placed in a vehicle, often a ship or the gondola of a balloon or airship, to provide stability. A compartment within a boat, ship, submarine, or other floating structure that holds water is called a ballast tank. Water should move in and out from the ballast tank to balance the ship. In a vessel that travels on the water, the ballast will remain below the water level, to counteract the effects of weight above the water level. The ballast may be redistributed in the vessel or disposed of altogether to change its effects on the movement of the vessel. History The basic concept behind the ballast tank can be seen in many forms of aquatic life, such as the blowfish or members of the argonaut group of octopus. The concept has been invented and reinvented many times by humans to serve a variety of purposes. In the fifteenth and sixteenth century, the ballast "did not consi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spike Maul
A spike maul is a type of hand tool used to drive railroad spikes in railroad track work. It is also known as a spiking hammer. Description Spike mauls are akin to sledge hammers, typically weighing from with -long handles. They have elongated double faced hardened steel heads. The head is typically over long to allow the user to drive spikes on the opposite side of the rail without breaking the handle. Some spike mauls have symmetrical heads, but most have a slightly longer thinner side and a shorter larger diameter side of equal weight. The long side allows a user to spike over abnormally tall rails, and to drive spikes down next to highway crossing planks. The shorter side provides more surface area which requires less accuracy for normal spiking. There are two typical patterns of spike mauls: * Bell: This is the more common variety. Bell spike mauls are mostly cylindrical in shape. * Standard: These have a square cross section, and a squared tapered end opposite the norm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maintenance Of Way
Maintenance of way (commonly abbreviated to MOW) refers to the maintenance, construction, and improvement of rail infrastructure, including Railway track, tracks, ballast, grade, and lineside infrastructure such as Railway signal, signals and signs. Track The most fundamental maintenance of way task is the construction, repair, and replacement of the track and its supporting ballast and grade. The task was once done entirely by manual labor, but in the 21st century, track maintenance is largely done by specialized machines that are much faster and require fewer people to accomplish the same amount of work. Electrification systems On rail lines, which include electrification by a third rail or an overhead line, maintenance of way work includes repairing and replacing the systems. See also *Rail inspection *Railway track#Maintenance, Railway track maintenance Bibliography * References {{Reflist Permanent way Rail transport operations ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fulcrum (mechanics)
A lever is a simple machine consisting of a beam or rigid rod pivoted at a fixed hinge, or ''fulcrum''. A lever is a rigid body capable of rotating on a point on itself. On the basis of the locations of fulcrum, load and effort, the lever is divided into three types. Also, leverage is mechanical advantage gained in a system. It is one of the six simple machines identified by Renaissance scientists. A lever amplifies an input force to provide a greater output force, which is said to provide leverage. The ratio of the output force to the input force is the mechanical advantage of the lever. As such, the lever is a mechanical advantage device, trading off force against movement. Etymology The word "lever" entered English around 1300 from Old French, in which the word was ''levier''. This sprang from the stem of the verb ''lever'', meaning "to raise". The verb, in turn, goes back to the Latin ''levare'', itself from the adjective ''levis'', meaning "light" (as in "not heavy"). The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Railway Workers With Tie Tongs
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in Track (rail transport), tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a prepared flat surface, rail vehicles (rolling stock) are directionally guided by the tracks on which they run. Tracks usually consist of steel rails, installed on Railroad tie, sleepers (ties) set in track ballast, ballast, on which the rolling stock, usually fitted with metal wheels, moves. Other variations are also possible, such as "slab track", in which the rails are fastened to a concrete foundation resting on a prepared subsurface. Rolling stock in a rail transport system generally encounters lower friction, frictional resistance than rubber-tyred road vehicles, so passenger and freight cars (carriages and wagons) can be coupled into longer trains. The rail transport operations, operation is carried out by a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Derailment
In rail transport, a derailment occurs when a rail vehicle such as a train comes off its rails. Although many derailments are minor, all result in temporary disruption of the proper operation of the railway system and they are a potentially serious hazard. A derailment of a train can be caused by a collision with another object, an operational error (such as excessive speed through a curve), the mechanical failure of tracks (such as broken rails), or the mechanical failure of the wheels, among other causes. In emergency situations, deliberate derailment with derails or catch points is sometimes used to prevent a more serious accident. History The first recorded train derailment in history is known as the Hightstown Rail Accident in New Jersey that occurred on November 8, 1833. The train was traveling between Hightstown and Spotswood New Jersey and derailed after an axle broke on one of the carriages as a result of a journal box catching fire. The derailment resulted in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Centripetal Force
A centripetal force (from Latin ''centrum'', "center" and ''petere'', "to seek") is a force that makes a body follow a curved path. Its direction is always orthogonal to the motion of the body and towards the fixed point of the instantaneous center of curvature of the path. Isaac Newton described it as "a force by which bodies are drawn or impelled, or in any way tend, towards a point as to a centre". In Newtonian mechanics, gravity provides the centripetal force causing astronomical orbits. One common example involving centripetal force is the case in which a body moves with uniform speed along a circular path. The centripetal force is directed at right angles to the motion and also along the radius towards the centre of the circular path. The mathematical description was derived in 1659 by the Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens. Formula The magnitude of the centripetal force on an object of mass ''m'' moving at tangential speed ''v'' along a path with radius of curvatu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Track Ballast
Track ballast forms the trackbed upon which railroad ties (sleepers) are laid. It is packed between, below, and around the ties. It is used to bear the load from the railroad ties, to facilitate drainage of water, and also to keep down vegetation that might interfere with the track structure. Ballast also holds the track in place as the trains roll over it. A variety of materials have been used as track ballast, including crushed stone, washed gravel, bank run (unwashed) gravel, torpedo gravel (a mixture of coarse sand and small gravel), slag, chats, coal cinders, sand, and burnt clay. The term "ballast" comes from a nautical term for the stones used to stabilize a ship. Construction The appropriate thickness of a layer of track ballast depends on the size and spacing of the ties, the amount of traffic on the line, and various other factors. Track ballast should never be laid down less than thick, and high-speed railway lines may require ballast up to thick.Bell 2004, p. 39 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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