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Pantograph (rail)
A pantograph (or "pan" or "panto") is an apparatus mounted on the roof of an electric train, tram or electric bus to collect power through contact with an overhead line. By contrast, battery electric buses and trains are charged at charging stations. The pantograph is a common type of current collector; typically, a single or double wire is used, with the return current running through the rails. The term stems from the resemblance of some styles to the mechanical pantographs used for copying handwriting and drawings. Invention The pantograph, with a low-friction, replaceable graphite contact strip or "shoe" to minimise lateral stress on the contact wire, first appeared in the late 19th century. Early versions include the bow collector, invented in 1889 by Walter Reichel, chief engineer at Siemens & Halske in Germany, and a flat slide-pantograph first used in 1895 by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad The familiar diamond-shaped roller pantograph was devised and patented b ...
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Key System
The Key System (or Key Route) was a privately owned company that provided mass transit in the cities of Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, Emeryville, Piedmont, San Leandro, Richmond, Albany, and El Cerrito in the eastern San Francisco Bay Area from 1903 until 1960, when it was sold to a newly formed public agency, AC Transit. The Key System consisted of local streetcar and bus lines in the East Bay, and commuter rail and bus lines connecting the East Bay to San Francisco by a ferry pier on San Francisco Bay, later via the lower deck of the Bay Bridge. At its height during the 1940s, the Key System had over of track. The local streetcars were discontinued in 1948 and the commuter trains to San Francisco were discontinued in 1958. The Key System's territory is today served by BART and AC Transit bus service. History Early years The system was a consolidation of several streetcar lines assembled in the late 1890s and early 1900s by Francis Marion "Borax" Smith. After having ...
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EuroSprinter
The EuroSprinter family of electric locomotives is a modular concept of locomotives for the European market built by Siemens Mobility. The internal Siemens product name is ES 64, with ES for EuroSprinter and the number 64 indicating the 6,400 kW power at rail. Additional information is given in the name on the usage (U as universal, P as prototype and F as freight) and on the number of electric power systems supported (e. g. 2 as two types, 4 as all four systems commonly used in Europe). Development The first prototype ES 64 P was built in 1992, as Deutsche Bahn AG was expected to issue a large order of locomotives as a replacement for the ageing Einheits-Elektrolokomotiven. The external appearance was similar to the earlier Siemens/Krauss-Maffei made dual voltage Spanish RENFE Class 252, delivered in 1991, which in turn used three phase asynchronous drive technology introduced with the DB Class 120. The prototype was used for extensive tests in some countries in Europe ...
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SBB-CFF-FFS Re 460
The Re 460 (popularly known as the Lok 2000) series are modern four-axle electric locomotives of the Swiss Federal Railways. Upon their entry into service in the early 1990s, they replaced the , Ae 4/7, and series units, and displaced many of the Re 4/4II series into lesser duties. The series was introduced as part of the Rail 2000 project, a massive project to modernise and improve the capacity of Switzerland's railways. While originally designed as a multipurpose locomotive, they are now used for passenger services only, often in conjunction with the IC 2000 double-decker trains (often used to pull InterCity and InterRegio trains in German and French language areas). Their freight role has been assumed by Re 482s. They are maintained at Yverdon. Assignment When SBB was split up on 1 September 1999, Re 460 079–118 were assigned to the freight division, later becoming SBB Cargo. It was seen as an advantage to use all Re 460, which had been designed for 200 km/h, fo ...
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Ă–BB
The Austrian Federal Railways (german: Österreichische Bundesbahnen, formally (lit. "Austrian Federal Railways Holding Stock Company") and formerly the or ''BBÖ''), now commonly known as ÖBB, is the national railway company of Austria, and the administrator of Liechtenstein's railways. The ÖBB group is owned entirely by the Republic of Austria, and is divided into several separate businesses that manage the infrastructure and operate passenger and freight services. The Austrian Federal Railways has had two discrete periods of existence. It was first formed in 1923, using the ''Bundesbahn Österreich'' name, as a successor to the Imperial Royal Austrian State Railways (kkStB), but was incorporated into the ''Deutsche Reichsbahn'' during the 1938–1945 Anschluss. It was reformed in 1947, under the slightly different name ''Österreichische Bundesbahnen'', and remains in existence in this form. Major changes currently being made to the Austrian railway netwo ...
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SBB-CFF-FFS
Swiss Federal Railways (german: link=no, Schweizerische Bundesbahnen, ''SBB''; french: link=no, Chemins de fer fĂ©dĂ©raux suisses, ''CFF''; it, Ferrovie federali svizzere, ''FFS'') is the national railway company of Switzerland. It is usually referred to by the initials of its German, French, and Italian names, either as SBB CFF FFS, or used separately. The Romansh version of its name, ''Viafiers federalas svizras'', is not officially used. The official English abbreviation is "SBB", instead of the English acronym such as "SFR", which stands for ''Swiss Federal Railways'' itself. The company, founded in 1902, is headquartered in Bern. It used to be a government institution, but since 1999 it has been a special stock corporation whose shares are held by the Swiss Confederation and the Swiss cantons. It is currently the largest rail and transport company of Switzerland, and operates on most standard gauge lines of the Swiss network. It also heavily collaborates with ...
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Faiveley Transport
Faiveley Transport (), formerly Faiveley, is an international manufacturer and supplier of equipment for the railway industry founded in 1919. It introduced the single-arm pantograph in 1955. The company has subsidiaries in more than 24 countries. The majority of Faiveley Transport's outstanding stock is owned by Wabtec, which acquired majority stock ownership from the Faiveley family in 2016. History First years In 1919, Louis Faiveley founded in Saint-Ouen, France, the ''Établissements Louis Faiveley'', a small assembly shop centered on electromechanical parts. It soon grew and became one of the French railway system's leading suppliers. It introduced in 1923 its first pantograph. In 1930, it also ventured into the manufacture of door systems for trains. By the 1930s, it was already one of France's leading companies in all its fields of activity. In 1935, the company became a Société Anonyme, although the shares' majority stayed in hands of the Faiveley family. After th ...
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Chicago North Shore And Milwaukee Railroad
The Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee Railroad (reporting mark CNSM), also known as the North Shore Line, was an interurban railroad that operated passenger and freight service over an route between the Chicago Loop and downtown Milwaukee, as well as an branch line between the villages of Lake Bluff and Mundelein, Illinois. The North Shore Line also provided streetcar, city bus and motor coach services along its interurban route. Extensively improved under the one time ownership of Samuel Insull, the North Shore Line was notable for its high operating speeds and substantial physical plant, as well as innovative services such as its pioneering " ferry truck" operations and its streamlined Electroliner trainsets. Author and railroad historian William D. Middleton described the North Shore Line as a "super interurban" and opined that its cessation of rail service marked the end of the "interurban era" in the United States. Since 1964 the Yellow Line of the Chicago Transit Aut ...
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Electroliner
The Electroliners are a pair of streamlined interurban trainsets built by the St. Louis Car Company in 1941. Initially numbered 801–802 and 803–804, they were operated by the Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee Railroad from 1941 to 1963, followed by the Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Company (later SEPTA) from 1964 to 1978. Since their retirement, both trainsets have been preserved in railway museums. Operation Each set consists of two end coaches and two center coaches. The coaches are articulated using Jacobs bogies. Each end coach is divided at the side doors into a Luxury Coach, which seats 30, and a Smoking Coach, which seats 10 and also has a restroom. Each door has steps and a trap door to permit boarding from street level, low-level and high-level platforms. One center coach seats 40, and the other is a Tavern Lounge that seats 26. All cars are air-conditioned, a first among new traction (interurban and trolley) equipment of the time. The sets were designed ...
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Trolley Pole
A trolley pole is a tapered cylindrical pole of wood or metal, used to transfer electricity from a "live" (electrified) overhead wire to the control and the electric traction motors of a tram or trolley bus. It is a type of current collector. The use of overhead wire in a system of current collection is reputed to be the 1880 invention of Frank J. Sprague, but the first working trolley pole was developed and demonstrated by Charles Van Depoele, in autumn 1885. Middleton, William D. (1967). ''The Time of the Trolley'', pp. 63–65, 67. Milwaukee: Kalmbach Publishing. . Etymology The term "trolley", also used to describe the pole or the passenger car using the trolley pole, is derived from the grooved conductive wheel attached to the end of the pole that "trolls" the overhead wire. The term "trolley" predates the invention of the trolley pole. The earliest electric cars did not use a pole, but rather a system in which each tramcar dragged behind it an overhead cable connected ...
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California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territories of the United States by population, most populous U.S. state and the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 3rd largest by area. It is also the most populated Administrative division, subnational entity in North America and the 34th most populous in the world. The Greater Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second and fifth most populous Statistical area (United States), urban regions respectively, with the former having more than 18.7million residents and the latter having over 9.6million. Sacramento, California, Sacramento is the state's capital, while Los Angeles is the List of largest California cities by population, most populous city in the state and the List of United States cities by population, ...
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San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Governments to include the nine counties that border the aforementioned estuaries: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, Sonoma, and San Francisco. Other definitions may be either smaller or larger, and may include neighboring counties that do not border the bay such as Santa Cruz and San Benito (more often included in the Central Coast regions); or San Joaquin, Merced, and Stanislaus (more often included in the Central Valley). The core cities of the Bay Area are San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. Home to approximately 7.76 million people, Northern California's nine-county Bay Area contains many cities, towns, airports, and associated regional, state, and national parks, connected by a comp ...
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