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Interurban
The Interurban (or radial railway in Europe and Canada) is a type of electric railway, with streetcar-like electric self-propelled rail cars which run within and between cities or towns. They were very prevalent in North America between 1900 and 1925 and were used primarily for passenger travel between cities and their surrounding suburban and rural communities. The concept spread to countries such as Japan, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy and Poland. Interurban as a term encompassed the companies, their infrastructure, their cars that ran on the rails, and their service. In the United States, the early 1900s interurban was a valuable economic institution. Most roads between towns and many town streets were unpaved. Transportation and haulage was by horse-drawn carriages and carts. The interurban provided reliable transportation, particularly in winter weather, between the town and countryside. In 1915, of interurban railways were operating in the United States ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Street Railway
A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are called tramways or simply trams/streetcars. Many recently built tramways use the contemporary term light rail. The vehicles are called streetcars or trolleys (not to be confused with trolleybus) in North America and trams or tramcars elsewhere. The first two terms are often used interchangeably in the United States, with ''trolley'' being the preferred term in the eastern US and ''streetcar'' in the western US. ''Streetcar'' or ''tramway'' are preferred in Canada. In parts of the United States, internally powered buses made to resemble a streetcar are often referred to as "trolleys". To avoid further confusion with trolley buses, the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) refers to them as " trolley-replica buses". In the U ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Commuter Railroad
Commuter rail services in the United States, Canada, Cuba, Mexico, Panama, and Costa Rica provide common carrier passenger transportation along railway tracks, with scheduled service on fixed routes on a non-reservation basis, primarily for short-distance (local) travel between a central business district and adjacent suburbs and regional travel between cities of a conurbation. It does ''not'' include rapid transit or light rail service. Services Many, but not all, newer commuter railways offer service during peak times only, with trains into the central business district during morning rush hour and returning to the outer areas during the evening rush hour. This mode of operation is, in many cases, simplified by ending the train with a special passenger carriage (referred to as a cab car), which has an operating cab and can control the locomotive remotely, to avoid having to turn the train around at each end of its route. Other systems avoid the problem entirely by using b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Midwestern United States
The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. It was officially named the North Central Region by the Census Bureau until 1984. It is between the Northeastern United States and the Western United States, with Canada to the north and the Southern United States to the south. The Census Bureau's definition consists of 12 states in the north central United States: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. The region generally lies on the broad Interior Plain between the states occupying the Appalachian Mountains, Appalachian Mountain range and the states occupying the Rocky Mountains, Rocky Mountain range. Major rivers in the region include, from east to west, the Ohio River, the Upper Mississippi River, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tram-train
A tram-train is a type of light rail vehicle that meets the standards of a light rail system (usually an urban street running tramway), but which also meets national mainline standards permitting operation alongside mainline trains. This allows services that can utilise both existing urban light rail systems and mainline railway networks and stations. It combines the urban accessibility of a tram or light rail with a mainline train's greater speed in the suburbs. The modern tram-train concept was pioneered by the German city of Karlsruhe in the late 1980s, resulting in the creation of the Karlsruhe Stadtbahn. This concept is often referred to as the Karlsruhe model, and it has since been adopted in other cities such as Mulhouse in France and in Kassel, Nordhausen and Saarbrücken in Germany. An inversion of the concept is a train-tram; a mainline train adapted to run on-street in an urban tramway, also known as the Zwickau Model. Technology The tram-train often is a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Upper Silesia
Upper Silesia ( pl, Górny Śląsk; szl, Gůrny Ślůnsk, Gōrny Ślōnsk; cs, Horní Slezsko; german: Oberschlesien; Silesian German: ; la, Silesia Superior) is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia, located today mostly in Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic. Since the 9th century, Upper Silesia has been part of (chronologically) Greater Moravia, the Duchy of Bohemia, the Piast Kingdom of Poland, again of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown and the Holy Roman Empire, as well as of the Habsburg monarchy from 1526. In 1742 the greater part of Upper Silesia was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia, and in 1871 it became part of the German Empire. After the First World War the region was divided between Poland ( East Upper Silesia) and Germany (West Upper Silesia). After the Second World War, West Upper Silesia also became Polish as the result of the Potsdam Conference. Geography Upper Silesia is situated on the upper Oder River, n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kusttram2
The Coast Tram ( nl, Kusttram) is a public transport service connecting the cities and towns along the Belgian ( West Flanders) coast between De Panne, near the French border, and Knokke-Heist, near the Dutch border. At in length, it is currently the world's longest tram line in service as well as one of the few interurban tramways in the world to remain in operation. The line is built at and fully electrified at 600 V DC. History What is now the coast line started out as part of the extensive Belgian Vicinal tramway, a network of interurban trams that once covered the entire nation. The first section of the coast line between Ostend and Nieuwpoort was opened in 1885. Although the original route was further inland than the modern one, only short parts of the original section in Ostend and Nieuwpoort centres are still in operation. On its creation, the line was managed by the NMVB (''Nationale Maatschappij van Buurtspoorwegen''), that operated an interurban tram system t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horse And Buggy
] A horse and buggy (in American English) or horse and carriage (in British English and American English) refers to a light, simple, two-person carriage of the late 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries, drawn usually by one or sometimes by two horses. Also called a roadster or a trap, it was made with two wheels in England and the United States (also made with four wheels). It had a folding or falling top. History A Concorde buggy, first made in Concord, New Hampshire, had a body with low sides and side-spring suspension. A buggy having two seats was called a double buggy. A buggy called a stanhope typically had a high seat and closed back. The bodies of buggies were sometimes suspended on a pair of longitudinal elastic wooden bars called ''sidebars''. A buggy whip had a small, usually tasseled tip called a ''snapper''. In countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada, it was a primary mode of short-distance personal transportation, especially between ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fighting occurring throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Pacific, and parts of Asia. An estimated 9 million soldiers were killed in combat, plus another 23 million wounded, while 5 million civilians died as a result of military action, hunger, and disease. Millions more died in genocides within the Ottoman Empire and in the 1918 influenza pandemic, which was exacerbated by the movement of combatants during the war. Prior to 1914, the European great powers were divided between the Triple Entente (comprising France, Russia, and Britain) and the Triple Alliance (containing Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy). Tensions in the Balkans came to a head on 28 June 1914, following the assassination of Arch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Traction Motor
A traction motor is an electric motor used for propulsion of a vehicle, such as locomotives, electric or hydrogen vehicles, elevators or electric multiple unit. Traction motors are used in electrically powered rail vehicles ( electric multiple units) and other electric vehicles including electric milk floats, elevators, roller coasters, conveyors, and trolleybuses, as well as vehicles with electrical transmission systems ( diesel-electric locomotives, electric hybrid vehicles), and battery electric vehicles. Motor types and control Direct-current motors with series field windings are the oldest type of traction motors. These provide a speed-torque characteristic useful for propulsion, providing high torque at lower speeds for acceleration of the vehicle, and declining torque as speed increases. By arranging the field winding with multiple taps, the speed characteristic can be varied, allowing relatively smooth operator control of acceleration. A further measure of control ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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