Rail transportMode of transportA train in Alaska transporting crude oil in March 2006Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a mode of transport using wheeled vehicles running on tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of land transport, next to road transport. It is used for about 8% of passenger and freight transport globally, thanks to its energy efficiency and potentially high speed.
PlatewayA plateway is an early kind of railway, tramway or wagonway, where the rails are made from cast iron. They were mainly used for about 50 years up to 1830, though some continued later. Plateways consisted of L-shaped rails, where the flange on the rail guides the wheels, in contrast to edgeways, where flanges on the wheels guide them onto the track. Plateways were originally horse-drawn but, later on, cable haulage and small locomotives were sometimes used.
Tramway (industrial)Tramways are lightly laid industrial railways, often not intended to be permanent. Originally, rolling stock could be pushed by humans, pulled by animals (especially horses and mules), cable-hauled by a stationary engine, or pulled by small, light locomotives. Tramways can exist in many forms; sometimes simply tracks temporarily placed on the ground to transport materials around a factory, mine or quarry.
Rail profileThe rail profile is the cross-sectional shape of a rail as installed on a railway or railroad, perpendicular to its length. Early rails were made of wood, cast iron or wrought iron. All modern rails are hot rolledsteel with a cross section (profile) approximate to an I-beam, but asymmetric about a horizontal axis (however see grooved rail below). The head is profiled to resist wear and to give a good ride, and the foot profiled to suit the fixing system.
Middleton RailwayThe Middleton Railway is the world's oldest continuously working railway, situated in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was founded in 1758 and is now a heritage railway, run by volunteers from The Middleton Railway Trust Ltd. since 1960. The railway operates passenger services at weekends and on public holidays over approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) of track between its headquarters at Moor Road, in Hunslet, and Park Halt, on the outskirts of Middleton Park.
DiolkosThe Diolkos (Δίολκος, from the Greekdiaδιά, "across", and holkosὁλκός, "portage machine") was a paved trackway near Corinth in Ancient Greece which enabled boats to be moved overland across the Isthmus of Corinth. The shortcut allowed ancient vessels to avoid the long and dangerous circumnavigation of the Peloponnese peninsula.
Stockton and Darlington RailwayThe Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR) was a railway company that operated in north-east England from 1825 to 1863. The world's first public railway to use steam locomotives, its first line connected collieries near Shildon with Darlington and Stockton in County Durham, and was officially opened on 27 September 1825. The movement of coal to ships rapidly became a lucrative business, and the line was soon extended to a new port at Middlesbrough.
Isthmus of CorinthThe Isthmus of Corinth (Greek: Ισθμός της Κορίνθου) is the narrow land bridge which connects the Peloponnese peninsula with the rest of the mainland of Greece, near the city of Corinth. The 6.3 km (3.9 mi) wide Isthmus was known in the ancient world as the landmark separating the Peloponnese from mainland Greece. In the first century AD the geographer Strabo noted a stele on the Isthmus of Corinth, which bore two inscriptions.
GreeceCountry in Southeastern EuropeGreece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country located mostly on the Balkan peninsula of Southeastern Europe, with thousands of islands extending geographically to Asia Minor. It has a population of around 10 million. With nine regions and up to 227 inhabited islands, it has the longest coastline on the . The Ionian Sea is west of the mainland, Albania northwest, and North Macedonia and Bulgaria north.
George StephensonGeorge Stephenson (9 June 1781 – 12 August 1848) was an English civil engineer and mechanical engineer. Renowned as the "Father of Railways", Stephenson was considered by the Victorians as a great example of diligent application and thirst for improvement. His chosen rail gauge, sometimes called "Stephenson gauge", was the basis for the 4-foot-8+1⁄2-inch (1.435 m) standard gauge used by most of the world's railways.
Steam locomotiveRailway locomotive powered by a steam engineLNER Class A4 4468 Mallard is officially the fastest steam locomotive, reaching 126 mph (203 km/h) on 3 July 1938.JŽ 06-018 steam locomotive, in Ljubljana, SloveniaLNER Class A3 4472 Flying Scotsman was the first steam locomotive to officially reach 100 mph (160 km/h), on 30 November 1934.Union Pacific Big Boy 4014 is the largest operating steam locomotive in the world.41 018 climbing the Schiefe Ebene with 01 1066 as pusher locomotive (video 34.4 MB)A steam locomotive, also known as an iron horse, is a type of locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam.
HorseThe horse (Equus ferus caballus) is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extantsubspecies of Equus ferus. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature, Eohippus, into the large single-toed animal of today, originally in North America.
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