Rail Transport

#REDIRECT Rail transport

Rail transport

Rail transport refers to the land transport of passengers and goods along railways or railroads. These consist of two parallel rail tracks, usually of steel, generally mounted upon cross-sectional beams (termed "Railroad_ties" or "railroad ties") of timber, concrete or other material. The underlying support maintains the rails at a fixed distance (Rail gauge) apart. Usually vehicles running on the rails are arranged in a train (a series of individual powered or unpowered vehicles linked together). ==General==
Rail transport is one of the most energy efficiency means of mechanised land transport known. The Rail tracks provide very smooth and hard surfaces on which the wheels of the train may roll with a minimum of friction. As an example, a typical rail car can hold up to 125 tons of freight with this and the weight of the car on two four wheel support trucks. Fully loaded, the contact between each wheel and the rail is the space of about one U.S. ten cent piece. This is more comfortable than most other forms of land transport and saves energy. Trains also have a small frontal area in relation to the load they are carrying, which cuts down on air resistance and thus energy usage. In all, under the right circumstances, a train needs 50-70% less energy to transport a given tonnage of freight (or given number of passengers), than does road transport. Furthermore, together with the sleepers, the rails distribute the weight of the train evenly, allowing significantly greater loads per axle/wheel than in road transport. Rail transport is also one of the safest modes of transport, and also makes a highly efficient use of space: a double tracked rail line can carry more passengers or freight in a given amount of time than a four-laned road. As a result, rail transport is often the major form of public transport in many countries. In Asia, for example, many millions use trains as regular transport in India, South Korea, Japan, China, and elsewhere. Commercially, rail transport has had a mixed record. Most rail systems, including urban metro/subway systems, are highly subsidised and have never or rarely been profitable; however, their indirect benefits are often great. For example, despite a well-developed network consisting of 4 grades of trains and a widespread urban rail network in Seoul and Busan, Korean National Rail is a Nationalization organization that has never come close to having receipts equal costs (see Transportation in South Korea). Similarly, passenger rail in the USA and many other countries is still dependent on government subsidies. As a result levels of rail transport have in some times and places been reduced in order to save money (see Beeching Axe). Conversely, US freight railways have consolidated and become more efficient in their progress toward profitability. The East Japan Railway Company has taken an innovative and creative marketing stance and have achieved profitability as a result. Like other forms of public transport, many railways are having to make considerable investment in order to meet new requirements for security in the face of recent terrorism incidents, for instance the 11 March 2004 Madrid attacks of 11 March 2004. Securing railways is often more difficult than other modes of transport because stations are designed with easy access and high capacity as their primary goals rather than security, because most trains make many stops, rendering any sort of passenger screening difficult, and because securing the tracks as they run through cities and the countryside is impractical. ==Operations== ''Main article'': Rail transport operations A rail transport system consists of several necessary elements, and should be viewed from a system-wide perspective when planning, constructing and maintaining it. Some locomotives may be wonderfully aesthetic constructions, but they won't work unless they are given an appropriate system on which to run. This system includes infrastructure such as tracks, railroad switches, Railway signal, classification yards, etc. Firstly there is the geography onto which the permanent way is built. Next are the requirements of the system – what was it built for? For carrying cargo, commuters, medium or long-distance travellers? Has that requirement changed over time and left the system to adapt? As a result of this, what is the type of system? Is it light rail or urban heavy rail, high-speed rail or industrial railway? To what gauge is it built? In a broader sense, rail transport includes monorail, rubber tired metro and maglev, since the cars also run in a guided path. The term "guideway" better describes the non-traditional modes. Trains require a propulsion mechanism: horses, or steam locomotive, diesel locomotive or electric locomotives. The last of these options, the most energy efficient, requires Overhead wires of the system. To be electrified, a means of supplying electricity to the train is needed. This can be done with overhead wires or with a third rail system. The former is the more common method. Depending on how much traffic they carry, railways can be built with a varying number of tracks. Rail lines that carry little traffic are often built with a single track which is used by trains traveling in both directions; on rail lines like these, "crossovers", "passing loops" or "passing sidings", which consist of short stretches of double track, are provided at certain points along the line to allow trains to pass each other, and travel in different directions. Alternatively, there may be larger sections of the line that are double track - effective timetabling can allow train travel up and down the partially double track line equivalent to travel on fully double tracks. Conversely, double tram track is sometimes intertwined at narrow passages (see tram tracks). Single-track lines are cheaper to build, but can only handle a limited amount of traffic and are consequently only used on branch lines. On busier lines, two or more tracks are provided, one or more for each direction of travel. On very busy lines as many as eight tracks (four tracks in each direction) are used to handle large amounts of traffic. With the advent of Containerization in the 1960s, rail and ship transportation have become an integrated network that move bulk goods very efficiently with a very low labor cost. An example is that goods from east Asia that are bound for Europe will often be shipped across the Pacific and transferred to trains to cross North America and be transferred back to a ship for the Atlantic Ocean crossing. Major cities often have metro and/or light rail/tram systems. For a tram on the road the terms streetcar track or tram track are used, rather than railway or railroad. A tram with its own right-of-way is called a tramway. ==Safety and railway disasters== Trains can travel at very high speed, are heavy, unable to deviate from the path laid out by the track and require a great distance to stop. Possibilities for accidents include jumping the track, derailment, head-on collision with another train coming the opposite way and collision with an automobile at a level crossing. Level crossing collisions are relatively common in the United States where there are several thousand each year killing about 500 people. For information regarding major accidents, see List of rail accidents. The accidents allowed that lessons were learned and practices changed. The most important safety measure is railway signalling. Train whistles are used to warn an oncoming train. ==History== ''Main article'': History of rail transport The first horse tracked vehicles, drawn wagonways appeared in Greece, Malta, and parts of the Roman Empire at least 2000 years ago using cut-stone tracks. They began reappearing in Europe, from around 1550, usually operating with crude wooden tracks. In the late 18th century iron rails began to appear: British civil engineer William Jessop designed edge rails to be used with flanged wheels for use on a scheme in Loughborough, Leicestershire in 1789 and subsequently opened an iron-works to produce more rails. In 1802, Jessop opened the Surrey Iron Railway in south London - arguably the world's first public railway, albeit a horse-drawn one. The first steam locomotive to operate on tracks, built by Richard Trevithick was operated in 1804 in Wales, although it was not financially successful, with Trevithick ending bankrupt. A more successful endeavour in locomotive building was George Stephenson's famous The Rocket steam locomotive. In 1806 a horse-drawn railway was built between Swansea and Mumbles. In 1807 this railway started carrying fare-paying passengers - the first in the world to do so. The first successful steam-operated railway, the Stockton and Darlington Railway, ran in northern England in the 1820s. This was soon followed by the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, which proved the viability of rail transport. Railways soon spread throughout Britain and through the world, and became the dominant means of land transport for nearly a century, until the invention of aircraft and automobiles, which prompted a gradual decline in railways. The first railroad in the United States may have been a gravity railroad in Lewiston, New York in 1764. The Leiper Railroad in Pennsylvania was the first permanent railroad, opened in 1810, and the Granite Railroad in 1826 may have been the first to evolve through continuous operations into a common carrier. The Baltimore and Ohio, opened in 1830, was the first to evolve into a major system. See oldest railroads in North America for more information. The use of Overhead line equipment conducting electricity, invented by Granville T. Woods in 1888, amongst several other improvements by Woods, led to the development of electrified railways, the first of which was operated at Coney Island from 1892. Diesel and electric trains and locomotives replaced steam in many countries in the decades after World War II. Many countries since the 1960s have adopted High-speed railways. ==Terminology== ''Main article'': Rail terminology [[Image:Retro gdynia koscierzyna.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Retro train "Costerina", Gdynia - Koscierzyna, Poland]] In Britain and other British Commonwealth countries the term ''railway'' is used in preference to ''railroad'', while in the United States the reverse is true. However, ''railroad'' has been used historically in Britain concurrently with ''railway'' until the 1850's when ''railway'' became the established term. Futhermore a number of American companies have ''railway'' in their names instead of ''railroad'' (the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway being the most pre-eminent modern example). See the article on usage of the terms railroad and railway for more information. In Britain the term ''railway'' often refers to the complete organisation of tracks, trains, Train station, Railway signaling, timetables and the organising companies which collectively make up a coordinated railway system, while ''Permanent Way'' or ''p/way'' refers to the tracks alone. See also: Rail transport in the United Kingdom Subways, metros, elevated railway lines, trolley lines, and London Undergrounds are all specialized railways. For translations of the word 'railroad', see International railroad terminology. [[Image:Three rail tracks 350.jpg|250px|thumb|right|Rail tracks]] ==Rail transport by country== ''Main article'': Rail transport by country Of 236 countries and dependencies, 143 have rail transport (including several with very little), of which ca. 90 have passenger services. ''See also'': Rail usage statistics by country, List of countries by rail transport network size ==See also== * Metro * Rail gauge * History of rail transport * List of railway companies * List of named passenger trains * Public transport * Private transport * Private railroad * Railway Mail Service * Economy of Earth (Transportation section) * Railway electrification system * Railway ferry * Rail transport in fiction * Hillclimbing (railway) ** Cog railway ** Gravity railroad ** Inclined plane railroad ** Spiral (railway) ** Zig Zag (railway) * railroad-related periodicals ==External links== *http://www.northrail.co.nr - Defending Rail Services and Jobs in the North of England *http://bueker.net/trainspotting/maps.php - maps of European railway networks *http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/fields/2121.html - rail transport by country *http://www.bahn.de/pv/uebersicht/die_bahn_international_guests.shtml - travel planner of German Railways (covers Europe, as well as at least each branch of the Trans-Siberian railway) *http://www.vagabondo.net/Indexeng.htm?/Eng/Thenet/Travel/rail.htm - links to railway companies and timetables *http://www.routesinternational.com/rail.htm - links *[http://www.rinbad.demon.co.uk/ Rinbad] - on railway geography and infrastructure in Europe and around the world *http://www.railpassengers.org.uk/News/OtherPublications/Council/Railfuture_NRIS - National Railcard International Survey - Survey of national rail discount cards in various European countries *[http://www.trackmap.net/ Track maps] *[http://ci.quincy.ma.us/tcpl/htm/legacy/gran.htm THE GRANITE RAILWAY AND ITS ASSOCIATED ENTERPRISES BY ROBERT E. SCHOLES copyright 1968] (not the first railroad in the United States) *[http://www.rail-interior-design.net/?sprache=en RTD Flexible Railway Passenger Car Concepts For Efficient And Attractive Passenger Transportation] fa:راه ‌آهن nds:Isenbohn Rail transport

Rail transport

''This is the top page of Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains'' ==Energy== There are serious errors regarding energy efficiency. For more details on this topic, see my website: http://www.lafn.org/~dave/trans/energy/ Water transport has no rolling resistance, so as velocity approaches zero, so does energy-intensity (energy efficiency approaches infinity). This makes water transport the most energy efficient mode (if it goes slow enough). Or consider floating downstream :-). In the US, Amtrak is no more energy efficient than the auto (when one considers that long auto intercity trips are more energy efficient than short ones due to higher occupancy and better miles/gallon. Historical esitimates from before Amtrak tend to confirm this. For freight, if the goods are low density, the freight car weighs much more than the goods in it so it's not energy efficient in this case. SRI (Stanford Research Institute) reported this in a 1970's study. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have to say that is a somewhat selective use of statistics, undoubtedly railways are going to be more efficient under some circumstances than others, it depends what is being compared. If we were to compare the energy use of a susburban commuter train to the energy use of the same number of passengers driving to work the train would win hands down. Pethaps it would be better to say that under ideal circumstanses rail is more efficient than road transport User:G-Man 19:54, 16 Oct 2003 (UTC) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's intentionally selective statistics intended to show that railroads are not always more energy efficient. They often are more energy-efficient, but not always. Your suburban case is not such a good example since they waste a lot of energy making closely spaced stops. Even so, they get about 40+ pass-mi per gallon (see Trans. Energy Data Book). This is about double that of an auto with only the driver, but ridesharing does better. Also, the access trip (often by auto) to the suburban train station is not very energy efficient. An example where rail is much more energy efficient is a hypothetical all-coach train traveling on lever ground at constant speed, with all seats occupied or course. But it's not typical. One thing I didn't mention above is that intercity buses are much more energy efficient that Amtrak. So comparing rail to "road" should include buses which run on roads. :A good part of why long-distance trains in the United States are less energy-efficient than they might be is simply that the train has long given passengers much more space per passenger than any other mode of transport. The average train seat is larger and there is more space between them than on an intercity bus or aircraft. There are whole cars on the average Amtrak train that are non passenger revenue earning -- dining cars, lounge cars, and the like. If one compared like with like in terms of passenger density, the figure would be rather different. This is a matter of Amtrak's and the railroads before Amtrak's priorities and marketing and positioning. :A second issue is Federal regulation. Federal safety regulations for railroad passenger cars are MUCH more stringent and require much more strength in a railroad car than in a car, bus or plane. For whatever reason, deaths in railroad accidents are tolerated much less than in other modes of transport. American railroad cars are the heaviest in the world and carry the fewest passengers per car. :A third issue is quite simply that there has been little willingness in the United States, since the Second World War or so, in running railroad passenger operations at a profit. It's hard to compare Amtrak with the airlines or long-distance bus companies on this basis. :Amtrak's de facto low priority on the tracks doesn't help efficiency either. :As to your other claims, I'm looking into them. Part of the problem is that there are indeed few academic studies that tie into this at all. :--User:Morven 04:10, 18 Oct 2003 (UTC) ::Some summarised statistics here: [http://www.publicpurpose.com/ut-energy1999.htm] These put intercity buses in the lead ahead of motorcycles followed by train travel, then cars followed by airliners, followed by personal trucks and city transit buses. I suspect a good part of this is that the intercity bus packs the most passengers into the least space and weight of any of the other modes ... --User:Morven 04:25, 18 Oct 2003 (UTC) ==Name== Why is this a separate article from the railroad article? User:Michael Hardy 20:37 Jan 15, 2003 (UTC) :I do not see much reason for that. It may be better to merge them. - User:Patrick 23:10 Jan 15, 2003 (UTC) :Done; I moved the contents from Railroad to Rail transport. For the revision history, see both. - User:Patrick 11:07 Apr 18, 2003 (UTC) ==From Talk:Railroad== ''Can we say, based on the above, that American 'railroad' is a bit of an oddity, compared to most European languages?'' :why? 'via' and 'weg/veg' just as often translate into ''road'' in English as ''way''. Translation being what it is, calling one term 'odd' because it's not the same as another strikes ME as a little NPOV. I think what's odd is the retention of Greek and Latin dipthongs in the spelling of medical terminology in flavors of English other than American ; ) --MichaelTinkler ::Look Michael, you just have to accept it: Americans don't know how to use English correctly. Only people from Commonwealth countries do. :-) -- :SJK :Actually, the original term used in Britain was 'railroad' -- see press reports of the opening of the early railways -- the preference for 'railway' only happened from the 1850s and 60s. As happens so often, the Americans are using archaic English :-) User:Arwel Parry ---- In some countries, the use of subway-like trains have appeared that don't use iron rails, but are equipped with rubber tires running on a concreate "road" (but in all other aspect are like other subways, e.g. electrical powered trains). One example is the tram line connecting central Tokyo with the Tokyo harbour area. Maybe this should be mentioned? Also I seem to remember that the Montreal subway used rubber tires? -- :Bjorn Elenfors ---- The Montreal subway does indeed use rubber tires, and it is copying the Paris Metro in doing so. -- User:Paul Drye ---- Why not add that information to the :Underground page then? --Anders T�rlind Actually, the Montreal metro was the first metro in the world to run entirely on rubber tires. - user:Montrealais :Yes, Paris developed the rubber-tyred technique, but never applied it to all the lines of the Metro. User:Arwel Parry ---- Why all the translations (Spoorweg etc.): wikipedia is not a phrase book? --- Did the introduction of flanged wheels reduce friction ? ---- ''Russia has broad gauge railroads with the original intent to make it difficult for invaders to use them.'' This is not true, see http://rrh.agava.ru/history/chapter8.htm (in russian). Shortly, the broad gauge is better for construction of locomotive, and when the first russian railway has been started to build (1842) there was no standard gauge at all. :Standard gauge only developed over time -- most engineers used Stephenson's 4ft 8.5in (1439mm) gauge, but even in Britain Brunel built his railways to 7ft 0.25in (not fully converted to standard gauge until 1894, I think), while Irish standard gauge was and still is 5ft 3in. This had consequences elsewhere - the supervising engineer when the railways in New South Wales were built was English, while his equivalent in Victoria was Irish, and they built their railways to their home gauges with the result that the first passenger train to run between Sydney and Melbourne didn't run until 1960! User:Arwel Parry :That was not the only issue as between New South Wales and Victoria. The former had more need to cope with winding, twisty terrain since the population centres were hemmed in by a mountain range (using the term "mountain" loosely). But Victoria got better results in most places by optimising for long straight hauls in fairly level country. BTW, does anybody want the Australian Railway Historical Society (Victoria) link? PML. ---- ''An example is that goods from east Asia that are bound for Europe will often be shipped across the Pacific and transferred to trains to cross North America and be transferred back to a ship for the Atlantic crossing.'' :Looks like a detour, is the westward route not more common? - User:Patrick 08:35 Apr 18, 2003 (UTC) ------ What if we move this to "Rail transport"? (currently a redirect to here) I think it's a more neutral term, familiar to people who use "railroad" or "railway" --- User:Tarquin 10:17 Apr 18, 2003 (UTC) :I moved the contents from Railroad to Rail transport. It was the result of merging, so for the history, see both - User:Patrick 10:55 Apr 18, 2003 (UTC) ---- The (otherwise great) image is too wide for placement at the side of the article. Could the person who added it please crop it or shrink it according to the Wikipedia:image use policy. --User:Robert Merkel 22:38 15 Jul 2003 (UTC) Is this an improvement User:G-Man 17:40 16 Jul 2003 (UTC) :It's a better size, certainly. I dunno whether the crop is in quite the right place, though (maybe more of the front of the train and less of the platform). --User:Robert Merkel 02:39 17 Jul 2003 (UTC) ---- ''Nevertheless, it still only requires about 10% as much energy to move good by rail as by road).'' Does anyone have a source to back this claim up?. I read somewhere that the figure was closer to 30-50%. By-the-way what does everyone think of the pic of the tracks I put up. User:G-Man 23:42 21 Jul 2003 (UTC) ==Figures== Is it really neccessary to have the rail usership figures for every single country, wouldn't it be better just to have a few example countries. At present it looks overly long and cluttered User:G-Man 17:58, 6 Sep 2003 (UTC) :I think these are interesting figures, but we could move them to a separate page. - User:Patrick 19:33, 6 Sep 2003 (UTC) ---- I've started a new WikiProject: Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains. I'm inviting all Wikipedians who are interested in trains and railways to take a look and decide if they want to get this going. Thanks, User:Morven 23:36, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC) == Historic Railway Networks? == I am missing information of how the Railway Network was shaped in the past. How did the Railway Network grow? Are there any maps available?

Rail transport

A railway or railroad is a guided means of land transport, designed to be used by trains, for transporting both passengers and freight. It consists of two parallel rails, usually made of steel, and wooden or concrete sleepers or ties that hold the rails exactly at the proper distance from each other. ''See Rail tracks'' Transportation Commercial item transport and distribution

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