Measured geodesic laminations are a natural generalization of simple closed curves in surfaces, and they play a decisive role in various developments in two-and three-dimensional topology, geometry, and dynamical systems. This book presents a self-contained and comprehensive treatment of the rich combinatorial structure of the space of measured geodesic laminations in a fixed surface. Families of measured geodesic laminations are described by specifying a train track in the surface, and the space of measured geodesic laminations is analyzed by studying properties of train tracks in the surface. The material is developed from first principles, the techniques employed are essentially combinatorial, and only a minimal background is required on the part of the reader. Specifically, familiarity with elementary differential topology and hyperbolic geometry is assumed. The first chapter treats the basic theory of train tracks as discovered by W. P. Thurston, including recurrence, transverse recurrence, and the explicit construction of a measured geodesic lamination from a measured train track. The subsequent chapters develop certain material from R. C. Penner's thesis, including a natural equivalence relation on measured train tracks and standard models for the equivalence classes (which are used to analyze the topology and geometry of the space of measured geodesic laminations), a duality between transverse and tangential structures on a train track, and the explicit computation of the action of the mapping class group on the space of measured geodesic laminations in the surface.

This book discusses the Shinkansen, the world's first high-speed railway, which was born in Japan in 1964 and how it has developed up to the present day. In the 1950s, some European railways were trying to increase the commercial operating speed up to 160 km/h, and it was considered difficult to raise it to 200 km/h. Japanese engineers with excellent engineering ability post World War ll moved from the military to the railways to overcome the technological challenges realizing the high-speed railways using new approaches. The book discusses the technological barriers in speeding up the railway at that time and how these engineers overcame them in non-computer days. In the five decades since the Shinkansen began operating, there have been significant developments enabling high-speed, safe, and frequent train operation with high punctuality while conserving the environment. The book also describes today's highly evolved Shinkansen. The Shinkansen, which runs 440,000 km a day, has carried 13.3 billion people without a single fatality in 56 years. The book overviews factors that contributed to the Shinkansen's high safety record. This book is an excellent guide for those interested in the history of the world's first high-speed railway.

Bruno Latour has written a unique and wonderful tale of a technological dream gone wrong. The story of the birth and death of Aramis-the guided-transportation system intended for Paris-is told in this thought-provoking and fictional account by several different parties: an engineer and his professor; company executives and elected officials; a sociologist; and finally Aramis itself, who delivers a passionate plea on behalf of technological innovations that risk being abandoned by their makers. As the young engineer and professor follow Aramis's trail-conducting interviews, analyzing documents, assessing the evidence-perspectives keep shifting: the truth is revealed as multilayered, unascertainable, comprising an array of possibilities worthy of Rashomon. This charming and profound book, part novel and part sociological study, is Latour at his thought-provoking best.

Super-Speed Rail (SSR) system is the fifth mode of transportation after ships, trains, automobiles and aircrafts, featuring characteristics of ultra-high-speed (1000-2000 km/h), high safety, low energy consumption, low noise, no vibration, no pollution and so on.This unique compendium analyzes its operation principle, system architecture and attribute characteristics, discusses its feasibility, and discusses the global integration issues in the SSR environment.The useful reference text highlights terminologies and principles of SSR. It's a comprehensive analysis of the past, present and future of SSR from the system engineering point of view. Thereby, the novel book plays a leading role in the development of SSR worldwide.

In late nineteenth and early twentieth century Britain, there was widespread fascination with the technological transformations wrought by modernity. Films, newspapers and literature told astonishing stories about technology, such as locomotives breaking speed records and moving images seemingly springing into life onscreen. And, whether in films about train travel, or in newspaper articles about movie theatres on trains, stories about the convergence of the railway and cinema were especially prominent. Together, the two technologies radically transformed how people interacted with the world around them, and became crucial to how British media reflected the nation's modernity and changing role within the empire. Rebecca Harrison draws on archival sources and an extensive corpus of films to trace the intertwined histories of the train and the screen for the first time. In doing so, she presents a new and illuminating material and cultural history of the period, and demonstrates the myriad ways railways and cinema coalesced to transform the population's everyday life. With examples taken from more than 240 newsreels and 40 feature-length films, From Steam to Screen is essential reading for students and researchers working on film studies and British history at the turn of the century and beyond.

This is a new biography of two great British engineering pioneers, who did much to develop the world we now live in. George and Robert Stephenson, were at the forefront of early railways and were at the cutting edge of modern engineering history. Industrial historian Anthony Burton looks into these two giants of the late Georgian and early Victorian age, who were responsible for the development of much of the early railway map in both Britain and other parts of the world. The work examines the lives of the two men and their ability to overcome some of the most pressing engineering problems of their time. This is a new work, with newly researched material published here for the first time, which take a fresh look at both pioneering engineers and their achievements.

In today's maturing railway industry, the key to getting - and staying - ahead is to keep up with the latest developments across all sectors involved in railway technology. There is pressure upon the rail industry to deliver more customer benefits, with greater cost-effectiveness, faster - whether that customer has freight interests or is a passenger. The demands being made on the rail networks is steadily increasing and manufacturers are being pushed to produce higher speed, higher load, rolling stock while considering stringent safety conditions. "Railway Rolling Stock" brings together contributions from all areas of the rail industry and academia and offers the opportunity to see the most up-to-date information and technological advances from experts in the field. This extensive collection of papers covers such topics as: the passenger environment; rolling stock reliability and maintenance; technology and developments in rolling stock; and wheels and brakes. "Railway Rolling Stock" should be of great interest to all those engineering managers, contractors, engineers and consultants, involved in any aspect of railway technology.

Forbidding canyons, raging rapids and menacing rocks--this was the daily challenge that faced whitewater men who worked the wild rivers and creeks to bring freight and supplies to northern BC in the years before the Grand Trunk Railway. In particular, the Grand Canyon of British Columbia's Fraser River was infamous for swallowing at least 200 luckless occupants of rafts and small craft between the years 1862-1921. "Sternwheelers and Canyon Cats: Whitewater Freighting on the Upper Fraser" is the story of the "Canyon Cats" who made their living running the Grand Canyon and other equally dangerous waterways; men such as George Williams, affectionately known to his peers as "The Wizard of the River," and Frank Freeman, a powder expert who tamed the wildest water by blowing out many of the worst boulders and logjams thereby allowing safer passage for the scows, sternwheelers, rafts and boats that travelled the murky river.
A total of twelve steamers worked the upper Fraser River during the period 1862-1921 and the dangers faced by these vessels and their steel-nerved captains are legend. It was a perilous existence hauling supplies to the isolated construction camps of the GTP Railroad and in retrospect it seems ironic that these steamers were made obsolete by this same railway upon its completion. "Sternwheelers and Canyon Cats: Whitewater Freighting on the Upper Fraser" is a chronicle of the men whose feats almost defy belief and whose contribution to BC history has gone long unrecognized.

The accomplishments, and initiatives, both social and economic, of Edward Watkin are almost too many to relate. Though generally known for his large-scale railway projects, becoming chairman of nine different British railway companies as well as developing railways in Canada, the USA, Greece, India and the Belgian Congo, he was also responsible for a stream of remarkable projects in the nineteenth century which helped shape people's lives inside and outside Britain. As well as holding senior positions with the London and North Western Railway, the Worcester and Hereford Railway and the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway, Watkin became president of the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada. He was also director of the New York, Lake Erie and Western Railways, as well as the Athens-Piraeus Railway. Watkin was also the driving force in the creation of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway's 'London Extension' - the Great Central Main Line down to Marylebone in London. This, though, was only one part of his great ambition to have a high-speed rail link from Manchester to Paris and ultimately to India. This, of course, involved the construction of a Channel tunnel. Work on this began on both sides of the Channel in 1880 but had to be abandoned due to the fear of invasion from the Continent. He also purchased an area of Wembley Park, serviced by an extension of his Metropolitan Railway. He developed the park into a pleasure and events destination for urban Londoners, which later became the site of Wembley Stadium. It was also the site of another of Watkin's enterprises, the 'Great Tower in London' which was designed to be higher than the Eiffel Tower but was never completed. Little, though, is known about Watkin's personal life, which is explored here through the surviving diaries he kept. The author, who is the chair of The Watkin Society, which aims to promote Watkin's life and achievements, has delved into the mind of one of the nineteenth century's outstanding individuals.

A comprehensive introduction to the theory and practice of contemporary data science analysis for railway track engineering Featuring a practical introduction to state-of-the-art data analysis for railway track engineering, Big Data and Differential Privacy: Analysis Strategies for Railway Track Engineering addresses common issues with the implementation of big data applications while exploring the limitations, advantages, and disadvantages of more conventional methods. In addition, the book provides a unifying approach to analyzing large volumes of data in railway track engineering using an array of proven methods and software technologies. Dr. Attoh-Okine considers some of today s most notable applications and implementations and highlights when a particular method or algorithm is most appropriate. Throughout, the book presents numerous real-world examples to illustrate the latest railway engineering big data applications of predictive analytics, such as the Union Pacific Railroad s use of big data to reduce train derailments, increase the velocity of shipments, and reduce emissions. In addition to providing an overview of the latest software tools used to analyze the large amount of data obtained by railways, Big Data and Differential Privacy: Analysis Strategies for Railway Track Engineering: Features a unified framework for handling large volumes of data in railway track engineering using predictive analytics, machine learning, and data mining Explores issues of big data and differential privacy and discusses the various advantages and disadvantages of more conventional data analysis techniques Implements big data applications while addressing common issues in railway track maintenance Explores the advantages and pitfalls of data analysis software such as R and Spark, as well as the Apache Hadoop(R) data collection database and its popular implementation MapReduce Big Data and Differential Privacy is a valuable resource for researchers and professionals in transportation science, railway track engineering, design engineering, operations research, and railway planning and management. The book is also appropriate for graduate courses on data analysis and data mining, transportation science, operations research, and infrastructure management. NII ATTOH-OKINE, PhD, PE is Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Delaware. The author of over 70 journal articles, his main areas of research include big data and data science; computational intelligence; graphical models and belief functions; civil infrastructure systems; image and signal processing; resilience engineering; and railway track analysis. Dr. Attoh-Okine has edited five books in the areas of computational intelligence, infrastructure systems and has served as an Associate Editor of various ASCE and IEEE journals.

R. P. Bradley's findings on the GWR two cylinder 4-6-0s and 2-6-0s locomotive design and performance as presented with tables, diagrams and detailed tables.

O. S. Nock delves into the development of the precursor family of locomotives which, after struggling to meet demands in 1903, was divided into four distinct classes. This Nock approaches with detailed diagrams, tables and photographs from the period.

About 93 trains a day on average crossed into the continental United States from Canada and Mexico in 2014, according to U.S. Department of Transportation's (DOT) Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS). Trains enter and leave the United States through 30 port of entries (POEs) -- 23 on the northern border and 7 on the southern border. Although international freight rail plays an important role in U.S. economic and trade interests, the movement of rail through U.S. communities at the border can result in blocked highway-rail grade crossings and vehicle traffic congestion. This book describes the factors that affect the movement of freight rail and the actions taken by federal agencies and others to expedite freight rail in selected POEs; and examines what is known about the impacts of freight rail operations on highway-rail grade crossings in POE communities. Moreover, the book addresses recent changes in U.S. rail and truck freight flows and the extent to which related traffic congestion is reported to impact communities; and the extent to which DOTs efforts to implement Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) address freight-related traffic congestion in communities.