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Books > Professional & Technical > Transport technology > Railway technology & engineering
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.
This concise look at the locomotive company Robert Stephenson &
Co from 1823 to 1923 by J. G. Warren provides a unique history of
the locomotive industry as it came to be built. He includes details
such as letters, diagrams, photos, pictures and tables to give a
full understanding of that century of progression.
A history and glimpse into the various uses and types of the LMS
Wagon as compiled by R J Essery and K R Morgan. The book includes
tables, photographs and diagrams, as well as providing details of
the colour of the wagons alongside the black and white photography.
A collection of the Great Western Railway: Names, Numbers, Types
and Classes book editions spanning the middle of the 20th century
from the detailed work of W. G. Chapman.
J. W. P. Rowledge looks at the development and intricacies of the
L.M.S Pacifics using detailed tables, diagrams and photographs.
New sources of crude oil from North Dakota, Texas, and western
Canada have induced new routes for shipping crude oil to U.S. and
Canadian refineries. While pipelines have traditionally been the
preferred method of moving crude overland, they either are not
available or have insufficient capacity to move all the crude from
these locations. While rail has picked up some of this cargo,
barges, and to a lesser extent tankers, also are moving increasing
amounts of crude in domestic trade. This book discusses the
Waterborne and rail transport of United States crude oil.
R. P. Bradley's look at the design and performance of London and
North Eastern Railway (LNER) 4-6-0s locomotives containing useful
tables, diagrams and photographs.
David Mosley and Peter van Zeller explain the history and
development of fifteen inch gauge railways as well as looking at
the set up of miniature railways with the use of photographs and
diagrams.
In late nineteenth-century Mexico the Mexican populace was
fascinated with the country's booming railroad network. Newspapers
and periodicals were filled with art, poetry, literature, and
social commentaries exploring the symbolic power of the railroad.
As a symbol of economic, political, and industrial modernization,
the locomotive served to demarcate a nation's status in the world.
However, the dangers of locomotive travel, complicated by the fact
that Mexico's railroads were foreign owned and operated, meant that
the railroad could also symbolize disorder, death, and foreign
domination.
In "The Civilizing Machine" Michael Matthews explores the
ideological and cultural milieu that shaped the Mexican people's
understanding of technology. Intrinsically tied to the Porfiriato,
the thirty-five-year dictatorship of Gen. Porfirio Diaz, the
booming railroad network represented material progress in a country
seeking its place in the modern world. Matthews discloses how the
railroad's development represented the crowning achievement of the
regime and the material incarnation of its mantra, "order and
progress." The Porfirian administration evoked the railroad in
legitimizing and justifying its own reign, while political
opponents employed the same rhetorical themes embodied by the
railroads to challenge the manner in which that regime achieved
economic development and modernization. As Matthews illustrates,
the multiple symbols of the locomotive reflected deepening social
divisions and foreshadowed the conflicts that eventually brought
about the Mexican Revolution.
One of America's foremost civil engineers of the past 150 years,
John Frank Stevens was a railway reconnaissance and location
engineer whose reputation was made on the Canadian Pacific and
Great Northern lines. Self-taught and driven by a bulldog tenacity
of purpose, he was hired by Theodore Roosevelt as chief engineer of
the Panama Canal, creating a technical achievement far ahead of its
time. Stevens also served for more than five years as the head of
the US Advisory Commission of Railway Experts to Russia and as a
consultant who contributed to many engineering feats, including the
control of the Mississippi River after the disastrous floods of
1927 and construction of the Boulder (Hoover) Dam. Drawing on
Stevens s surviving personal papers and materials from projects
with which he was associated, Clifford Foust offers an illuminating
look into the life of an accomplished civil engineer."
THIS standard treatise on mechanical railway signalling by Leonard
Lewis was written at the turn of the twentieth century. Originally
published in 1910 as Railway Signal Engineering (Mechanical), a
second edition followed in 1912. A third edition, revised and
enlarged by J. H. Fraser, appeared in 1932. Since its original
publication, now more than 100 years ago, much if not all of the
mechanisms and practices described and illustrated have disappeared
from the modern high-speed railways of Britain and the rest of the
world. In his preface to the first edition, Lewis wrote that he
intended the book to be '... suitable for men who are engaged in
railway work, but not necessarily in connection with the Signalling
Engineer's Department.' Today, such men no longer have any
professional interest in what to them is now archaic and
superseded. However, with the popular growth of preserved heritage
railways, and the dedicated reconstruction and re-creation of many
railway artefacts by enthusiasts, it is no longer possible to state
categorically that any particular mechanism or operating procedure
described in the book is extinct. Although they may have
disappeared from modern railways in the electronic and computer
controlled age, original or replica items or otherwise obsolete
methods of working may well be in regular use on preserved branch
line railways or be on display in railway museums. Herein lies the
main inspiration for this new edition at the start of the twenty
first century. Lewis's book, once describing the very cutting edge
of railway technology, has become with the passage of time a
valuable work of history. Nevertheless, its contents may still be
very relevant and of inestimable value to those responsible for the
maintenance and operation of precious and irreplaceable signalling
equipment on preserved steam and diesel railways, wheresoever those
lines might be. Again, the ever growing band of collectors and
restorers of old signalling equipment will find the technical
material in these pages of more than passing interest. Likewise,
enthusiasts viewing the artefacts on display in railway museums
might find that this volume can usefully supplement the information
provided in simplified guide books and explanatory leaflets.
Railway Signal Engineering (Mechanical) is long out of print. The
present derivative work is based on the 1932 edition and non of
Lewis's original text, nor that later added by Fraser, has been
omitted from this reprint. It is in every word as the original,
except for a few minor corrections and one important detail. That
is, the captions to some of the drawings have been amended to more
accurately reflect the intent of the illustration, than did Lewis's
original captions. Also note that no illustrations have been
omitted, although a few have been added. However, as the most
cursory glance through the book pages will show, all the
illustrations have been redrawn, in many cases substituting more
realistic depictions of signals and mechanisms for the sometimes
rather crude sketches in the original. Most notably, colour has
been used, not only to provide a more visually appealing book for
the enthusiast and the historian, but also in the hope that it adds
somewhat to the understanding of technical descriptions and of the
illustrations themselves.
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