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Books > Sport & Leisure > Transport: general interest
Formula One is known for glitz and glamour, but lurking in the
background are dark, and sometimes deeply strange, goings on: sex
scandals with prison camp themes, Nigerian prince scams, protests
of its grands prix in countries known for their human rights
violations, tax evasion--the list goes on. These things often stay
in the background, thanks to efforts by the series to maintain an
opulent aura. But with the 2019 season came a force louder than
Formula One could dream of muffling: William Storey, the founder of
British startup Rich Energy. Storey became a multimillion-dollar
sponsor of the Haas Formula One Team a year after records showed
Rich Energy having a mere $770 in the bank, but that didn't matter.
Storey equated his doubters to moon-landing truthers and publicly
mocked entities winning legal disputes against him. In the six
months between Storey's first race as a Formula One sponsor and his
very public exit, he became the most visible part of the world's
most visible racing series, easily tearing down its red-carpet
facades with a loud mouth and an active Twitter account. Haas team
boss Guenther Steiner described the Rich Energy news cycle, as:
"I'm getting sick of answering these stupid fucking questions on a
race weekend. I've never seen any fucking thing like this." This
book is the fascinating, bizarre, and complete story.
Globally, we find ourselves in a novel set of circumstances where
our individual and collective relationships with leisure have
changed dramatically and are being dictated less by personal
preferences or even affluence, but rather by health, legal, and
societal factors. There is very little published work on changed
practices in leisure due to the pandemic, especially focusing on
activities that were previously considered ordinary and perhaps
even mundane. Contribute to the compilation of a historic record of
the way the pandemic has transformed various leisure behaviours in
diverse cultural and national contexts at this unprecedented time.
A family owned business specializing in light duty horse-drawn
carriages, buggies, and wagons, the McFarlan Company, like many
manufacturers of its era, entered the automobile industry soon
after the turn of the twentieth century. Instead of trying to
outproduce and outsell its competition, McFarlan catered to the
individual desires of an affluent clientele. For nearly 20 years,
McFarlan automobiles were recognized for their quality, custom
features, powerful engines, and enormous size. This full history
covers the company from start to finish, with emphasis on its
prestigious cars.
Topology Optimization in Engineering Structure Design explores the
recent advances and applications of topology optimization in
engineering structures design, with a particular focus on aircraft
and aerospace structural systems. To meet the increasingly complex
engineering challenges provided by rapid developments in these
industries, structural optimization techniques have developed in
conjunction with them over the past two decades. The latest methods
and theories to improve mechanical performances and save structural
weight under static, dynamic and thermal loads are summarized and
explained in detail here, in addition to potential applications of
topology optimization techniques such as shape preserving design,
smart structure design and additive manufacturing. These new design
strategies are illustrated by a host of worked examples, which are
inspired by real engineering situations, some of which have been
applied to practical structure design with significant effects.
Written from a forward-looking applied engineering perspective, the
authors not only summarize the latest developments in this field of
structure design but also provide both theoretical knowledge and a
practical guideline. This book should appeal to graduate students,
researchers and engineers, in detailing how to use topology
optimization methods to improve product design.
As World War II drew to a close, America's premier fire apparatus
builder--the American-LaFrance Foamite Corp. of Elmira, N.Y.--bet
the company's future on its radical new cab-ahead-of-engine 700
Series fire engines. In a spectacular gamble to capture the
superheated postwar market, all of the company's existing products
were discontinued and its customers were essentially told to "take
it or leave it." This bold gamble paid off and 700 Series rigs soon
filled firehouses across the nation, sweeping aside all competitors
and ultimately defining the breakthrough 700 as "America's Fire
Engine." This is the first comprehensive history of the
game-changing 700. Individual chapters detail not only each of the
eight major vehicle types but also the origins, design
controversies, manufacturing, and marketing of the 700 and
short-lived transitional 800 Series. The book includes a
meticulously researched registry of every 700/800 series apparatus
delivered, supported by many interpretive tables detailing
production, specifications and major fire department fleets.
From bestselling author, racer and stunt driver Ben Collins - the
man who was The Stig - comes a story of spies, speed and
hard-driving genius: a driver's love letter to one of the world's
best-loved machines. Aston Martin's first, wickedly fast models
were forged at a time when Ferrari's premises at Maranello was
nothing but a ploughed field. This book celebrates a century of
innovators who kept the fire burning brightly for over a century,
from the visionary pioneers Martin and Bamford to modern-day design
guru Adrian Newey; from a glamorous web of pre- and post-war spies
and racing drivers, to David Brown and the achingly beautiful DB
models beloved of Bonds past and present. Ben Collins explores the
car with the double-o prefix from a unique perspective behind the
wheel, carving through country lanes in his father's V8 Vantage,
driving Aston Martins in four James Bond movies and competing
against them in the legendary Le Mans 24-hour race. Ultimately,
this is a very British success story: of a triumph of engineering
that has burned brightly from the Roaring 20s to the 2020s, and an
iconic car that never says die.
Driverless cars are the future - just around the corner. That is
what the tech giants, the auto industry and even the government
want us to think. But closer inspection reveals that we are much
further from that driverless utopia than we are led to believe by
newspaper headlines and by the hype from firms with vested
interests. In a post-Covid-19 economic environment motor
manufacturers now face bigger problems. Christian Wolmar argues
that autonomous cars are the wrong solution to the wrong problem.
Even if the many technical difficulties that stand in the way of
achieving a driverless future can be surmounted, autonomous cars
are not the best way to address the problems of congestion and
pollution caused by our long obsession with the private car. This
entertaining polemic sets out the many technical, legal and moral
problems that obstruct the path to a driverless future, and debunks
many of the myths around that future's purported benefits.
The Nashville and Decatur Railroad was in operation five months
before the start of the Civil War and 17 months before the Federals
took control of Nashville and the railroad. Running through Central
Tennessee to Alabama, the highly contested line passed through
Confederate-held territory, where rebels and their sympathizers
continually sabotaged bridges, trestles and track. This first
full-length work on the N&D Railroad emphasizes its importance
in the Western Theater and brings to light the four key men who
kept it open for the duration of the war. Significant military
activities in the region are described, along with the contraband
camp, military complex and other features surrounding the
railroad's only tunnel.
This volume includes some very famous ships with tales of adventure
and new trade routes, also sadness, the launch and then the loss of
the largest sailing ship ever built in a British shipyard - the
five-masted auxiliary sailing barque, Kobenhavn. It recounts the
days when shipbuilding should have flourished and into the tough
times of the Great Depression. It remains a testimony to the skill
and determination of the people who built the ships and those who
served on them. The fortunes of the three main shipyards are
followed through good times to eventual closure or assimilation by
the man who would open up the shipyard that took his name. Henry
Robb Ltd, shipbuilders and engineers, began without a yard in which
to build ships, but eventually took over firstly the old S&H
Morton Shipyard, now occupied by Hawthorns & Co. Ltd. That gave
Robb control of the Victoria Shipyard, and a few years later he
would take over the Cran & Somerville yard, before acquiring
the plant and goodwill of the Ramage & Ferguson Shipyard - the
cream of the Leith shipyards. This last yard would always have a
ship on one of its slipways; at the peak they had nine slips, and
were pioneers in the building of diesel-powered coasters. Always
innovative and with some of the best craftsmen in the industry, the
shipyard of Henry Robb quickly acquired the reputation as builders
of special ships. Leith Shipyards 1918-1939 continues the
chronological story begun in Volume I and provides a fascinating
illustrated story that reveals the remarkable and ongoing story of
shipbuilding for which Scotland and the UK were renowned.
While the heroic exploits of 'The Few' of Fighter Command are
rightly lauded, those of 'The Many' of Bomber Command often remain
overlooked. Night after night, the bomber crews ranged across
Europe seeking out and attacking targets in an all-out effort to
undermine the German war effort against Britain and prevent
invasion. The Other Battle of Britain tells the stories of the
young men who carried out dangerous missions on a nightly basis,
battling against both the enemy and the elements, relying on a mix
of nerve, skills and luck to hit their target and make it home.
Faced with flak and fighters, exposed to the harsh weather
conditions and operating at the edge of their capabilities, for the
young men of Bomber Command, this was 'The Other Battle of
Britain'.
In the late nineteenth century, circus aerialists collaborated with
show balloonists to perform death-defying stunts, initially by
suspending themselves from trapeze bars beneath a balloon, later by
jumping from the balloons using fabric parachutes. By the 1890s,
these performances became a worldwide craze, remaining in rural
fairs and fetes for decades. Many of the original balloon-parachute
pioneers went on to play key roles in the creation of airships,
test flying the first gliders and airplanes. Based on extensive
historical research, this unusual account explores how a
nineteenth-century daredevil act united with the desire to achieve
human flight. These performers' contributions did not come without
a price: dozens, if not hundreds, of people died in horrifying
events witnessed by thousands of spectators. This book chronicles
the act that had no practical purpose other than entertainment,
which eventually evolved into the development of the free-fall
parachute pack--a key aviation need--and the foundation of a new
activity known as skydiving.
The Mobile & Ohio Railroad was the longest line in the nation
when it was completed in spring of 1861--the final spike driven a
few weeks after Confederate artillery shelled Fort Sumter. Within
days, the M&O was swept up in the Civil War as a prime conveyor
of troops and supplies, a strategic and tactical asset to both
Confederate and Union armies, who fought to control it. Its
northern terminus at Columbus, Kentucky saw some of the earliest
fighting in the war. The southern terminus in Mobile, Alabama was
the scene of some of the last. U. S. Grant, William T. Sherman,
Nathan Bedford Forrest, Newton Knight of the "Free State of Jones"
and others battled over the M&O, the Federals taking it
mile-by-mile. This book chronicles the campaigns and battles for
the railroad and the calamity endured by the civilians who lived
along it.
In Titanic Tragedy maritime historian John Maxtone-Graham documents
the vessel's design, construction, and departure from Southampton,
her passengers' lifeboat ordeal, their Carpathia rescue, the role
of new technologies, and memorials to her crew. He describes
poignantly the performance of her eight gallant bandsmen who played
on deck to the very end; none survived. Added historical bonuses
include seven letters, ostensibly from a Titanic passenger. In
fact, they were written by one of America's most eminent
historians, Walter Lord, author of the seminal A Night to Remember
of 1955. His devastating parodies about life aboard the doomed ship
appear here in print for the first time.
The modern lobster boat has evolved slowly over decades to become
the craft it is today: seaworthy, strong, fast, and trusted
implicitly by the lobstermen and women to get the job done and get
them home, each and every time, through the most terrifying--and
sometimes life-threatening--conditions that the sea can dish up.
"Where do lobster boats come from?" "What is the origin of their
design?" "Who builds them?" "How do they work?" The story of the
Maine lobster boat needs to be told--before the storied history of
this iconic American craft slips away forever into the past, on the
heels of what may be the last surviving traditional lobster boat
builders. Filled with colorful characters, old maritime tales, and
fascinating details, this a definitive look at the origins and lore
of Maine's most ubiquitous vessel.
Night trains have long fascinated us with the possibilities of their private sleeping compartments, gilded dining cars, champagne bars and wealthy travellers. Authors from Agatha Christie to Graham Greene have used night trains to tell tales of romance, intrigue and decadence against a rolling background of dramatic landscapes. The reality could often be as thrilling: early British travellers on the Orient Express were advised to carry a revolver (as well as a teapot).
In Night Trains, Andrew Martin attempts to relive the golden age of the great European sleeper trains by using their modern-day equivalents. This is no simple matter. The night trains have fallen on hard times, and the services are disappearing one by one. But if the Orient Express experience can only be recreated by taking three separate sleepers, the intriguing characters and exotic atmospheres have survived. Whether the backdrop is 3am at a Turkish customs post, the sun rising over the Riviera, or the constant twilight of a Norwegian summer night, Martin rediscovers the pleasures of a continent connected by rail. By tracing the history of the sleeper trains, he reveals much of the recent history of Europe itself. The original sleepers helped break down national barriers and unify the continent. Martin uncovers modern instances of European unity - and otherwise - as he traverses the continent during 'interesting times', with Brexit looming. Against this tumultuous backdrop, he experiences his own smaller dramas, as he fails to find crucial connecting stations, ponders the mystery of the compartment dog, and becomes embroiled in his very own night train whodunit.
This book explores the phenomenal resources dedicated to
understanding and encouraging passengers to consume travel from
1900 to 1939, analysing how place and travel were presented for
sale. Using the Great Western Railway as a chief case study, as
well as a range of its competitors both on and off the rails,
Alexander Medcalf unravels the complex and ever-changing processes
behind corporate sales communications. This volume analyses exactly
how the company pictured passengers in the countryside, at the
seaside, in the urban landscape and in the company's vehicles. This
thematic approach brings transport and business history thoroughly
in line with tourism and leisure history as well as studies in
visual culture.
A classic by Edward Rowe Snow, first published in 1943 and updated
in 1944 and again in 1946, Storms and Shipwrecks of New England
relates what William P. Quinn calls ""stories of stormy
adventure."" Jeremy D'Entremont has provided annotations to Snow's
chapters, covering the pirate ship Whidah, the wreck of the City of
Columbus, the Portland Gale, the 1938 hurricane, and more, bringing
the information about the storms and shipwrecks up to date.
This field guide gives the reader access to the largest parts store
in the world for 1946-1948 Dodge Deluxe and Custom D24 models, with
information from more than 200 aftermarket catalogs for Dodge parts
made in the U.S.A. On-the-spot identification is made possible by
part number listings, separating D24 parts from thousands of
similar ones. Line drawings adapted from factory literature,
brochures and advertisements illustrate the key features and
details of parts as they would be found at swap meets or flea
markets. Using this book in combination with the Internet,
parts-hunters can quickly identify and acquire what they need
online.
This is the first book to provide a comprehensive account of
cultural and heritage tourism in the Middle East and North Africa
(MENA) region and the many complexities that heritage sites and
tourist attractions face. The MENA region has long been regarded as
the cradle of Western and Arab civilisation and is the home of many
of the world's major religions. Because of this, the region is rich
in heritage sites that serve as major tourist attractions and as
icons of national, cultural and religious identity. However, as
this book examines, heritage in the region is simultaneously highly
contested and has even become a target for terrorism creating a
situation that brought major challenges for heritage management and
sustainable tourism development. Many of the region's innumerable
cultural sites are threatened, in some cases by overuse, in others
by neglect and, in many, simply by the pressures of economic
development. This book is therefore of interest not only to
heritage managers and policy makers but those academics who seek to
address the delicate balance between tourism development,
communities and the tourists who visit such sites in a turbulent
but highly significant region of the world.
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