Railways: Mechanical Engineering

The book I read to research this post was Railways: Mechanical Engineering by JB Snell which is a very good book that I bought at a local secondhand bookstore. This book is around 170 pages so is a reasonable length and was published in 1971 so is probably out of date publication wise. It is a carefully written guide to the workings and technologies of steam trains. The lathe apparently despite following simple principles was only developed in the 19th century and before that was turner which were about as precise as a potters wheel. In early steam trains the cylinders had to be arranged to balance the load from each other so that as one hit an idle stroke another would be at the power stroke. There was a simple remedy which was the weighted flywheel. Prior to this engines had to be well off the ground because cylinders would have to start below the camshaft. Another development was changing from a single boiler which got too hot to lots of pipes which conveyed the pressure more efficiently. Especially as engines got longer and more powerful the single boilers days were numbered although George Stephenson who built the first commercial steam train The Rocket was a firm stickler to this old technology. Heating in carriages took a long time to be able to be implemented economically. Queen Victoria had an early heated carriage as well as flushing toilet. Passengers were usually given a hot water bottle at the station on cold days and the trains were notorious for being cold to travel on. Very early trains had wooden wheels and even tracks that wore out quickly mostly on mining railways. Later on iron wheels, then flanged wheels and steel wheels were developed which wore out less frequently. Prior to flanged wheels they relied on weighted wheels providing traction and keeping them on the rails. The Rocket’s driven wheels weighed 2  1/4 tons each.  I did enjoy this book and it is certainly an interesting subject.

The British Railways

The book I read to research this post was The Official British Rail Book Of Trains For Young People by Michael Bowler which is a very good book that I bought from a local secondhand bookstore. This book was published in 1985 so is quite old and only goes up to the HST & APT trains which did revolutionize the British railway network. The book is only around 160 pages so is quite short but I found it quite helphful in explaining a lot of things about the history of the railways in a easy to understand way. Britain of course is the original home of railways which were fed by the advances in the Industrial revolution. The Rocket built by George Stephenson was the first steam train to see regular service on the Stockton to Darlington line. They held a competition where the competitors had to go round a circuit 10 times which equalled the distance of the planned railway. The Rocket was the only one to complete it in the allotted time.  The Rocket was the first engine to use lots of small pipes instead of one big pipe to maximize the steam pressure. Britain is also the inventor of the Express Service and there originally was a service on the GWR from Cheltenham to London. The GWR had the fastest steam locomives in the world for many years. When the idea of express trains caught on The Mallard a Duchess class steam locomotive held the fastest train in the world record for many years. It still holds the record for fastest steam locomotive ever. It was also the fastest British train till the advent of the HST’s in the 80’s. I really enjoyed this book and I think if you see it for sale secondhand is a definite must buy.

Eurostar

The book I read to research this post was From the Footplate: Eurostar by Peter Waller which is an excellent book that I bought from a local secondhand bookstore. This book is quite succinct at around 110 pages and much of that is photos but what information there is, is quite interesting. It was also published in 1998 so some stuff might be a bit dated. The Eurostar was built by a French, Belgian and British consortium overseen by GEC-Alsthom with various contractors in the 3 countries. Much of the British work was done at Washwood Heath in Birmingham which I think also did work on the Pendolino’s used by Virgin Rail for high speed cross country travel in Britain. The Eurostar is essentially a form of TGV but is one of the most technologically advanced trains in the world largely because it has to handle 3 sets of voltages in the 3 countries. The supply inside the Chunnel itself is 25 KV the same as in France. All 3 countries have intermediate towns for people not travelling to either London, Brussels or Paris. The 3 destinations it travels between. Of course in Europe there is an extensive TGV network. The intermediate stations are Ashford in Britain, Calais in France & Lille in Belgium. In Belgium & France they have built dedicated high speed line with the result it can go faster. In Britain various work has been done including a cross train train route through London for conventional trains and a new station called St. Pancras International for Eurostar passengers. Previously the trains left from Waterloo but the line overall the Eurostar travels on is slower than on the continent. I think when they upgrade the line for faster speeds the main consideration is allowing for the drivers reaction time to signals at these higher speeds. Obviously he has less time to react and they have to be placed further from where he must stop. The Eurostar cab has no side windows and the driver is centrally located to prevent him becoming disoriented by things passing by the side of him. This is especially the case in the Chunnel. The drivers also had to learn the routes and the systems used in the other 2 countries which was a steep learning curve. I really enjoyed this book and would wholeheartedly recommend it.

The London Underground

The book I read to research this post was Down The Tube by Christian Wolmar which is a very good book which I bought from kindle. This book is about the London Underground System  and was written in 2002 so probably doesn’t have the latest information. They were introducing the idea of drivers who just operated the doors to re assure the public they were safe and trains moved and stopped automatically. Nowadays they are some trains that don’t have a driver at all. There also was a line built to Heathrow Airport & talk of building a line to Canary Wharf & the Docklands. The book starts by looking at Camden Town station which has a popular market and has seen visitors increase dramatically. The Underground System in general is getting much more popular with travelcards which let you travel anywhere for a flat fee. Bromley which doesn’t have an Underground System took the GLC to court over the travelcards and won its case meaning they had to scale back the sale of them. Camden Town has a portion of the station that’s disused and also a disused line to Aldwych & London Transport are only too happy to show anybody round although only on request. It is part of their public relations programme. There are rooms filled with machinery that it would be too costly to remove and the ceilings are quite low as people tended to be shorter in those days. Christian is one of the most popular railway authors and fairly recently one of his books topped the History Chart on Amazon which is unusual for a railway book. He is a consistently good writer and I have read several books by him which I have enjoyed. It would be interesting if he updates this book to see what new developments have taken place. I did see a tv programme a couple of days ago that argued London swallows up far too much money developing its transport infrastructure and that it would be fairer to spend more money on other areas of Britain and help them catch up. Apparently they spend £5,000 per head in London and on average £700 elsewhere.

 

 

The Shinkansen

The book I read to research this post was Shinkansen which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. The bullet train or shinkansen was first built in 1964 and at the time was the most advanced high speed train in the world. The first line built was the Hokkaido line part of which links Osaka with Tokyo and it rather famously goes past Mount Fujiyama. The bullet train is quite possibly the most iconic thing in Japanese culture. There are nowadays quite an extensive network of these trains and they are rarely more than a minute late. Funnily enough the conventional trains do sometimes run late and of course stop at more stations. Even at level crossings bullet trains travel at 160 kmph and on high speed stretches do 300 kmph. As the bullet trains are decommissioned and replaced they are mostly sent to Taiwan where they comprise a high speed network. They have the longest land tunnel in the world on a stretch of track for this train. Announcements on the trains are normally made in English. Shinkansen to the Japanese refers to the railway as well as the train. There are many railway companies in Japan and they usually make money from alternate sources in addition to trains. I really enjoyed this book and one thing I would mention is there is a complete bullet train on display at the National Railway Museum at Shilton, Durham, England and they have free admission.