United States or Croatia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The 8:45 A.M. train from Brighton has grown to be one of the heaviest fast trains in the kingdom, although the distance it runs is but very short, while it is also exceptional in consisting entirely of first class coaches, and the passengers mainly season ticket holders; it often weighs in the gross 350 tons, and to take this weight at a mean speed of forty-five to fifty miles an hour over gradients of 1 in 264 is no light work.
Yet here and there that lack of enterprise which seems to characterise the Dutch farmer is easily noticeable. Irrigation is sadly neglected and hundreds of acres which with a little care and outlay would grow excellent crops are still unproductive. Soon after leaving Worcester the line rises by steep gradients nearly 2,500 feet.
But in Mysore the necessity of providing shade for the coffee gives us at once an additional and highly complicated business in the planting and management of the shade trees, and their selection and distribution to suit the various soils, aspects and gradients we have to deal with.
The same engine was employed throughout the run, occupying in all nearly three weeks, making an average for each week day of about 50 miles. The line is divided into four divisions, varying considerably in respect of gradients, and the utmost load the engine could draw was taken in both directions over each division. The maximum inclinations were 1 in 88.
While Hugh Henfrey was travelling along that winding road over high headlands and down steep gradients to the sea which stretched the whole length of the Italian Riviera, Dorise Ranscomb in a white silk domino and black velvet mask was pretending to enjoy herself amid the mad gaiety at the Casino in Nice.
In some places the gradients are slight, bridges few, and cuttings, etcetera, insignificant; but in other places the reverse is emphatically the case, and costly laborious works have to be undertaken. One such work, which occurred at the very opening of our railway system in 1828, was the bridging of the Chat Moss, on the Liverpool and Manchester line.
He never forgot the valuable practical lesson taught him by the early trials which he had made and registered long before the advantages of railways had been recognised. He saw clearly that the longer flat line must eventually prove superior to the shorter line of steep gradients as respected its paying qualities.
Amongst other transactions, I had been induced by my old fiend Cutts, now in practice as an independent engineer, to apply for a large allocation of shares in the Slopperton Valley, a very spirited undertaking, for which the Saxon was engaged to invent the gradients.
The gradients are easy, and the curves obtuse. There are no viaducts of any importance, and only four tunnels along the whole length of the line. The shortest of these does not exceed a mile and a half.
Or they may find it answer to cut fares, widen their gauges, reduce their gradients, modify their points and curves, and woo the passenger back with carriages beautifully hung and sumptuously furnished, and all the convenience and luxury of a club. Few people would mind being an hour or so longer going to Paris from London, if the railway travelling was neither rackety, cramped, nor tedious.
Word Of The Day