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BREL Products
British Rail Engineering Limited (BREL) was the rolling stock manufacturing and maintenance subsidiary of British Rail. It was established on 1 January 1970 by the British Railways Board to operate its 14 rolling stock maintenance centres and to provide construction, maintenance, and repair services to Britain’s railways. A key activity of BREL was the manufacturing of new rolling stock, such as the InterCity 125 trainset, the Mark 3 carriage, and the British Rail Class 58 freight locomotive. Both domestic and international sales were pursued; rolling stock produced by BREL was exported to various nations, including Ireland, Kenya, Gabon, Taiwan, Sweden, Malaysia, Yugoslavia, Thailand, and Bangladesh. Numerous projects were undertaken on a collaborative basis with private sector manufacturers, including Brush Traction, Metro-Cammell, and Metropolitan-Vickers. BREL also built numerous prototype rail vehicles, such as the Class 140 and Class 210 DEMUs and the experimental hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Privatisation Of British Rail
The privatisation of British Rail was the process by which ownership and operation of the Rail transport in Great Britain, railways of Great Britain passed from government control into private hands. Begun in 1994, the process was largely completed by 1997. The deregulation of the industry was in part motivated by the enactment of EU Directive 91/440 in 1991, which aimed to create a more efficient railway network by creating greater competition. British Railways (BR) had been in state ownership since 1948, under the control of the British Railways Board (BRB). Under the Conservative Party (UK), Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher elected in 1979, various state-owned businesses were gradually sold off, including various auxiliary and supporting functions related to the railways – Sealink ferries and British Transport Hotels by 1984, Travellers Fare catering by 1988 and British Rail Engineering Limited (train manufacturing) by 1989. It was under Thatcher's successor Jo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brush Traction
Brush Traction was a manufacturer and maintainer of railway locomotives in Loughborough, England whose operations have now been merged into the Wabtec company's Doncaster UK operations. History Hughes' Locomotive & Tramway Engine Works Henry Hughes had been operating at the Falcon Works since the 1850s, producing items such as brass and iron cast parts for portable engines and thrashing machines. In 1860 Henry Hughes announced he had entered into a partnership with William March who had extensive experience in the timber trade, and this would be added to the existing business of "engineers and manufacturers of railway plant", with the business to be called Hughes and March. In March 1863, Hughes announced it was making a steam locomotive designed for contractors and mineral railways. This was an with a 200 psi boiler pressure and cylinders of 10 inch bore and 15 inch stroke. In 1866, Hughes announced a sale of timber and associated equipment from the "Falcon Railway ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Rail Engineering Limited Logo 2
British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture * British English, the English language as spoken and written in United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and, more broadly, throughout the British Isles * Celtic Britons, an ancient ethno-linguistic group * Brittonic languages, a branch of the Insular Celtic language family (formerly called British) ** Common Brittonic, an ancient language Other uses *People or things associated with: ** Great Britain, an island ** British Isles, an island group ** United Kingdom, a sovereign state ** British Empire, a historical global colonial empire ** Kingdom of Great Britain (1707–1800) ** United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1801–1922) * British Raj, colonial India under the British Empire * British Hong Kong, colonial Ho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trafalgar House (company)
Trafalgar House was a British conglomerate with interests in property investment, property development, engineering, construction, shipping, hotels, energy and publishing. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. During its later years of operation, it was routinely referred to as being the largest contracting organisation in the UK. The entrepreneur Nigel Broackes, who would be the chairman of Trafalgar House throughout much of its existence, played a key role in the company's emergence during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Broackes worked with the ''Eastern International Investment Trust'' and Commercial Union to build a portfolio of assets that would be the initial footings of the company. Shortly after its floatation during 1963, Trafalgar House leveraged the issuing of shares to fuel its acquisition of various other businesses, which included The Cementation Company, John Brown Engineering, Cleveland Bridge, Redpat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Privatization
Privatization (rendered privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when a heavily regulated private company or industry becomes less regulated. Government functions and services may also be privatised (which may also be known as "franchising" or "out-sourcing"); in this case, private entities are tasked with the implementation of government programs or performance of government services that had previously been the purview of state-run agencies. Some examples include revenue collection, law enforcement, water supply, and prison management. Another definition is that privatization is the sale of a state-owned enterprise or municipally owned corporation to private investors; in this case shares may be traded in the public market for the first time, or for the first time since an enterprise's previous natio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swindon Works
Swindon Works was opened by the Great Western Railway in 1843 in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. It served as the principal west England maintenance centre until closed in 1986. History In 1835, Parliament approved the construction of the Great Western Main Line between Paddington railway station, London and Bristol Temple Meads railway station, Bristol by the Great Western Railway (GWR). Its Chief Engineer was Isambard Kingdom Brunel. From 1836, Brunel had been buying locomotives from various makers for the new railway. Brunel's general specifications gave the locomotive makers a free hand in design, although subject to certain constraints such as piston speed and axle load, resulting in a diverse range of locomotives of mixed quality. In 1837, Brunel recruited Daniel Gooch and gave him the job of rectifying the heavy repair burden of the GWR's mixed bag of purchased locomotives. It became clear that the GWR needed a central repair works, so in 1840 Gooch identified a site at S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shildon Railway Works
Shildon railway works opened in 1833 in the town of Shildon in County Durham, England. Originally built to serve the Stockton and Darlington Railway the works grew to cover ( roofed), employing 2,750 staff. History Shildon was the terminus of the Stockton & Darlington Railway (S&DR), when it opened in 1825. Its first locomotive superintendent was Timothy Hackworth, who maintained their locomotives at the Soho Works. Thomas Hackworth (Timothy's brother) was works manager at the Soho Works. The beginnings of the works were small - In 1827, Timothy Hackworth built the locomotive Royal George at the Soho Works. It was also in this period that the works received an order from the Tsar of Russia for a locomotive. Shildon produced the engine and Hackworth's son John Wesley Hackworth was dispatched with drivers and mechanics to deliver it to Russia. These works were to be purchased by the S&DR company in 1855 and closed in 1883. Hackworth was the first of 22 managers of the wo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ashford Railway Works
Ashford railway works was a major locomotive and wagon construction and repair workshop in Ashford, Kent in England. Constructed by the South Eastern Railway (UK), South Eastern Railway in 1847, it became a major centre for railway works in the 19th and early 20th centuries. After years of decline, it closed in 1982. History South Eastern Railway Ashford locomotive works was built by the South Eastern Railway (UK), South Eastern Railway on a new site in 1847, replacing an earlier locomotive repair facility at New Cross in London. By 1850 over 130 houses had been built for staff (called Alfred Town by the railway but New Town by everybody else). The works employed about 600 people in 1851 increasing to about 950 by 1861, and around 1,300 by 1882. A carriage and wagon works was opened on an adjacent site in 1850. The works led Ashford to be the largest industrial town in east Kent. South Eastern and Chatham Railway On 1 January 1899, the railway entered into a working union wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tilting Train
A tilting train is a train that has a mechanism enabling increased speed on regular rail tracks. As a train (or other vehicle) rounds a curve at speed, objects inside the train experience centrifugal force. This can cause packages to slide about or seated passengers to feel squashed by the outboard armrest, and standing passengers to lose their balance. In such excessive speeds, it generates longitudinal force that can cause the train to physically tilt on one side, eventually causing it to Derailment, derail. Tilting trains are designed to counteract this by tilting the carriages towards the inside of the curve, thus compensating for the g-force. The train may be constructed such that inertial forces cause the tilting (''passive tilt''), or it may have a computer-controlled powered mechanism (''active tilt''). The first passive Pendulum car, tilting car design was built in the US in 1937, and an improved version was built in 1939. The beginning of World War II ended development. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Advanced Passenger Train
The Advanced Passenger Train (APT) was a tilting high speed train developed by British Rail during the 1970s and early 1980s, for use on the West Coast Main Line (WCML). The WCML contains many curves, and the APT pioneered the concept of active tilting to address these, a feature that has since been copied on designs around the world. The experimental APT-E achieved a new British railway speed record on 10 August 1975 when it reached , only to be surpassed by the service prototype APT-P at in December 1979. Development of the service prototypes progressed slowly, and by the late 1970s the design had been under construction for a decade and the trains were still not ready for service. The election of Margaret Thatcher brought matters to a head and she alluded to funding cuts for the project. Facing the possibility of cancellation, BR management decided to put the prototypes into service, with the first runs along the London–Glasgow route taking place in December 1981. The p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Rail Class 210
The British Rail Class 210 was a type of diesel-electric multiple unit (DEMU) passenger train designed and constructed by British Rail Engineering Limited's Derby Litchurch Lane Works. The Class 210 was developed during the early 1980s to be a modern replacement for the ageing 'first generation' DMUs in use on the Southern Region of British Railways, such as the Class 201 and Class 207. It was designed around a particularly ambitious set of requirements defined in a specification produced by British Rail (BR), construction of the first unit commenced during 1982. While several prototypes were built and subject to extensive testing during the 1980s, the process did not result in a production run for the type. It can be considered an alternative to, or spiritual precursor of, the highly successful ''Sprinter'' family of DMUs that were produced during the 1980s. The pair of Class 210s that were built were only operated for a few years before being withdrawn in the 1980s. Carri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
