Robert Sharpe (railway Contractor)
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Robert Sharpe (railway Contractor)
Robert Sharpe (1804-1868) was a contractor on railway projects in England, Wales and Brazil. He was also a noted farmer and stockbreeder on his estate, Hewelsfield Court, in Gloucestershire. He was born in Grindon, County Durham, England in 1804. He and his brothers John and Paul were later engaged in various railway works in England and Wales including Whiteball Tunnell on the Bristol and Exeter Railway, the South Devon Railway and the South Wales Railway. Robert Sharpe also completed works for Gloucester and Deane Forest Railway, Cornwall Railway and the Great Western Railway. In 1851, Robert had a steam powered flour and grist mill built in Chepstow, between the gas works and the railway embankment. He ran the mill in partnership with Mr. James Ireland, a cornfactor and miller from Bristol, under the name The Chepstow Steam Mill Company. The firm was successful for a number of years, but was sold in 1863 after running into difficulties. On 8 February 1860, Robert Shar ...
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Grindon, County Durham
Grindon is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Grindon and Thorpe Thewles, in the Stockton-on-Tees district, in the ceremonial county of Durham, England. The civil parish population at the census 2001 was 2,603 reducing to 2,484 at the 2011 Census. In the 2021 census, the population of Grindon and Thorpe Thewles parish, now no longer including Wynyard, was 940. It is situated between Sedgefield and Stockton-on-Tees, near to Thorpe Thewles and Thorpe Larches. The place name of "Grindon" is derived from the word 'dun', which meant hill. Grindon is situated in the Upland Fells, formed of Carboniferous millstone grit. "The alternating strata of harder and softer rocks give a stepped profile to many dale sides and distinctive flat-topped summits to the higher fells." History In 1831 the parish of Grindon incorporated the townships of Grindon and Whitton. Whitton later moved to the parish of Stillington, two miles west of Grindon. In 1908 the parish bound ...
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West Hoathly
West Hoathly is a village and civil parish in the Mid Sussex District of West Sussex, England, located south west of East Grinstead. In the 2001 census 2,121 people, of whom 1,150 were economically active, lived in 813 households. At the 2011 Census the population increased to 2,181. The parish, which has a land area of , includes the hamlets of Highbrook, Selsfield Common and Sharpthorne. The mostly rural parish is centred on West Hoathly village, an ancient hilltop settlement in the High Weald between the North and South Downs. History The area was already settled by the 11th century, when St Margaret's Church was founded. Names recorded at that time include ''Hadlega'' and ''Hodlega''—later standardised to ''Hodlegh'' and ''Hothelegh'', then (West) Hoathly. This Anglo-Saxon word signifies a heath-covered clearing. The parish lay on the edge of the dense woodland of the Ashdown Forest. At the time of the Domesday survey in 1086, the land covered by the present paris ...
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Wellington Bank, Somerset
Wellington Bank is a steep railway embankment and associated climb located on the Bristol to Exeter line, that climbs from just northeast of Wellington, Somerset, until its peak at Sampford Arundel, where it enters Whiteball tunnel and travels under the Whiteball Hill. Background The Bristol & Exeter Railway was authorised by act of Parliament in 1836, following quickly on the 1835 act for construction of the Great Western Railway. Bristol merchants were anxious to secure a railway route to Exeter, which was an important commercial centre, and which had a harbour on the south coast, in the English Channel. Coastal shipping from the South coast and from continental Europe making for Bristol needed to navigate the hazardous north Cornwall coast after negotiating the waters round Land's End. Isambard Kingdom Brunel was appointed engineer, and his assistant William Gravatt surveyed the route in 1835 and was resident engineer for the section between Bristol and White Ball, wit ...
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Bristol And Exeter Railway
The Bristol and Exeter Railway (B&ER) was an English railway company formed to connect Bristol and Exeter. It was built on the broad gauge and its engineer was Isambard Kingdom Brunel. It opened in stages between 1841 and 1844. It was allied with the Great Western Railway (GWR), which built its main line between London and Bristol, and in time formed part of a through route between London and Cornwall. It became involved in the British Gauge War, a protracted and expensive attempt to secure territory against rival companies supported by the London and South Western Railway (LSWR) which used the narrow gauge, later referred to as ''standard gauge''. At first it contracted with the GWR for that company to work the line, avoiding the expense of acquiring locomotives, but after that arrangement expired in 1849, the B&ER operated its own line. It opened a number of branches within the general area it served: to Clevedon, Cheddar, Wells, Weston-super-Mare, Chard, Yeovil and Tiver ...
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South Devon Railway Company
The South Devon Railway Company built and operated the railway from Exeter to Plymouth and Torquay in Devon, England. It was a broad gauge railway built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. The line had to traverse difficult hilly terrain, and the company adopted the Atmospheric railway, atmospheric system in which trains were drawn by a piston in a tube laid between the rails, a vacuum being created by stationary engines. The revolutionary system proved to have insuperable technical difficulties and was abandoned. The line continued as a conventional locomotive railway. The company promoted a number of branches, through the medium of nominally independent companies. Its original main line between Exeter and Plymouth remains in use today as an important part of the main line between London and Plymouth. Chronology * 1844 South Devon Railway Act 1844 (7 & 8 Vict. c. lxviii) passed by Parliament * 1846 opened to Newton Abbot * 1847 opened to Totnes, atmospheric trains start running * 184 ...
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South Wales Railway
The South Wales Railway () was a main line railway which opened in stages from 1850, connecting the Great Western Railway from Gloucester to South Wales. It was constructed on the broad gauge. An original aspiration was to reach Fishguard to engender an Irish ferry transit and transatlantic trade, but the latter did not materialise for many years, and never became an important sector of the business. Neyland was the western terminus of the line until 1906. The company amalgamated with the Great Western Railway in 1863 and the track was converted to narrow (standard) gauge in 1873. In 1922–1923, most of the independent Welsh railways were constituents of the new enlarged Great Western Railway, enabling rationalisation and benefits of scale. Nearly all of the original main line of the South Wales Railway remains in use at present (2020). Proposals The prospectus of the South Wales Railway was issued in the summer of 1844. It proposed a railway with capital of £2,500,000 to run ...
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Cornwall Railway
The Cornwall Railway was a broad gauge railway from Plymouth in Devon to Falmouth, Cornwall, Falmouth in Cornwall, England, built in the second half of the nineteenth century. It was constantly beset with shortage of capital for the construction, and was eventually forced to sell its line to the dominant Great Western Railway. The Cornwall Railway was famous for building the majestic Royal Albert Bridge over the River Tamar and, because of the difficult terrain it traversed, it had a large number of viaducts, built as Cornwall Railway viaducts, timber trestles because of the shortage of money. They proved to be iconic structures, but were a source of heavy maintenance costs, eventually needing to be reconstructed in more durable materials. Its main line was the key route to many of the holiday destinations of Cornwall, and in the first half of the 20th century it carried holidaymakers in summer, as well as vegetables, fish and cut flowers from Cornwall to markets in London an ...
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Great Western Railway
The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a History of rail transport in Great Britain, British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran its first trains in 1838 with the initial route completed between London and Bristol in 1841. It was engineered by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who chose a broad gauge of —later slightly widened to —but, from 1854, a series of Consolidation (business), amalgamations saw it also operate Standard gauge, standard-gauge trains; the last broad-gauge services were operated in 1892. The GWR was the only company to keep its identity through the Railways Act 1921, which amalgamated it with the remaining independent railways within its territory, and it was finally merged at the end of 1947 when it was Nationalization, nationalised and became the Western Region of British Railways. ...
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São Paulo Railway Company
The São Paulo Railway Company (SPR, nickname ''Ingleza'', transl.: ''The English'') was a privately owned British railway company in Brazil, which operated the gauge railway from the seaport at Santos, São Paulo, Santos via São Paulo to Jundiaí. The company was nationalised in 1946 and became the Estrada de Ferro Santos-Jundiaí. The São Paulo Railway consists of three parts: * The long adhesion railway at the coast from Santos to Piaçaguera near Cubatão * The long Grade (slope), steep grade from Piaçaguera to Paranapiacaba * The Rail adhesion, adhesion railway on the plateau from Paranapiacaba via São Paulo to Jundiaí Three different systems were used to climb the steep grade between Piaçaguera and Paranapiacaba: * A four section cable railway with stationary steam engines, in use from 1867 till 1970, called ''Serra Velha'', transl.: ''Old Mountain'' * A five section cable railway with stationary steam engines, in use from 1901 till 1982, called ''Serra Nova'', tra ...
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Santos, São Paulo
Santos (, ''Saints''), officially Municipality of Estância Balneária de Santos, is a city and Municipalities of Brazil, municipality in the Brazilian States of Brazil, state of São Paulo (state), São Paulo, founded in 1546 by the Portuguese nobleman Brás Cubas. It is located mostly on the São Vicente Island (São Paulo, Brazil), island of São Vicente, which harbors both the city of Santos and the city of São Vicente, São Paulo, São Vicente, and partially on the mainland. It is the main city in the metropolitan region of Baixada Santista. The population is 440,965 (2025 est.) in an area of . The city is home to the Coffee Museum, where world coffee prices were once negotiated. There is also a Soccer, football memorial, dedicated to the city's greatest players, which includes Pelé, who spent the majority of his career with Santos FC, Santos Futebol Clube. Its beachfront garden, in length, figures in ''Guinness World Records'' as the largest beachfront garden in the world. ...
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Jundiaí
Jundiaí is a Municipalities of Brazil, municipality in the state of São Paulo (state), São Paulo, in the Southeast Region, Brazil, Southeast Region of Brazil, located north of São Paulo. The population of the city is 443,221, with an area of 431.20 km². The elevation is 761 m. The GDP of the city is U$16.6 billion (R$36.6 billion). The budget for 2013 is U$787 million (R$1.63 billion), according to the official data of the City Hall. History and geography The locally most-accepted history of the first non-native American colonizers of the locale were Rafael de Oliveira and Petronilha Rodrigues Antunes who fled São Paulo for political reasons and who in 1615 then founded what became known as the Freguesia de Nossa Senhora do Desterro ("The Parish of Our Lady of the Landless"). The municipality was officially founded on December 14, 1655, when it was elevated to the category of village. Its first urbanization was carried out in 1657. Jundiaí has borders with Várzea Pa ...
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São Paulo
São Paulo (; ; Portuguese for 'Paul the Apostle, Saint Paul') is the capital of the São Paulo (state), state of São Paulo, as well as the List of cities in Brazil by population, most populous city in Brazil, the List of largest cities in the Americas, Americas, and both the Western Hemisphere, Western and Southern Hemispheres. Listed by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network (GaWC) as an global city, alpha global city, it exerts substantial international influence in commerce, finance, arts, and entertainment. It is the List of largest cities#List, largest urban area by population outside Asia and the most populous Geographical distribution of Portuguese speakers, Portuguese-speaking city in the world. The city's name honors Paul the Apostle and people from the city are known as ''paulistanos''. The city's Latin motto is ''Non ducor, duco'', which translates as "I am not led, I lead." Founded in 1554 by Jesuit priests, the city was the center of the ''bandeirant ...
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