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Acela Express (trainset)
The first-generation Acela Express trainset is a unique set of vehicles used on the '' Acela'', Amtrak's flagship high-speed service along the Northeast Corridor (NEC) in the Northeastern United States. When they debuted in 2000, the sets were the fastest in the Americas, reaching speeds of up to on of the route. Built between 1998 and 2001 by a consortium of Alstom and Bombardier, each set consists of two power cars derived from units that Alstom built for the TGV and six passenger cars based on the LRC design Bombardier created for Via Rail. Although based on TGV technology, the Acela equipment is substantially heavier to meet Federal Railroad Administration crashworthiness standards, resulting in a lower power-to-weight ratio of about per tonne (), compared to for a SNCF TGV Réseau set. Unlike the TGV, the Acela incorporates active tilt technology, which mitigates lateral centrifugal force and allows higher speeds through the NEC's sharp curves without disco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bombardier Transportation
Bombardier Transportation was a Canadian rolling stock and rail transport manufacturer, with headquarters in Toronto and Berlin. It was one of the world's largest companies in the rail vehicle and equipment manufacturing and servicing industry. Bombardier Transportation had many regional offices, production and development facilities worldwide. It produced a wide range of products including Passenger car (rail), passenger rail vehicles, locomotives, bogies, Ground propulsion, propulsion and controls. In February 2020, the company had 36,000 employees, and 63 manufacturing and engineering locations around the world. Formerly a Division (business), division of Bombardier Inc., the company was acquired by French manufacturer Alstom on 29 January 2021. History 20th century 1970s: Formation and first orders Canadian company Bombardier Inc. entered the rail market in 1970 when it purchased Bombardier Transportation Austria GmbH, Lohner-Rotax of Austria. While Lohner built trams, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pantograph (transport)
A pantograph (or "pan" or "panto") is an apparatus mounted on the roof of an electric train, tram or trolley buses to collect power through contact with an overhead line. The term stems from the resemblance of some styles to the mechanical pantographs used for copying handwriting and drawings. The pantograph is a common type of current collector; typically, a single or double wire is used, with the return current running through the Rail profile, rails. Other types of current collectors include the bow collector and the trolley pole. Invention The pantograph, with a low-friction, replaceable graphite contact strip or "current collector, shoe" to minimise lateral stress on the contact wire, first appeared in the late 19th century. Early versions include the bow collector, invented in 1889 by Walter Reichel, chief engineer at Siemens & Halske in Germany, and a flat slide-pantograph first used in 1895 by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The familiar diamond-shaped roller ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Via Rail
Via Rail Canada Inc. (), operating as Via Rail or Via (stylized as VIA Rail), is a Canadian Crown corporation that operates intercity passenger rail service in Canada. As of December 2023, Via Rail operates 406 trains per week across eight Canadian provinces and of track, 97 percent of which is owned and maintained by other railway companies, mostly by Canadian National Railway (CN). Via Rail carried approximately 4.1 million passengers in 2023, 96 percent of which were along the '' Corridor'' routes connecting the major cities of the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor, and had an on-time performance of 85.4 per cent. Attracting international tourism forms an important part of Via Rail's long distance trans-continental services. History Background Yearly passenger levels on Canada's passenger trains peaked at 60 million during World War II. Following the war, the growth of air travel and the personal automobile caused significant loss of mode share for Canada's pas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
LRC (train)
The LRC (a bilingual initialism: in English: ''Light, Rapid, Comfortable''; in ) is a series of lightweight diesel-powered passenger trains that were used on short- to medium-distance inter-city service in the Canadian Provinces of Ontario and Quebec. LRC was designed to run with locomotives, or power cars, at both ends and provide service on non-upgraded railway routes. To accomplish this, the LRC Passenger railroad car, passenger cars feature tilting train, active-tilt technology to reduce the forces on the passengers when a train travels at high speeds through curves. LRCs have reached speeds as high as on test runs. On its only regular service route, on the Québec City–Windsor Corridor (Via Rail), Quebec City–Windsor Corridor, where concerns, signalling issues and conflicts with slower-moving freight trains limit this to or less. For service at these speeds, a single power car was used. Special signage allowed the LRC to run at higher speeds than normal traffic across ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Power Car
In rail transport, the expression power car may refer to either of two distinct types of rail vehicle: *a vehicle that propels, and commonly also controls, a passenger train, potentially a multiple unit train, often as the lead vehicle; *a vehicle equipped with machinery for supplying heat or electrical power to other parts of a train. The first of these types of vehicle is closely related to the locomotive. What differentiates the locomotive and the first type of power car is their construction or use. A locomotive can be physically separated from its train and does nothing but provide propulsion and control (and heat or electricity for passenger trains). On the other hand, a power car of the first type is frequently an integral part of its train, and if the train uses distributed traction, some of the car's interior space may be used for carrying passengers or cargo. Examples United States Nearly all high speed trains use power cars, frequently at both ends. An example ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Americas
The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America.''Webster's New World College Dictionary'', 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. When viewed as a single continent, the Americas or America is the 2nd largest continent by area after Asia, and is the 3rd largest continent by population. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. Along with their Lists of islands of the Americas, associated islands, the Americas cover 8% of Earth's total surface area and 28.4% of its land area. The topography is dominated by the American Cordillera, a long chain of mountains that runs the length of the west coast. The flatter eastern side of the Americas is dominated by large river basins, such as the Amazon basin, Amazon, St. Lawrence River–Great Lakes, Mississippi River System, Mississippi, and Río de la Plata Basin, La Plata basins. Since the Americ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northeastern United States
The Northeastern United States (also referred to as the Northeast, the East Coast, or the American Northeast) is List of regions of the United States, census regions United States Census Bureau. Located on the East Coast of the United States, Atlantic coast of North America, the region borders Canada to its north, the Southern United States to its south, the Midwestern United States to its west, and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The Northeast is one of the four regions defined by the U.S. Census Bureau for the collection and analysis of statistics. The Census Bureau defines the region as including the six New England states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont, and three lower North-Eastern states of New Jersey, New York (state), New York, and Pennsylvania. Some expanded definitions of the region include Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic locations such as Delaware, Maryland, Northern Virginia, and Washington, D.C. The regio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
High-speed Rail
High-speed rail (HSR) is a type of rail transport network utilising trains that run significantly faster than those of traditional rail, using an integrated system of specialised rolling stock and dedicated railway track, tracks. While there is no single definition or standard that applies worldwide, lines built to handle speeds of at least or upgraded lines of at least are generally considered to be high-speed. The first high-speed rail system, the Tōkaidō Shinkansen, began operations in Honshu, Japan, in 1964. Due to the streamlined spitzer (bullet), spitzer-shaped nose cone of the 0 Series Shinkansen, trains, the system also became known by its English nickname bullet train. Japan's example was followed by several European countries, initially in High-speed rail in Italy, Italy with the Florence–Rome high-speed railway, Direttissima line, followed shortly thereafter by High-speed rail in France, France, High-speed rail in Germany, Germany, and High-speed rail in Spain, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Acela
The ''Acela'' ( ; originally the ''Acela Express'' until September 2019) is Amtrak's flagship passenger train service along the Northeast Corridor (NEC) in the Northeastern United States between Washington, D.C. and Boston via 13 intermediate stops, including Baltimore, New York City and Philadelphia. ''Acela'' trains are the fastest in the Americas, reaching (qualifying as high-speed rail), but only for approximately of the route. ''Acela'' carried more than 3.2 million passengers in fiscal year 2023, second only to the slower and less expensive '' Northeast Regional'', which had over 9.1 million passengers. Ridership was down from the pre-COVID-19 pandemic high of 3,557,455 passengers in 2019. Its 2024 revenue of $531 million was around 21% of Amtrak's total. ''Acela'' operates along routes that are used by slower regional passenger traffic, and only reaches the maximum allowed speed of the tracks only along some sections, with the fastest peak speed along segments be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Advanced Civil Speed Enforcement System
Advanced Civil Speed Enforcement System (ACSES) is a positive train control cab signaling system developed by Alstom. The system is designed to prevent train-to-train collisions, protect against overspeed, and protect work crews with temporary speed restrictions. The information about permanent and temporary speed restrictions is transmitted to the train by transponders ( Balises) lying in the track, coded track circuits and digital radio. It was installed beginning in 2000 on all of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor (except MTA territory) between Washington and Boston, and has been fully active since December 2015, a few months after the 2015 Philadelphia train derailment which it would have prevented. General system design ACSES provides railway trains with positive enforcement of "civil" speed restrictions (those based on the physical characteristics of the line). The on-board components keep track of a train's position and continuously calculates a maximum safe braking curve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brake Shoe
A railway brake is a type of brake used on the cars of railway trains to enable deceleration, control acceleration (downhill) or to keep them immobile when parked. While the basic principle is similar to that on road vehicle usage, operational features are more complex because of the need to control multiple linked carriages and to be effective on vehicles left without a prime mover. Clasp brakes are one type of brakes historically used on trains. Early developments In the earliest days of railways, braking technology was primitive. The first trains had brakes operative on the locomotive tender and on vehicles in the train, where "porters" or, in the United States brakemen, travelling for the purpose on those vehicles operated the brakes. Some railways fitted a special deep-noted brake whistle to locomotives to indicate to the porters the necessity to apply the brakes. All the brakes at this stage of development were applied by operation of a screw and linkage to brake bloc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Disc Brake
A disc brake is a type of brake that uses the #Calipers, calipers to squeeze pairs of #Brake pads, pads against a disc (sometimes called a [brake] rotor) to create friction. There are two basic types of brake pad friction mechanisms: abrasive friction and adherent friction. This action slows the rotation of a shaft, such as a vehicle axle, either to reduce its rotational speed or to hold it stationary. The energy of motion is converted into heat, which must be dissipated to the environment. Hydraulic brakes, Hydraulically Actuator, actuated disc brakes are the most commonly used mechanical device for slowing motor vehicles. The principles of a disc brake apply to almost any rotating shaft. The components include the disc, master cylinder, and caliper, which contain at least one cylinder and two Brake pad, brake pads on both sides of the rotating disc. Design The development of disc-type brakes began in England in the 1890s. In 1902, the Lanchester Motor Company designed bra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
