Rail transport





A railroad or railway is a guided means of land transport, designed to be
used by trains, both passengers and freight are transported on railways. It
consists of two parallel rails, usually made of steel, and wooden or
concrete sleepers or ties that hold the rails exactly at the proper distance
from each other.

General

Rail transport is the most energy efficient means of mechanised land
transport known. The rails provide very smooth and hard surfaces on which
the wheels of the train may roll with a minimum of friction. This is more
comfortable and saves energy. Trains also have a small frontal area in
relation to the load they are carrying, which cuts down on air resistance
and thus energy usage. In all, a train needs 50-70% less energy to transport
a given tonnage of freight (or given number of passengers), than by road.
Furthermore, together with the sleepers the rails distribute the weight of
the train evenly, allowing significantly greater loads per axle/wheel than
in road transport.

The sleepers (called "ties" or "cross-ties" in North America) are embedded
in ballast, such as crushed rock. Sometimes sleepers and ballast are
replaced by concrete slabs, e.g. in tunnels.

Railways can be built with different distances between the two rails, the
distance between the two rails is known as the rail gauge.

Railways use signaling (usually colour lights) to prevent trains from colliding.

Railroads may or may not be electrified. If they are not, they can only be
used by non-electric trains, mainly diesel trains. In many parts of the
world large parts of the railroad network have been electrified. Electric
trains do not have to carry their own fuel. They are cleaner and less noisy.

To be electrified, a means of supplying electricity to the train is needed,
this may be done by overhead wires, or by a third rail system. The former is
the most common method.

High speed rail, with speeds up to 350 kilometers per hour, are achieved by
a specially built railroad and special trains.

For short, steep stretches funiculars or cable car railways and cog railways
provide railway functionality.

In a broader sense, the term railroad includes monorail, rubber-tired metro
and maglev, since the cars also run in a guided path.

Major cities often have metro and/or light rail/tram systems. For a tram on
the road the terms streetcar track or tram track are used, rather than
railroad or railway. A tram with its own right-of-way it is called a
tramway.

Depending on how much traffic they carry, railways can be built with a
varying number of tracks. Rail lines that carry little traffic are often
built with a single track which is used by trains traveling in both
directions; on rail lines like these, "passing loops" or "passing sidings",
which consist of short stretches of double track, are provided at certain
points along the line to allow trains to pass each other, and travel in
different directions. Conversely, double tram track is sometimes intertwined
at narrow passages (see Tram). Single-track lines are cheaper to build, but
can only handle a limited amount of traffic.

On busier lines, two or more tracks are provided, one or more for each
direction of travel. On very busy lines as many as eight tracks (four tracks
in each direction) are used to handle large amounts of traffic.

With the advent of containerized freight in the 1960s, rail and ship
transportation have become an integrated network that move bulk goods very
efficiently with a very low labor cost. An example is that goods from east
Asia that are bound for Europe will often be shipped across the Pacific and
transferred to trains to cross North America and be transferred back to a
ship for the Atlantic crossing.

High altitude railways are in Peru and Tibet (under construction).

History in brief

Early horse drawn wagonways operated in Europe, from around 1550 usually
operating with crude wooden tracks.

The first steam locomotive to operate on tracks, built by Richard Trevithick
was operated in 1804 In Wales, although it was not fianancially successful.

The first successful steam locomotives were built by George Stephenson,
culminating in his famous Rocket locomotive.

The first succesful steam operated railway, was the Stockton and Darlington
Railway in northern England in the 1820s, which was soon followed by the
Liverpool and Manchester Railway proved the viabillity of rail transport.

Railways soon spread throughout England and through the world, and became
the dominant means of land transport for nearly a century, until the
invention of aircraft and automobiles, which prompted a gradual decline in railways.

Diesel and electric trains and locomotives replaced steam, in many
countries, in the decades after World War II.

Many countries since the 1960s have adopted High-speed railways.

Terminology

To distinguish two directions on a given line sometimes one is called the up
train and the other down train, which may for example mean from and toward
the center or the big city.

In Britain and other commonwealth countries the term railway is used in
preference to railroad.

     American English - railroad
     Commonwealth English - railway
     Romanian - cale ferat‹' (iron way)
     Danish - jernbane (iron way)
     Dutch - spoorweg (track road)
     Finnish - rautatie (iron road)
     French - chemin de fer (way of iron)
     German - die Eisenbahn (iron road)
     Greek - Sidirodromos (iron road)
     Italian - ferrovia (iron way)
     Japanese - tetsudou (iron road)
     Korean - cheoldo (iron road)
     Spanish - ferrocarril (iron road)
     Swedish - jŠrnvŠg (iron way)
     Russian - zheleznaya doroga (iron road)

In Britain the term railway is often used to refer to the complete
organisation of tracks, trains, stations, signaling, timetables and the
organising companies which collectively make up a coordinated railway
system, while permanent way or p/way refers to the tracks alone. See also
British railway system.

Statistics

Of the 236 countries and dependencies, 143 have rail transport (including
several with very little), of which ca. 90 with passenger services.