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work+on+the+railway

  • 1 Bahn

    f; -, -en
    1. (Weg) way, path; Bahn frei! make way!, stand aside!; fig.: die Bahn ist frei the road is clear; (für etw.) freie Bahn haben have the go-ahead, have the green light umg. (for s.th.); du hast freie Bahn it’s all yours; sich (Dat) Bahn brechen (sich durchsetzen) win through; Idee etc.: gain acceptance; (vorwärtskommen) forge ahead; einer Sache Bahn brechen pioneer s.th., blaze the trail for s.th.; auf die schiefe Bahn geraten oder kommen go astray, stray off the straight and narrow; in die richtige(n) Bahn(en) lenken direct into the right channels; sich in den gewohnten Bahnen bewegen move along the same old track, be stuck in the same old rut pej.; bewusst: keep to the well-trodden paths; wieder in geregelten Bahnen verlaufen be back to normal again; auf ähnlichen Bahnen along similar lines; jemanden aus der Bahn werfen oder bringen throw s.o. off track; seelisch etc.: knock s.o. sideways
    2. (Eisenbahn) railway, Am. railroad; (Zug) train; (Straßenbahn) tram, Am. streetcar, trolley; mit der Bahn by train; Waren per Bahn schicken WIRTS. send goods by rail; ( mit der) Bahn fahren travel by train; ich fahre gern ( mit der) Bahn auch I enjoy travel(l)ing on trains, I enjoy rail travel; jemanden zur Bahn bringen take s.o. to the station, see s.o. off (at the station); jemanden von der Bahn abholen (go and) meet s.o. at the station; in der Bahn on the train; ich setze mich einfach auf die Bahn und komme morgen umg. I’ll just hop on a train and be with you tomorrow
    3. nur Sg.; in BRD bis 1994 Behörde: railway (Am. railroad) authorities Pl. ( oder operators Pl.); bei der Bahn arbeiten work for the railway (Am. railroad)
    4. (Fahrbahn) lane
    5. (Flugbahn) trajectory
    6. ASTRON., von Mond, Sonne: course; (Umlaufbahn) orbit (auch eines Elektrons); von Komet: path
    a) Anlage: (Rennbahn) track; (Eis-, Rollschuhbahn) rink; (Schlitten-, Bobbahn) run; (Kegelbahn) alley;
    b) für einzelne Läufer, Schwimmer etc.: lane
    8. von Tapete: length; aus Papier, Kunststoff: web; Tuch etc.: width; eines Rocks: gore
    9. TECH., bei Amboss, Hammer, Hobel: face
    10. TECH. (Führung) guide, track
    * * *
    die Bahn
    (Eisenbahn) railway; railroad;
    (Fahrbahn) lane;
    (Rennbahn) course
    * * *
    [baːn]
    f -, -en
    1) (= Weg) path, track; (von Fluss) course; (fig) path; (= Fahrbahn) carriageway

    Báhn frei! — make way!, (get) out of the way!

    jdm/einer Sache die Báhn ebnen/frei machen (fig)to pave/clear the way for sb/sth

    die Báhn ist frei (fig)the way is clear

    Báhn brechen (lit) — to force one's way; (fig) to make headway; (Mensch) to forge ahead

    Báhn brechen — to blaze the trail for sth

    sich auf neuen Báhnen bewegen — to break new or fresh ground

    in gewohnten Báhnen verlaufen (fig)to go on in the same old way, to continue as before

    von der rechten Báhn abkommen (geh)to stray from the straight and narrow

    jdn auf die rechte Báhn bringen (fig)to put sb on the straight and narrow

    etw in die richtige Báhn or die richtigen Báhnen lenken (fig)to channel sth properly

    jdn aus der Báhn werfen or schleudern (fig)to throw sb off the track

    See:
    schief
    2) (= Eisenbahn) railway (Brit), railroad (US); (= Straßenbahn) tram (esp Brit), streetcar (US); (= Zug) (der Eisenbahn, U-Bahn) train; (der Straßenbahn) tram (esp Brit), streetcar (US); (= Bahnhof) station; (Verkehrsnetz, Verwaltung) railway usu pl (Brit), railroad (US)

    mit der or per Báhn — by train or rail/tram (esp Brit) or streetcar (US)

    frei Báhn (Comm)free on rail

    er ist or arbeitet bei der Báhn — he's with the railways (Brit) or railroad (US), he works for or on the railways (Brit)

    3) (SPORT) track; (für Pferderennen auch) course; (in Schwimmbecken) pool; (= Kegelbahn) (bowling) alley; (für einzelne Teilnehmer) lane; (= Schlittenbahn, Bobbahn) run
    4) (PHYS, ASTRON) orbit, path; (= Raketenbahn, Geschossbahn) (flight) path, trajectory
    5) (= Stoffbahn, Tapetenbahn) length, strip
    * * *
    die
    1) (a long narrow area used for the games of bowling or skittles: a bowling alley.) alley
    2) (a journey or course round something: the earth's circuit round the sun; three circuits of the race-track.) circuit
    3) ((also racetrack) a course on which runners, cyclists etc race: a running track; ( also adjective) the 100 metres sprint and other track events.) track
    * * *
    <-, -en>
    [ba:n]
    f
    1. (Eisenbahn) train; (Straßenbahn) tram; (Verkehrsnetz, Verwaltung) railway[s]
    mit der \Bahn/per \Bahn by train [or rail]
    frei \Bahn ÖKON free on rail, carriage paid
    2. SPORT track; Schwimmbecken lane; (Kegelbahn) alley; (Schlittenbahn, Bobbahn) run; (Pferderennbahn) course, track
    3. ASTRON orbit, path
    4. MIL [flight] path
    5. (Stoffbahn, Tapetenbahn) length, strip
    6. (Weg, Lauf) course; TRANSP (Fahrbahn) lane
    \Bahn frei! make way!, mind your backs!
    7.
    sich dat eine \Bahn brechen to force one's way, to make headway
    etw dat \Bahn brechen to blaze the trail for sth
    freie \Bahn [für etw akk/bei jdm] haben to have the go-ahead [for sth/from sb]
    aus der \Bahn geraten to get off track
    in geregelten \Bahnen verlaufen to take an orderly course
    etw in die richtigen \Bahnen lenken to lead sth in the right channels
    jdn auf die schiefe \Bahn bringen to get sb off the straight and narrow
    auf die schiefe \Bahn kommen [o geraten] to get off the straight and narrow
    jdn aus der \Bahn werfen to get sb off course
    jdn wieder auf die rechte \Bahn bringen to put sb back on the right track [or straight and narrow]
    * * *
    die; Bahn, Bahnen
    1) (Weg) path; way; (von Wasser) course; (fig.)

    einer Sache (Dat.) Bahn brechen — pave or prepare the way for something

    jemanden aus der Bahn werfen od. bringen od. schleudern — knock somebody sideways

    2) (Strecke) path; (UmlaufBahn) orbit; (einer Rakete) [flight-] path; (eines Geschosses) trajectory

    etwas [wieder] in die richtige Bahn lenken — (fig.) get something [back] on the right track

    3) (Sport) track; (für Pferderennen) course (Brit.); track (Amer.); (für einzelne Teilnehmer) lane; (KegelBahn) alley; (SchlittenBahn, BobBahn) run; (BowlingBahn) lane

    Bahn frei! — make way!; get out of the way!

    4) (Fahrspur) lane
    5) (EisenBahn) railways pl.; railroad (Amer.); (Zug) train

    jemanden zur Bahn bringen/an der Bahn abholen — take somebody to/pick somebody up from the station

    6) (StraßenBahn) tram; streetcar (Amer.)
    7) (Schienenweg) railway [track]
    8) (Streifen) (StoffBahn) length; (TapetenBahn) strip; length
    * * *
    Bahn f; -, -en
    1. (Weg) way, path;
    Bahn frei! make way!, stand aside!; fig:
    die Bahn ist frei the road is clear;
    (für etwas) freie Bahn haben have the go-ahead, have the green light umg (for sth);
    du hast freie Bahn it’s all yours;
    sich (dat)
    Bahn brechen (sich durchsetzen) win through; Idee etc: gain acceptance; (vorwärtskommen) forge ahead;
    einer Sache Bahn brechen pioneer sth, blaze the trail for sth;
    kommen go astray, stray off the straight and narrow;
    in die richtige(n) Bahn(en) lenken direct into the right channels;
    sich in den gewohnten Bahnen bewegen move along the same old track, be stuck in the same old rut pej; bewusst: keep to the well-trodden paths;
    wieder in geregelten Bahnen verlaufen be back to normal again;
    auf ähnlichen Bahnen along similar lines;
    bringen throw sb off track; seelisch etc: knock sb sideways
    2. (Eisenbahn) railway, US railroad; (Zug) train; (Straßenbahn) tram, US streetcar, trolley;
    mit der Bahn by train;
    Waren per Bahn schicken WIRTSCH send goods by rail;
    (mit der) Bahn fahren travel by train;
    ich fahre gern (mit der) Bahn auch I enjoy travel(l)ing on trains, I enjoy rail travel;
    jemanden zur Bahn bringen take sb to the station, see sb off (at the station);
    jemanden von der Bahn abholen (go and) meet sb at the station;
    in der Bahn on the train;
    ich setze mich einfach auf die Bahn und komme morgen umg I’ll just hop on a train and be with you tomorrow
    3. nur sg; in BRD bis 1994 Behörde: railway (US railroad) authorities pl ( oder operators pl);
    bei der Bahn arbeiten work for the railway (US railroad)
    4. (Fahrbahn) lane
    5. (Flugbahn) trajectory
    6. ASTRON, von Mond, Sonne: course; (Umlaufbahn) orbit (auch eines Elektrons); von Komet: path
    7. SPORT Anlage: (Rennbahn) track; (Eis-, Rollschuhbahn) rink; (Schlitten-, Bobbahn) run; (Kegelbahn) alley; für einzelne Läufer, Schwimmer etc: lane
    8. von Tapete: length; aus Papier, Kunststoff: web; Tuch etc: width; eines Rocks: gore
    9. TECH, bei Amboss, Hammer, Hobel: face
    10. TECH (Führung) guide, track
    * * *
    die; Bahn, Bahnen
    1) (Weg) path; way; (von Wasser) course; (fig.)

    einer Sache (Dat.) Bahn brechen — pave or prepare the way for something

    jemanden aus der Bahn werfen od. bringen od. schleudern — knock somebody sideways

    2) (Strecke) path; (UmlaufBahn) orbit; (einer Rakete) [flight-] path; (eines Geschosses) trajectory

    etwas [wieder] in die richtige Bahn lenken — (fig.) get something [back] on the right track

    3) (Sport) track; (für Pferderennen) course (Brit.); track (Amer.); (für einzelne Teilnehmer) lane; (KegelBahn) alley; (SchlittenBahn, BobBahn) run; (BowlingBahn) lane

    Bahn frei! — make way!; get out of the way!

    4) (Fahrspur) lane
    5) (EisenBahn) railways pl.; railroad (Amer.); (Zug) train

    jemanden zur Bahn bringen/an der Bahn abholen — take somebody to/pick somebody up from the station

    6) (StraßenBahn) tram; streetcar (Amer.)
    7) (Schienenweg) railway [track]
    8) (Streifen) (StoffBahn) length; (TapetenBahn) strip; length
    * * *
    -en f.
    alley n.
    course n.
    path n.
    pathway n.
    railway n.
    way n.

    Deutsch-Englisch Wörterbuch > Bahn

  • 2 Eisenbahn

    Eisenbahn f LOGIS (AE) railroad, (BE) railway, rly, Ry, rail
    * * *
    f < Transp> railroad (AE), railway (BE) (rly, Ry), rail
    * * *
    Eisenbahn
    railway (Br.), railroad (US);
    auf der Eisenbahn on the railways;
    frei Eisenbahn free on rail;
    in der Eisenbahn on the train;
    per Eisenbahn by rail (freight, US);
    einspurige Eisenbahn single-line (-track) railway (railroad, US);
    stillgelegte Eisenbahn defunct railway;
    zweigleisige Eisenbahn double-track railway;
    bei der Eisenbahn arbeiten to work for the railway, to railroad (US);
    mit der Eisenbahn befördern to send (consign, forward) by rail, to railroad (US);
    Eisenbahn benutzen to go by train;
    mit der Eisenbahn fahren to travel by train, to rail[way], to railroad (US);
    bei der Eisenbahn beschäftigt sein to work on the railway, to [be employed on a] railroad (US);
    Eisenbahn verstaatlichen to take over the railways;
    Eisenbahnabkommen railroad agreement (US);
    Eisenbahnabonnement season (Br.) (commutation, US) ticket;
    Eisenbahnabrechnungsstelle railway clearinghouse;
    Eisenbahnabstellgleis siding;
    Eisenbahnabteil compartment, railroad division (US);
    Eisenbahnaktien (Börse) railway shares (Br.), rails (Br.), railroads (US), railroad stocks (US);
    Eisenbahnangestellter railway (railroad, US) official (employee), railroader (US);
    Eisenbahnanlage railway installation;
    Eisenbahnanlagen railway (railroad, US) facilities;
    Eisenbahnanleihe railway (railroad, US) loan;
    Eisenbahnanschluss siding, sidetrack, (Verbindung) junction;
    Eisenbahnarbeiter railway (railroad, US) worker;
    Eisenbahnausbau railway development;
    Eisenbahnausbesserungswagen repair truck;
    Eisenbahnausbesserungswerk railway repair (railroad, US) shop, carshop;
    Eisenbahnausrüstungsteile railway (railroad, US) equipment;
    Eisenbahnavis railway (railroad, US) advice;
    Eisenbahnbau railway engineering, construction of a railway line, railroading (US);
    Eisenbahnbeamter railway official (company’s servant), railroad employee (US);
    Eisenbahnbeförderung rail transport;
    Eisenbahnbehälterverkehr train container service;
    Eisenbahnbenutzer railway traveller;
    Eisenbahnbetrieb train (railroad, US) services, railway undertaking, railroad operation (US).

    Business german-english dictionary > Eisenbahn

  • 3 Ф-31

    ВОТ ТАК ФУНТ! ВОТ ТЕ ФУНТ! both highly coll Interj these forms only fixed WO
    used to express surprise, perplexity, disappointment ( usu. in reaction to sth. unexpected)
    you don't say!
    (well,) how do you like that! (well,) I like that! well, I'll be (darned (damned))! (well,) how about that!
    (in limited contexts) bless me if... "А в тоне вашем, простите, содержится некий елей, нечто этакое, не то поповское, не то толстовское». - «Иначе не может быть, — сказал Иконников, — ведь я был толстовцем». - «Вот так фунт», - сказал Михаил Сидорович (Мо-стовской) (Гроссман 2). "But there's something rather unctuous, if I may say so, in your tone of voice. You sound like a priest or a Tolstoyan." "That's hardly surprising," said Ikonnikov. "I used to be a Tolstoy an." "You don't say!" exclaimed Mostovskoy (2a).
    «Вы обратили внимание, на юрятинских путях стрелочница нам кулаком грозила? Вот те фунт, думаю, в сторожихи на дорогу Глафира определилась. Но, кажется, не она. Слишком стара» (Пастернак 1). "You saw the woman at the switch, who shook her fist at us? Bless me, I thought, if it isn't Glafira gone to work on the railway. But I don't think it was Glafira, she looked too old" (1a).

    Большой русско-английский фразеологический словарь > Ф-31

  • 4 вот так фунт!

    [Interj; these forms only; fixed WO]
    =====
    used to express surprise, perplexity, disappointment (usu. in reaction to sth. unexpected):
    - you don't say!;
    - (well,) how do you like that!;
    - (well,) I like that!;
    - well, I'll be (darned < damned>)!;
    - (well,) how about that!;
    - [in limited contexts] bless me if...
         ♦ "А в тоне вашем, простите, содержится некий елей, нечто этакое, не то поповское, не то толстовское". - "Иначе не может быть, - сказал Иконников, - ведь я был толстовцем". - "Вот так фунт", - сказал Михаил Сидорович [Мостовской] (Гроссман 2). "But there's something rather unctuous, if I may say so, in your tone of voice. You sound like a priest or a Tolstoyan." "That's hardly surprising," said Ikonnikov. "I used to be a Tolstoyan." "You don't say!" exclaimed Mostovskoy (2a).
         ♦ "Вы обратили внимание, на юрятинских путях стрелочница нам кулаком грозила? Вот те фунт, думаю, в сторожихи на дорогу Глафира определилась. Но, кажется, не она. Слишком стара" (Пастернак 1). "You saw the woman at the switch, who shook her fist at us? Bless me, I thought, if it isn't Glafira gone to work on the railway. But I don't think it was Glafira, she looked too old" (1a).

    Большой русско-английский фразеологический словарь > вот так фунт!

  • 5 вот те фунт!

    [Interj; these forms only; fixed WO]
    =====
    used to express surprise, perplexity, disappointment (usu. in reaction to sth. unexpected):
    - you don't say!;
    - (well,) how do you like that!;
    - (well,) I like that!;
    - well, I'll be (darned < damned>)!;
    - (well,) how about that!;
    - [in limited contexts] bless me if...
         ♦ "А в тоне вашем, простите, содержится некий елей, нечто этакое, не то поповское, не то толстовское". - "Иначе не может быть, - сказал Иконников, - ведь я был толстовцем". - "Вот так фунт", - сказал Михаил Сидорович [Мостовской] (Гроссман 2). "But there's something rather unctuous, if I may say so, in your tone of voice. You sound like a priest or a Tolstoyan." "That's hardly surprising," said Ikonnikov. "I used to be a Tolstoyan." "You don't say!" exclaimed Mostovskoy (2a).
         ♦ "Вы обратили внимание, на юрятинских путях стрелочница нам кулаком грозила? Вот те фунт, думаю, в сторожихи на дорогу Глафира определилась. Но, кажется, не она. Слишком стара" (Пастернак 1). "You saw the woman at the switch, who shook her fist at us? Bless me, I thought, if it isn't Glafira gone to work on the railway. But I don't think it was Glafira, she looked too old" (1a).

    Большой русско-английский фразеологический словарь > вот те фунт!

  • 6 bei der Eisenbahn arbeiten

    bei der Eisenbahn arbeiten
    to work for the railway, to railroad (US)

    Business german-english dictionary > bei der Eisenbahn arbeiten

  • 7 bei der Eisenbahn beschäftigt sein

    bei der Eisenbahn beschäftigt sein
    to work on the railway, to [be employed on a] railroad (US)

    Business german-english dictionary > bei der Eisenbahn beschäftigt sein

  • 8 Stephenson, George

    [br]
    b. 9 June 1781 Wylam, Northumberland, England
    d. 12 August 1848 Tapton House, Chesterfield, England
    [br]
    English engineer, "the father of railways".
    [br]
    George Stephenson was the son of the fireman of the pumping engine at Wylam colliery, and horses drew wagons of coal along the wooden rails of the Wylam wagonway past the house in which he was born and spent his earliest childhood. While still a child he worked as a cowherd, but soon moved to working at coal pits. At 17 years of age he showed sufficient mechanical talent to be placed in charge of a new pumping engine, and had already achieved a job more responsible than that of his father. Despite his position he was still illiterate, although he subsequently learned to read and write. He was largely self-educated.
    In 1801 he was appointed Brakesman of the winding engine at Black Callerton pit, with responsibility for lowering the miners safely to their work. Then, about two years later, he became Brakesman of a new winding engine erected by Robert Hawthorn at Willington Quay on the Tyne. Returning collier brigs discharged ballast into wagons and the engine drew the wagons up an inclined plane to the top of "Ballast Hill" for their contents to be tipped; this was one of the earliest applications of steam power to transport, other than experimentally.
    In 1804 Stephenson moved to West Moor pit, Killingworth, again as Brakesman. In 1811 he demonstrated his mechanical skill by successfully modifying a new and unsatisfactory atmospheric engine, a task that had defeated the efforts of others, to enable it to pump a drowned pit clear of water. The following year he was appointed Enginewright at Killingworth, in charge of the machinery in all the collieries of the "Grand Allies", the prominent coal-owning families of Wortley, Liddell and Bowes, with authorization also to work for others. He built many stationary engines and he closely examined locomotives of John Blenkinsop's type on the Kenton \& Coxlodge wagonway, as well as those of William Hedley at Wylam.
    It was in 1813 that Sir Thomas Liddell requested George Stephenson to build a steam locomotive for the Killingworth wagonway: Blucher made its first trial run on 25 July 1814 and was based on Blenkinsop's locomotives, although it lacked their rack-and-pinion drive. George Stephenson is credited with building the first locomotive both to run on edge rails and be driven by adhesion, an arrangement that has been the conventional one ever since. Yet Blucher was far from perfect and over the next few years, while other engineers ignored the steam locomotive, Stephenson built a succession of them, each an improvement on the last.
    During this period many lives were lost in coalmines from explosions of gas ignited by miners' lamps. By observation and experiment (sometimes at great personal risk) Stephenson invented a satisfactory safety lamp, working independently of the noted scientist Sir Humphry Davy who also invented such a lamp around the same time.
    In 1817 George Stephenson designed his first locomotive for an outside customer, the Kilmarnock \& Troon Railway, and in 1819 he laid out the Hetton Colliery Railway in County Durham, for which his brother Robert was Resident Engineer. This was the first railway to be worked entirely without animal traction: it used inclined planes with stationary engines, self-acting inclined planes powered by gravity, and locomotives.
    On 19 April 1821 Stephenson was introduced to Edward Pease, one of the main promoters of the Stockton \& Darlington Railway (S \& DR), which by coincidence received its Act of Parliament the same day. George Stephenson carried out a further survey, to improve the proposed line, and in this he was assisted by his 18-year-old son, Robert Stephenson, whom he had ensured received the theoretical education which he himself lacked. It is doubtful whether either could have succeeded without the other; together they were to make the steam railway practicable.
    At George Stephenson's instance, much of the S \& DR was laid with wrought-iron rails recently developed by John Birkinshaw at Bedlington Ironworks, Morpeth. These were longer than cast-iron rails and were not brittle: they made a track well suited for locomotives. In June 1823 George and Robert Stephenson, with other partners, founded a firm in Newcastle upon Tyne to build locomotives and rolling stock and to do general engineering work: after its Managing Partner, the firm was called Robert Stephenson \& Co.
    In 1824 the promoters of the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway (L \& MR) invited George Stephenson to resurvey their proposed line in order to reduce opposition to it. William James, a wealthy land agent who had become a visionary protagonist of a national railway network and had seen Stephenson's locomotives at Killingworth, had promoted the L \& MR with some merchants of Liverpool and had carried out the first survey; however, he overreached himself in business and, shortly after the invitation to Stephenson, became bankrupt. In his own survey, however, George Stephenson lacked the assistance of his son Robert, who had left for South America, and he delegated much of the detailed work to incompetent assistants. During a devastating Parliamentary examination in the spring of 1825, much of his survey was shown to be seriously inaccurate and the L \& MR's application for an Act of Parliament was refused. The railway's promoters discharged Stephenson and had their line surveyed yet again, by C.B. Vignoles.
    The Stockton \& Darlington Railway was, however, triumphantly opened in the presence of vast crowds in September 1825, with Stephenson himself driving the locomotive Locomotion, which had been built at Robert Stephenson \& Co.'s Newcastle works. Once the railway was at work, horse-drawn and gravity-powered traffic shared the line with locomotives: in 1828 Stephenson invented the horse dandy, a wagon at the back of a train in which a horse could travel over the gravity-operated stretches, instead of trotting behind.
    Meanwhile, in May 1826, the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway had successfully obtained its Act of Parliament. Stephenson was appointed Engineer in June, and since he and Vignoles proved incompatible the latter left early in 1827. The railway was built by Stephenson and his staff, using direct labour. A considerable controversy arose c. 1828 over the motive power to be used: the traffic anticipated was too great for horses, but the performance of the reciprocal system of cable haulage developed by Benjamin Thompson appeared in many respects superior to that of contemporary locomotives. The company instituted a prize competition for a better locomotive and the Rainhill Trials were held in October 1829.
    Robert Stephenson had been working on improved locomotive designs since his return from America in 1827, but it was the L \& MR's Treasurer, Henry Booth, who suggested the multi-tubular boiler to George Stephenson. This was incorporated into a locomotive built by Robert Stephenson for the trials: Rocket was entered by the three men in partnership. The other principal entrants were Novelty, entered by John Braithwaite and John Ericsson, and Sans Pareil, entered by Timothy Hackworth, but only Rocket, driven by George Stephenson, met all the organizers' demands; indeed, it far surpassed them and demonstrated the practicability of the long-distance steam railway. With the opening of the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway in 1830, the age of railways began.
    Stephenson was active in many aspects. He advised on the construction of the Belgian State Railway, of which the Brussels-Malines section, opened in 1835, was the first all-steam railway on the European continent. In England, proposals to link the L \& MR with the Midlands had culminated in an Act of Parliament for the Grand Junction Railway in 1833: this was to run from Warrington, which was already linked to the L \& MR, to Birmingham. George Stephenson had been in charge of the surveys, and for the railway's construction he and J.U. Rastrick were initially Principal Engineers, with Stephenson's former pupil Joseph Locke under them; by 1835 both Stephenson and Rastrick had withdrawn and Locke was Engineer-in-Chief. Stephenson remained much in demand elsewhere: he was particularly associated with the construction of the North Midland Railway (Derby to Leeds) and related lines. He was active in many other places and carried out, for instance, preliminary surveys for the Chester \& Holyhead and Newcastle \& Berwick Railways, which were important links in the lines of communication between London and, respectively, Dublin and Edinburgh.
    He eventually retired to Tapton House, Chesterfield, overlooking the North Midland. A man who was self-made (with great success) against colossal odds, he was ever reluctant, regrettably, to give others their due credit, although in retirement, immensely wealthy and full of honour, he was still able to mingle with people of all ranks.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    President, Institution of Mechanical Engineers, on its formation in 1847. Order of Leopold (Belgium) 1835. Stephenson refused both a knighthood and Fellowship of the Royal Society.
    Bibliography
    1815, jointly with Ralph Dodd, British patent no. 3,887 (locomotive drive by connecting rods directly to the wheels).
    1817, jointly with William Losh, British patent no. 4,067 (steam springs for locomotives, and improvements to track).
    Further Reading
    L.T.C.Rolt, 1960, George and Robert Stephenson, Longman (the best modern biography; includes a bibliography).
    S.Smiles, 1874, The Lives of George and Robert Stephenson, rev. edn, London (although sycophantic, this is probably the best nineteenthcentury biography).
    PJGR

    Biographical history of technology > Stephenson, George

  • 9 Cubitt, William

    [br]
    b. 1785 Dilham, Norfolk, England
    d. 13 October 1861 Clapham Common, Surrey, England
    [br]
    English civil engineer and contractor.
    [br]
    The son of a miller, he received a rudimentary education in the village school. At an early age he was helping his father in the mill, and in 1800 he was apprenticed to a cabinet maker. After four years he returned to work with his father, but, preferring to leave the parental home, he not long afterwards joined a firm of agricultural-machinery makers in Swanton in Norfolk. There he acquired a reputation for making accurate patterns for the iron caster and demonstrated a talent for mechanical invention, patenting a self-regulating windmill sail in 1807. He then set up on his own as a millwright, but he found he could better himself by joining the engineering works of Ransomes of Ipswich in 1812. He was soon appointed their Chief Engineer, and after nine years he became a partner in the firm until he moved to London in 1826. Around 1818 he invented the treadmill, with the aim of putting prisoners to useful work in grinding corn and other applications. It was rapidly adopted by the principal prisons, more as a means of punishment than an instrument of useful work.
    From 1814 Cubitt had been gaining experience in civil engineering, and upon his removal to London his career in this field began to take off. He was engaged on many canal-building projects, including the Oxford and Liverpool Junction canals. He accomplished some notable dock works, such as the Bute docks at Cardiff, the Middlesborough docks and the coal drops on the river Tees. He improved navigation on the river Severn and compiled valuable reports on a number of other leading rivers.
    The railway construction boom of the 1840s provided him with fresh opportunities. He engineered the South Eastern Railway (SER) with its daringly constructed line below the cliffs between Folkestone and Dover; the railway was completed in 1843, using massive charges of explosive to blast a way through the cliffs. Cubitt was Consulting Engineer to the Great Northern Railway and tried, with less than his usual success, to get the atmospheric system to work on the Croydon Railway.
    When the SER began a steamer service between Folkestone and Boulogne, Cubitt was engaged to improve the port facilities there and went on to act as Consulting Engineer to the Boulogne and Amiens Railway. Other commissions on the European continent included surveying the line between Paris and Lyons, advising the Hanoverian government on the harbour and docks at Hamburg and directing the water-supply works for Berlin.
    Cubitt was actively involved in the erection of the Crystal Palace for the Great Exhibition of 1851; in recognition of this work Queen Victoria knighted him at Windsor Castle on 23 December 1851.
    Cubitt's son Joseph (1811–72) was also a notable civil engineer, with many railway and harbour works to his credit.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    Knighted 1851. FRS 1830. President, Institution of Civil Engineers 1850 and 1851.
    Further Reading
    LRD

    Biographical history of technology > Cubitt, William

  • 10 Churchward, George Jackson

    [br]
    b. 31 January 1857 Stoke Gabriel, Devon, England
    d. 19 December 1933 Swindon, Wiltshire, England
    [br]
    English mechanical engineer who developed for the Great Western Railway a range of steam locomotives of the most advanced design of its time.
    [br]
    Churchward was articled to the Locomotive Superintendent of the South Devon Railway in 1873, and when the South Devon was absorbed by the Great Western Railway in 1876 he moved to the latter's Swindon works. There he rose by successive promotions to become Works Manager in 1896, and in 1897 Chief Assistant to William Dean, who was Locomotive Carriage and Wagon Superintendent, in which capacity Churchward was allowed extensive freedom of action. Churchward eventually succeeded Dean in 1902: his title changed to Chief Mechanical Engineer in 1916.
    In locomotive design, Churchward adopted the flat-topped firebox invented by A.J.Belpaire of the Belgian State Railways and added a tapered barrel to improve circulation of water between the barrel and the firebox legs. He designed valves with a longer stroke and a greater lap than usual, to achieve full opening to exhaust. Passenger-train weights had been increasing rapidly, and Churchward produced his first 4–6– 0 express locomotive in 1902. However, he was still developing the details—he had a flair for selecting good engineering practices—and to aid his development work Churchward installed at Swindon in 1904 a stationary testing plant for locomotives. This was the first of its kind in Britain and was based on the work of Professor W.F.M.Goss, who had installed the first such plant at Purdue University, USA, in 1891. For comparison with his own locomotives Churchward obtained from France three 4–4–2 compound locomotives of the type developed by A. de Glehn and G. du Bousquet. He decided against compounding, but he did perpetuate many of the details of the French locomotives, notably the divided drive between the first and second pairs of driving wheels, when he introduced his four-cylinder 4–6–0 (the Star class) in 1907. He built a lone 4–6–2, the Great Bear, in 1908: the wheel arrangement enabled it to have a wide firebox, but the type was not perpetuated because Welsh coal suited narrow grates and 4–6–0 locomotives were adequate for the traffic. After Churchward retired in 1921 his successor, C.B.Collett, was to enlarge the Star class into the Castle class and then the King class, both 4–6–0s, which lasted almost as long as steam locomotives survived in service. In Church ward's time, however, the Great Western Railway was the first in Britain to adopt six-coupled locomotives on a large scale for passenger trains in place of four-coupled locomotives. The 4–6–0 classes, however, were but the most celebrated of a whole range of standard locomotives of advanced design for all types of traffic and shared between them many standardized components, particularly boilers, cylinders and valve gear.
    [br]
    Further Reading
    H.C.B.Rogers, 1975, G.J.Churchward. A Locomotive Biography, London: George Allen \& Unwin (a full-length account of Churchward and his locomotives, and their influence on subsequent locomotive development).
    C.Hamilton Ellis, 1958, Twenty Locomotive Men, Shepperton: Ian Allan, Ch. 20 (a good brief account).
    Sir William Stanier, 1955, "George Jackson Churchward", Transactions of the Newcomen
    Society 30 (a unique insight into Churchward and his work, from the informed viewpoint of his former subordinate who had risen to become Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London, Midland \& Scottish Railway).
    PJGR

    Biographical history of technology > Churchward, George Jackson

  • 11 Clark, Edwin

    SUBJECT AREA: Civil engineering
    [br]
    b. 7 January 1814 Marlow, Buckinghamshire, England
    d. 22 October 1894 Marlow, Buckinghamshire, England
    [br]
    English civil engineer.
    [br]
    After a basic education in mathematics, latin, French and geometry, Clark was articled to a solicitor, but he left after two years because he did not like the work. He had no permanent training otherwise, and for four years he led an idle life, becoming self-taught in the subjects that interested him. He eventually became a teacher at his old school before entering Cambridge, although he returned home after two years without taking a degree. He then toured the European continent extensively, supporting himself as best he could. He returned to England in 1839 and obtained further teaching posts. With the railway boom in progress he decided to become a surveyor and did some work on a proposed line between Oxford and Brighton.
    After being promised an interview with Robert Stephenson, he managed to see him in March 1846. Stephenson took a liking to Clark and asked him to investigate the strains on the Britannia Bridge tubes under various given conditions. This work so gained Stephenson's full approval that, after being entrusted with experiments and designs, Clark was appointed Resident Engineer for the Britannia Bridge across the Menai Straits. He not only completed the bridge, which was opened on 19 October 1850, but also wrote the history of its construction. After the completion of the bridge—and again without any professional experience—he was appointed Engineer-in-Chief to the Electric and International Telegraph Company. He was consulted by Captain Mark Huish of the London \& North Western Railway on a telegraphic system for the railway, and in 1853 he introduced the Block Telegraph System.
    Clark was engaged on the Crystal Palace and was responsible for many railway bridges in Britain and abroad. He was Engineer and part constructor of the harbour at Callao, Peru, and also of harbour works at Colón, Panama. On canal works he was contractor for the marine canal, the Morskoy Canal, in 1875 between Kronstadt and St Petersburg. His great work on canals, however, was the concept with Edward Leader Williams of the hydraulically operated barge lift at Anderton, Cheshire, linking the Weaver Navigation to the Trent \& Mersey Canal, whose water levels have a vertical separation of 50 ft (15 m). This was opened on 26 July 1875. The structure so impressed the French engineers who were faced with a bottleneck of five locks on the Neuffossée Canal south of Saint-Omer that they commissioned Clark to design a lift there. This was completed in 1878 and survives as a historic monument. The design was also adopted for four lifts on the Canal du Centre at La Louvière in Belgium, but these were not completed until after Clark's death.
    JHB

    Biographical history of technology > Clark, Edwin

  • 12 Brunel, Isambard Kingdom

    [br]
    b. 9 April 1806 Portsea, Hampshire, England
    d. 15 September 1859 18 Duke Street, St James's, London, England
    [br]
    English civil and mechanical engineer.
    [br]
    The son of Marc Isambard Brunel and Sophia Kingdom, he was educated at a private boarding-school in Hove. At the age of 14 he went to the College of Caen and then to the Lycée Henri-Quatre in Paris, after which he was apprenticed to Louis Breguet. In 1822 he returned from France and started working in his father's office, while spending much of his time at the works of Maudslay, Sons \& Field.
    From 1825 to 1828 he worked under his father on the construction of the latter's Thames Tunnel, occupying the position of Engineer-in-Charge, exhibiting great courage and presence of mind in the emergencies which occurred not infrequently. These culminated in January 1828 in the flooding of the tunnel and work was suspended for seven years. For the next five years the young engineer made abortive attempts to find a suitable outlet for his talents, but to little avail. Eventually, in 1831, his design for a suspension bridge over the River Avon at Clifton Gorge was accepted and he was appointed Engineer. (The bridge was eventually finished five years after Brunel's death, as a memorial to him, the delay being due to inadequate financing.) He next planned and supervised improvements to the Bristol docks. In March 1833 he was appointed Engineer of the Bristol Railway, later called the Great Western Railway. He immediately started to survey the route between London and Bristol that was completed by late August that year. On 5 July 1836 he married Mary Horsley and settled into 18 Duke Street, Westminster, London, where he also had his office. Work on the Bristol Railway started in 1836. The foundation stone of the Clifton Suspension Bridge was laid the same year. Whereas George Stephenson had based his standard railway gauge as 4 ft 8½ in (1.44 m), that or a similar gauge being usual for colliery wagonways in the Newcastle area, Brunel adopted the broader gauge of 7 ft (2.13 m). The first stretch of the line, from Paddington to Maidenhead, was opened to traffic on 4 June 1838, and the whole line from London to Bristol was opened in June 1841. The continuation of the line through to Exeter was completed and opened on 1 May 1844. The normal time for the 194-mile (312 km) run from Paddington to Exeter was 5 hours, at an average speed of 38.8 mph (62.4 km/h) including stops. The Great Western line included the Box Tunnel, the longest tunnel to that date at nearly two miles (3.2 km).
    Brunel was the engineer of most of the railways in the West Country, in South Wales and much of Southern Ireland. As railway networks developed, the frequent break of gauge became more of a problem and on 9 July 1845 a Royal Commission was appointed to look into it. In spite of comparative tests, run between Paddington-Didcot and Darlington-York, which showed in favour of Brunel's arrangement, the enquiry ruled in favour of the narrow gauge, 274 miles (441 km) of the former having been built against 1,901 miles (3,059 km) of the latter to that date. The Gauge Act of 1846 forbade the building of any further railways in Britain to any gauge other than 4 ft 8 1/2 in (1.44 m).
    The existence of long and severe gradients on the South Devon Railway led to Brunel's adoption of the atmospheric railway developed by Samuel Clegg and later by the Samuda brothers. In this a pipe of 9 in. (23 cm) or more in diameter was laid between the rails, along the top of which ran a continuous hinged flap of leather backed with iron. At intervals of about 3 miles (4.8 km) were pumping stations to exhaust the pipe. Much trouble was experienced with the flap valve and its lubrication—freezing of the leather in winter, the lubricant being sucked into the pipe or eaten by rats at other times—and the experiment was abandoned at considerable cost.
    Brunel is to be remembered for his two great West Country tubular bridges, the Chepstow and the Tamar Bridge at Saltash, with the latter opened in May 1859, having two main spans of 465 ft (142 m) and a central pier extending 80 ft (24 m) below high water mark and allowing 100 ft (30 m) of headroom above the same. His timber viaducts throughout Devon and Cornwall became a feature of the landscape. The line was extended ultimately to Penzance.
    As early as 1835 Brunel had the idea of extending the line westwards across the Atlantic from Bristol to New York by means of a steamship. In 1836 building commenced and the hull left Bristol in July 1837 for fitting out at Wapping. On 31 March 1838 the ship left again for Bristol but the boiler lagging caught fire and Brunel was injured in the subsequent confusion. On 8 April the ship set sail for New York (under steam), its rival, the 703-ton Sirius, having left four days earlier. The 1,340-ton Great Western arrived only a few hours after the Sirius. The hull was of wood, and was copper-sheathed. In 1838 Brunel planned a larger ship, some 3,000 tons, the Great Britain, which was to have an iron hull.
    The Great Britain was screwdriven and was launched on 19 July 1843,289 ft (88 m) long by 51 ft (15.5 m) at its widest. The ship's first voyage, from Liverpool to New York, began on 26 August 1845. In 1846 it ran aground in Dundrum Bay, County Down, and was later sold for use on the Australian run, on which it sailed no fewer than thirty-two times in twenty-three years, also serving as a troop-ship in the Crimean War. During this war, Brunel designed a 1,000-bed hospital which was shipped out to Renkioi ready for assembly and complete with shower-baths and vapour-baths with printed instructions on how to use them, beds and bedding and water closets with a supply of toilet paper! Brunel's last, largest and most extravagantly conceived ship was the Great Leviathan, eventually named The Great Eastern, which had a double-skinned iron hull, together with both paddles and screw propeller. Brunel designed the ship to carry sufficient coal for the round trip to Australia without refuelling, thus saving the need for and the cost of bunkering, as there were then few bunkering ports throughout the world. The ship's construction was started by John Scott Russell in his yard at Millwall on the Thames, but the building was completed by Brunel due to Russell's bankruptcy in 1856. The hull of the huge vessel was laid down so as to be launched sideways into the river and then to be floated on the tide. Brunel's plan for hydraulic launching gear had been turned down by the directors on the grounds of cost, an economy that proved false in the event. The sideways launch with over 4,000 tons of hydraulic power together with steam winches and floating tugs on the river took over two months, from 3 November 1857 until 13 January 1858. The ship was 680 ft (207 m) long, 83 ft (25 m) beam and 58 ft (18 m) deep; the screw was 24 ft (7.3 m) in diameter and paddles 60 ft (18.3 m) in diameter. Its displacement was 32,000 tons (32,500 tonnes).
    The strain of overwork and the huge responsibilities that lay on Brunel began to tell. He was diagnosed as suffering from Bright's disease, or nephritis, and spent the winter travelling in the Mediterranean and Egypt, returning to England in May 1859. On 5 September he suffered a stroke which left him partially paralysed, and he died ten days later at his Duke Street home.
    [br]
    Further Reading
    L.T.C.Rolt, 1957, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, London: Longmans Green. J.Dugan, 1953, The Great Iron Ship, Hamish Hamilton.
    IMcN

    Biographical history of technology > Brunel, Isambard Kingdom

  • 13 Gooch, Sir Daniel

    [br]
    b. 24 August 1816 Bedlington, Northumberland, England
    d. 15 October 1889 Clewer Park, Berkshire, England
    [br]
    English engineer, first locomotive superintendent of the Great Western Railway and pioneer of transatlantic electric telegraphy.
    [br]
    Gooch gained experience as a pupil with several successive engineering firms, including Vulcan Foundry and Robert Stephenson \& Co. In 1837 he was engaged by I.K. Brunel, who was then building the Great Western Railway (GWR) to the broad gauge of 7 ft 1/4 in. (2.14 m), to take charge of the railway's locomotive department. He was just 21 years old. The initial locomotive stock comprised several locomotives built to such extreme specifications laid down by Brunel that they were virtually unworkable, and two 2–2–2 locomotives, North Star and Morning Star, which had been built by Robert Stephenson \& Co. but left on the builder's hands. These latter were reliable and were perpetuated. An enlarged version, the "Fire Fly" class, was designed by Gooch and built in quantity: Gooch was an early proponent of standardization. His highly successful 4–2–2 Iron Duke of 1847 became the prototype of GWR express locomotives for the next forty-five years, until the railway's last broad-gauge sections were narrowed. Meanwhile Gooch had been largely responsible for establishing Swindon Works, opened in 1843. In 1862 he designed 2–4–0 condensing tank locomotives to work the first urban underground railway, the Metropolitan Railway in London. Gooch retired in 1864 but was then instrumental in arranging for Brunel's immense steamship Great Eastern to be used to lay the first transatlantic electric telegraph cable: he was on board when the cable was successfully laid in 1866. He had been elected Member of Parliament for Cricklade (which constituency included Swindon) in 1865, and the same year he had accepted an invitation to become Chairman of the Great Western Railway Company, which was in financial difficulties; he rescued it from near bankruptcy and remained Chairman until shortly before his death. The greatest engineering work undertaken during his chairmanship was the boring of the Severn Tunnel.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    Knighted 1866 (on completion of transatlantic telegraph).
    Bibliography
    1972, Sir Daniel Gooch, Memoirs and Diary, ed. R.B.Wilson, with introd. and notes, Newton Abbot: David \& Charles.
    Further Reading
    A.Platt, 1987, The Life and Times of Daniel Gooch, Gloucester: Alan Sutton (puts Gooch's career into context).
    C.Hamilton Ellis, 1958, Twenty Locomotive Men, Ian Allan (contains a good short biography).
    J.Kieve, 1973, The Electric Telegraph, Newton Abbot: David \& Charles, pp. 112–5.
    PJGR

    Biographical history of technology > Gooch, Sir Daniel

  • 14 unir

    v.
    1 to join (juntar) (pedazos, habitaciones).
    unió los dos palos con una cuerda he joined o tied the two sticks together with a piece of string
    Ellos unieron las telas They joined the fabrics.
    Ellos unieron los equipos They merged the teams.
    2 to connect, to link (comunicar) (ciudades, terminales, aparatos).
    El cable une la tubería The wire connects the tubing.
    3 to combine.
    en su obra une belleza y técnica her work combines beauty with technique
    unir algo a algo to add something to something
    4 to draw together, to assemble, to unify.
    El amor une a las personas Love draws people together.
    * * *
    1 (juntar) to unite, join, join together
    2 (combinar) to combine (a, with)
    3 (enlazar) to link (a, to)
    \
    unirse en matrimonio formal to unite in marriage
    * * *
    verb
    to unite, join, link
    - unirse a
    * * *
    1. VT
    1) (=acercar)
    a) [+ grupos, tendencias, pueblos] to unite
    b) [sentimientos] to unite
    c) [lazos] to link, bind
    2) (=atar) [contrato] to bind
    3) (=asociar, agrupar) to combine

    el esquí de fondo une dos actividades: montañismo y esquí — cross-country skiing combines two activities: mountaineering and skiing

    4) (=conectar) [carretera, vuelo, ferrocarril] to link ( con with)
    5) [+ objetos, piezas] [gen] to join, join together; [con pegamento, celo] to stick together; [con clavos, puntas] to fasten together
    6) (Culin) [+ líquidos] to mix; [+ salsa] to blend
    7) (Com) [+ compañías, intereses] to merge
    2.
    See:
    * * *
    1.
    verbo transitivo
    1)
    a) < cables> to join; (con cola, pegamento) to stick... together; < esfuerzos> to combine

    los unió en matrimonio — (frml) he joined them in matrimony (frml)

    b) sentimientos/intereses to unite

    unida sentimentalmente a... — (period) romantically involved with...

    c) <características/cualidades/estilos> to combine
    2) ( comunicar) < lugares> to link
    3) ( fusionar) <empresas/organizaciones> to merge
    4) < salsa> to mix
    2.
    unirse v pron
    1)
    a) ( aliarse) personas/colectividades to join together
    b) características/cualidades to combine
    2) ( juntarse) caminos to converge, meet
    3) ( fusionarse) empresas/organizaciones to merge
    * * *
    = aggregate, bridge, connect, join together, link, marry, string, unite, confound, piece together, weld into/together, splice, bundle, pool, band, bind + Nombre + together, knit, knit, federate, conjoin, cement.
    Ex. You have attempted to aggregate the UDC class number incorrectly.
    Ex. BLAISE offers a variety of services bridging the cataloguing and information retrieval functions.
    Ex. Plainly, it is not always the case that there is a connection between farming and spelling, and many other documents can be identified where these subjects are not connected.
    Ex. A portfolio is a container for holding loose materials, e.g. paintings, drawings, papers, unbound sections of a book, and similar materials, consisting of two covers joined together at the back.
    Ex. These references operate in a similar fashion whether they are used to link authors' names or subject headings.
    Ex. At that time OCLC was already going strong, and we tried to find some backing from the State of New York and possibly from the federal government to marry those two systems.
    Ex. There is no question of stringing together simple concepts in a preferred citation order to produce a single index description of the summarized subject content of a document.
    Ex. It has become increasingly difficult to unite both categories in one union and demands for a trade union of library employees have been raised.
    Ex. The confounding of opposites is also common though, again, care has to be taken to see that we do not confound two subjects on which extensive literature exists.
    Ex. During his stay in Laputa, Captain Gulliver was very impressed by a book-writing machine which produced fragments of sentences which were dictated to scribes and later pieced together.
    Ex. The Department of Trade and Industry has undergone many changes over the years; it has been split into two separate departments and welded together again.
    Ex. A filmloop is a short length of film enclosed in a cassette and with the end of the film spliced on to the beginning so that it requires no rewinding.
    Ex. CD-ROM products that combine, or bundle, related information services will be at the forefront because of their usefulness to end-users.
    Ex. The results of two studies of the way reference librarians work were pooled to provide an understanding of the important features necessary in software for computerized reference work.
    Ex. The author advises banding retention policies to focus on a few clear options.
    Ex. People value the public library highly as an educational and community resource and the library acts as an 'information junction' to bind the community together.
    Ex. I want to knit that to another Internet format, which is the Web log -- the 'blog'.
    Ex. I want to knit that to another Internet format, which is the Web log -- the 'blog'.
    Ex. The usefulness of the many online periodicals and scientific digital libraries that exist today is limited by the inability to federate these resources through a unified interface.
    Ex. The grotesque is an effect achieved by conjoining disparate framents which do not realistically belong together.
    Ex. An in-house bulletin may serve to cement firm relationships with the library's personnel.
    ----
    * conseguir unir = rally.
    * unir a = tie (to), couple with.
    * unir esfuerzos = join + hands.
    * unir fuerzas = join + forces, pool + forces.
    * unir inextricablemente = interweave.
    * unir mediante espigas = tenon.
    * unir mediante hiperenlaces = hotlink [hot-link].
    * unir mediante mortaja = mortise.
    * unirse = come together, partner, bond, stand up as + one.
    * unirse a = ally with, join, hop on, join + Posesivo + ranks.
    * unirse a una conversación = chime in.
    * unirse en matrimonio = tie + the knot.
    * unir sin solapar = butt together.
    * volverse a unir a = rejoin.
    * * *
    1.
    verbo transitivo
    1)
    a) < cables> to join; (con cola, pegamento) to stick... together; < esfuerzos> to combine

    los unió en matrimonio — (frml) he joined them in matrimony (frml)

    b) sentimientos/intereses to unite

    unida sentimentalmente a... — (period) romantically involved with...

    c) <características/cualidades/estilos> to combine
    2) ( comunicar) < lugares> to link
    3) ( fusionar) <empresas/organizaciones> to merge
    4) < salsa> to mix
    2.
    unirse v pron
    1)
    a) ( aliarse) personas/colectividades to join together
    b) características/cualidades to combine
    2) ( juntarse) caminos to converge, meet
    3) ( fusionarse) empresas/organizaciones to merge
    * * *
    = aggregate, bridge, connect, join together, link, marry, string, unite, confound, piece together, weld into/together, splice, bundle, pool, band, bind + Nombre + together, knit, knit, federate, conjoin, cement.

    Ex: You have attempted to aggregate the UDC class number incorrectly.

    Ex: BLAISE offers a variety of services bridging the cataloguing and information retrieval functions.
    Ex: Plainly, it is not always the case that there is a connection between farming and spelling, and many other documents can be identified where these subjects are not connected.
    Ex: A portfolio is a container for holding loose materials, e.g. paintings, drawings, papers, unbound sections of a book, and similar materials, consisting of two covers joined together at the back.
    Ex: These references operate in a similar fashion whether they are used to link authors' names or subject headings.
    Ex: At that time OCLC was already going strong, and we tried to find some backing from the State of New York and possibly from the federal government to marry those two systems.
    Ex: There is no question of stringing together simple concepts in a preferred citation order to produce a single index description of the summarized subject content of a document.
    Ex: It has become increasingly difficult to unite both categories in one union and demands for a trade union of library employees have been raised.
    Ex: The confounding of opposites is also common though, again, care has to be taken to see that we do not confound two subjects on which extensive literature exists.
    Ex: During his stay in Laputa, Captain Gulliver was very impressed by a book-writing machine which produced fragments of sentences which were dictated to scribes and later pieced together.
    Ex: The Department of Trade and Industry has undergone many changes over the years; it has been split into two separate departments and welded together again.
    Ex: A filmloop is a short length of film enclosed in a cassette and with the end of the film spliced on to the beginning so that it requires no rewinding.
    Ex: CD-ROM products that combine, or bundle, related information services will be at the forefront because of their usefulness to end-users.
    Ex: The results of two studies of the way reference librarians work were pooled to provide an understanding of the important features necessary in software for computerized reference work.
    Ex: The author advises banding retention policies to focus on a few clear options.
    Ex: People value the public library highly as an educational and community resource and the library acts as an 'information junction' to bind the community together.
    Ex: I want to knit that to another Internet format, which is the Web log -- the 'blog'.
    Ex: I want to knit that to another Internet format, which is the Web log -- the 'blog'.
    Ex: The usefulness of the many online periodicals and scientific digital libraries that exist today is limited by the inability to federate these resources through a unified interface.
    Ex: The grotesque is an effect achieved by conjoining disparate framents which do not realistically belong together.
    Ex: An in-house bulletin may serve to cement firm relationships with the library's personnel.
    * conseguir unir = rally.
    * unir a = tie (to), couple with.
    * unir esfuerzos = join + hands.
    * unir fuerzas = join + forces, pool + forces.
    * unir inextricablemente = interweave.
    * unir mediante espigas = tenon.
    * unir mediante hiperenlaces = hotlink [hot-link].
    * unir mediante mortaja = mortise.
    * unirse = come together, partner, bond, stand up as + one.
    * unirse a = ally with, join, hop on, join + Posesivo + ranks.
    * unirse a una conversación = chime in.
    * unirse en matrimonio = tie + the knot.
    * unir sin solapar = butt together.
    * volverse a unir a = rejoin.

    * * *
    unir [I1 ]
    vt
    A
    1
    «persona»: unió los trozos con un pegamento she stuck the pieces together with glue
    unió los cables con cinta aislante he joined the wires with insulating tape
    ha unido dos estilos muy diferentes he has combined two very different styles
    el sacerdote los unió en matrimonio ( frml); the priest joined them in matrimony ( frml)
    unamos nuestros esfuerzos let us combine our efforts
    2 «sentimientos/intereses» to unite
    los unía el deseo de … they were united by their desire to …
    los une su afición al deporte their love of sport binds them together o acts as a bond between them o unites them
    el amor que nos une the love which unites us
    unida sentimentalmente a … ( period); romantically involved with …
    3 ‹características/cualidades› unir algo A algo to combine sth WITH sth
    une a su inteligencia una gran madurez he combines intelligence with great maturity
    B (comunicar) to link
    la nueva carretera une los dos pueblos the new road links the two towns
    el puente aéreo que une las dos ciudades the shuttle service which runs between o links the two cities
    C ‹salsa› to mix
    unirse
    A
    1 (aliarse) «personas/colectividades» to join together
    se unieron para hacer un frente común they joined forces o united in a common cause
    los dos países se unieron en una federación the two countries joined together to form a federation
    se unieron en matrimonio they were married, they were joined in matrimony ( frml)
    varias empresas se unieron para formar un consorcio several companies joined together o came together o combined to form a consortium
    unirse A algo:
    se unió a nuestra causa he joined our cause
    2 «características/cualidades» to combine
    en él se unen la ambición y el orgullo ambition and pride come together o combine in him, he combines ambition with pride
    a su belleza se une una gran simpatía her beauty is combined with a very likable personality
    B (juntarse) «caminos» to converge, meet
    donde el tráfico del oeste se une con el del norte where traffic from the west converges with o meets traffic from the north
    * * *

     

    unir ( conjugate unir) verbo transitivo
    1
    a) cables to join;

    (con cola, pegamento) to stick … together;
    esfuerzos to combine
    b) [sentimientos/intereses] to unite

    c)características/cualidades/estilos to combine;

    unir algo a algo to combine sth with sth
    2 ( comunicar) ‹ lugares to link
    3 ( fusionar) ‹empresas/organizaciones to merge
    unirse verbo pronominal
    1 ( aliarse) [personas/colectividades] to join together;

    2 ( juntarse) [ caminos] to converge, meet
    3 ( fusionarse) [empresas/organizaciones] to merge
    unir verbo transitivo
    1 (cables, conexiones) to join, unite
    2 (esfuerzos, intereses) to join
    (asociar, fusionar) unieron sus empresas, they merged their companies
    3 (comunicar) to link: ese camino une las dos aldeas, that path links the two villages
    ' unir' also found in these entries:
    Spanish:
    acercar
    - casar
    - empalmar
    - fundir
    - juntar
    - ligar
    - remachar
    - vincular
    English:
    bond
    - cement
    - connect
    - couple
    - join
    - join up
    - link
    - neither
    - screw together
    - stick together
    - unite
    - yoke
    - amalgamate
    - bring
    - marry
    - reunite
    - splice
    - unify
    * * *
    vt
    1. [juntar] [pedazos, piezas, habitaciones] to join;
    [empresas, estados, facciones] to unite; Informát [archivos] to merge;
    unió los dos palos con una cuerda he joined o tied the two sticks with a piece of string;
    debemos unir fuerzas we must combine forces
    2. [relacionar] [personas]
    aquella experiencia les unió mucho that experience made them very close;
    les une una fuerte amistad they are very close friends, they share a very close friendship;
    les une su pasión por la música they share a passion for music;
    los lazos que nos unen the ties that bind us;
    Formal
    unir a dos personas en (santo) matrimonio to join two people in (holy) matrimony
    3. [comunicar] [ciudades, terminales, aparatos] to connect, to link;
    la línea férrea que une la capital a o [m5] con la costa the railway o US railroad between o which links the capital and the coast
    4. [combinar] to combine;
    en su obra une belleza y técnica her work combines beauty with technique;
    unir algo a algo [añadir] to add sth to sth;
    a la desinformación hay que unir también el desinterés de la gente in addition to the lack of information, we have to take into account people's lack of interest
    5. [mezclar] to mix o blend in;
    una la mantequilla con el azúcar cream together the butter and the sugar
    * * *
    v/t
    1 join
    2 personas unite
    3 características combine ( con with)
    4 ciudades link
    * * *
    unir vt
    1) juntar: to unite, to join, to link
    2) combinar: to combine, to blend
    * * *
    unir vb
    1. (juntar) to join
    2. (comunicar) to link
    3. (relacionar) to unite

    Spanish-English dictionary > unir

  • 15 Froude, William

    SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping
    [br]
    b. 1810 Dartington, Devon, England
    d. 4 May 1879 Simonstown, South Africa
    [br]
    English naval architect; pioneer of experimental ship-model research.
    [br]
    Froude was educated at a preparatory school at Buckfastleigh, and then at Westminster School, London, before entering Oriel College, Oxford, to read mathematics and classics. Between 1836 and 1838 he served as a pupil civil engineer, and then he joined the staff of Isambard Kingdom Brunel on various railway engineering projects in southern England, including the South Devon Atmospheric Railway. He retired from professional work in 1846 and lived with his invalid father at Dartington Parsonage. The next twenty years, while apparently unproductive, were important to Froude as he concentrated his mind on difficult mathematical and scientific problems. Froude married in 1839 and had five children, one of whom, Robert Edmund Froude (1846–1924), was to succeed him in later years in his research work for the Admiralty. Following the death of his father, Froude moved to Paignton, and there commenced his studies on the resistance of solid bodies moving through fluids. Initially these were with hulls towed through a house roof storage tank by wires taken over a pulley and attached to falling weights, but the work became more sophisticated and was conducted on ponds and the open water of a creek near Dartmouth. Froude published work on the rolling of ships in the second volume of the Transactions of the then new Institution of Naval Architects and through this became acquainted with Sir Edward Reed. This led in 1870 to the Admiralty's offer of £2,000 towards the cost of an experimental tank for ship models at Torquay. The tank was completed in 1872 and tests were carried out on the model of HMS Greyhound following full-scale towing trials which had commenced on the actual ship the previous year. From this Froude enunciated his Law of Comparisons, which defines the rules concerning the relationship of the power required to move geometrically similar floating bodies across fluids. It enabled naval architects to predict, from a study of a much less expensive and smaller model, the resistance to motion and the power required to move a full-size ship. The work in the tank led Froude to design a model-cutting machine, dynamometers and machinery for the accurate ruling of graph paper. Froude's work, and later that of his son, was prodigious and covered many fields of ship design, including powering, propulsion, rolling, steering and stability. In only six years he had stamped his academic authority on the new science of hydrodynamics, served on many national committees and corresponded with fellow researchers throughout the world. His health suffered and he sailed for South Africa to recuperate, but he contracted dysentery and died at Simonstown. He will be remembered for all time as one of the greatest "fathers" of naval architecture.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    FRS. Honorary LLD Glasgow University.
    Bibliography
    1955, The Papers of William Froude, London: Institution of Naval Architects (the Institution also published a memoir by Sir Westcott Abell and an evaluation of his work by Dr R.W.L. Gawn of the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors; this volume reprints all Froude's papers from the Institution of Naval Architects and other sources as diverse as the British Association, the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Institution of Civil Engineers.
    Further Reading
    A.T.Crichton, 1990, "William and Robert Edmund Froude and the evolution of the ship model experimental tank", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 61:33–49.
    FMW

    Biographical history of technology > Froude, William

  • 16 Lartigue, Charles François Marie-Thérèse

    [br]
    b. 1834 Toulouse, France d. 1907
    [br]
    French engineer and businessman, inventor of the Lartigue monorail.
    [br]
    Lartigue worked as a civil engineer in Algeria and while there invented a simple monorail for industrial or agricultural use. It comprised a single rail carried on trestles; vehicles comprised a single wheel with two tubs suspended either side, like panniers. These were pushed or pulled by hand or, occasionally, hauled by mule. Such lines were used in Algerian esparto-grass plantations.
    In 1882 he patented a monorail system based on this arrangement, with important improvements: traction was to be mechanical; vehicles were to have two or four wheels and to be able to be coupled together; and the trestles were to have, on each side, a light guide rail upon which horizontal rollers beneath the vehicles would bear. Early in 1883 the Lartigue Railway Construction Company was formed in London and two experimental prototype monorails were subsequently demonstrated in public. One, at the Paris Agricultural Exhibition, had an electric locomotive that was built in two parts, one either side of the rail to maintain balance, hauling small wagons. The other prototype, in London, had a small, steam locomotive with two vertical boilers and was designed by Anatole Mallet. By now Lartigue had become associated with F.B. Behr. Behr was Managing Director of the construction company and of the Listowel \& Ballybunion Railway Company, which obtained an Act of Parliament in 1886 to built a Lartigue monorail railway in the South West of Ireland between those two places. Its further development and successful operation are described in the article on Behr in this volume.
    A much less successful attempt to establish a Lartigue monorail railway took place in France, in the départment of Loire. In 1888 the council of the département agreed to a proposal put forward by Lartigue for a 10 1/2 mile (17 km) long monorail between the towns of Feurs and Panissières: the agreement was reached on the casting vote of the Chairman, a contact of Lartigue. A concession was granted to successive companies with which Lartigue was closely involved, but construction of the line was attended by muddle, delay and perhaps fraud, although it was completed sufficiently for trial trains to operate. The locomotive had two horizontal boilers, one either side of the track. But the inspectors of the department found deficiencies in the completeness and probable safety of the railway; when they did eventually agree to opening on a limited scale, the company claimed to have insufficient funds to do so unless monies owed by the department were paid. In the end the concession was forfeited and the line dismantled. More successful was an electrically operated Lartigue mineral line built at mines in the eastern Pyrenees.
    It appears to have reused equipment from the electric demonstration line, with modifications, and included gradients as steep as 1 in 12. There was no generating station: descending trains generated the electricity to power ascending ones. This line is said to have operated for at least two years.
    [br]
    Bibliography
    1882, French patent no. 149,301 (monorail system). 1882, British patent no. 2,764 (monorail system).
    Further Reading
    D.G.Tucker, 1984, "F.B.Behr's development of the Lartigue monorail", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 55 (describes Lartigue and his work).
    P.H.Chauffort and J.-L.Largier, 1981, "Le monorail de Feurs à Panissières", Chemin defer régionaux et urbains (magazine of the Fédération des Amis des Chemins de Fer
    Secondaires) 164 (in French; describes Lartigue and his work).
    PJGR

    Biographical history of technology > Lartigue, Charles François Marie-Thérèse

  • 17 voie

    voie [vwa]
    1. feminine noun
       a. ( = chemin) way ; ( = route, rue) road ; ( = itinéraire) route
    expédier qch par voie de mer or maritime to send sth by sea
    voyager par voie de terre or terrestre to travel overland
       b. ( = partie d'une route) lane
    route à 3/4 voies 3-lane/4-lane road
       c. (Railways) track
       d. [de corps] voies digestives/respiratoires/urinaires digestive/respiratory/urinary tract
       e. (figurative) way
    ouvrir/tracer/montrer la voie to open up/mark out/show the way
    préparer la voie à qn/qch to pave the way for sb/sth
       f. ( = filière, moyen) par des voies détournées by devious means
    par la voie hiérarchique/diplomatique through official/diplomatic channels
       g. ► en voie de
    c'est la voie royale vers or pour it's the pathway to ; [+ carrière, pouvoir] it's the fast track to
    * * *
    vwɑ
    1) fig ( chemin) way

    être sur la bonne voie[personne] to be on the right track

    2) ( intermédiaire) channels (pl)
    3) ( subdivision de route) lane; ( route) road; ( rue) street

    voie à sens unique — ( en ville) one-way street

    4) ( rails) track

    ‘défense de traverser les voies’ — ‘keep off the tracks’

    par voie buccale or orale — orally

    Phrasal Verbs:
    * * *
    vwa
    1. vb
    See:
    2. nf
    1) (= chemin, moyen) way

    être en bonne voie — to be shaping up, to be going well

    2) [corps]

    par voie buccale; par voie orale — orally

    3) CHEMINS DE FER track, line
    4) AUTOMOBILES lane
    * * *
    voie nf
    1 fig ( chemin) way; la voie de la paix/modernisation/sagesse the way to peace/modernization/wisdom; être sur la voie d'un accord to be on the way to an agreement; montrer la voie à qn to show sb the way; montrer la voie [personne, pays, entreprise] to lead the way; ouvrir la voie à to pave the way for; la voie est libre the way is clear; chercher/trouver sa voie to look for/find one's way in life; entreprise en voie de devenir le cinquième groupe européen company on its way to becoming number five in Europe; sur or dans la voie de on the road to; s'engager sur or dans une voie dangereuse to embark on a dangerous course; choisir/suivre une voie médiane fig to choose/follow a middle course; être sur la bonne/mauvaise voie [personne] to be on the right/wrong track; les travaux/négociations sont en bonne voie the work is/the negotiations are progressing; la voie royale vers le pouvoir the fast track to power; les sociétés déficitaires ou en voie de l'être companies in deficit or (in the process of) becoming so; en voie de désintégration disintegrating ( après n); par voies de conséquence consequently; espèce en voie d'extinction or de disparition endangered species; pays en voie de développement developing country; ⇒ impénétrable;
    2 ( intermédiaire) channels (pl); par la voie diplomatique through diplomatic channels; par la voie du référendum by means of a referendum; par voie de presse through the press; par des voie détournées by roundabout means; par voie de tracts/d'affiches through leaflets/posters; par voie de mer by sea; par la voie des airs by air; par voie d'action Jur by bringing action; ⇒ concours, conséquence, scrutin;
    3 ( subdivision de route) lane; ( route) road; ( rue) street; route à trois voies three-lane road; voie réservée aux autobus bus lane; voie à sens unique ( en rase campagne) one-way road; ( en ville) one-way street; voie à double sens ( en rase campagne) road for two-way traffic GB, two-way road US; ( en ville) street for two-way traffic GB, two-way street US;
    4 Rail ( rails) track; voie large/étroite wide-/narrow-gauge track; ligne à voie unique/à double voie single- /double-track line; ne rien jeter sur la voie do not throw anything onto the track; ‘défense de traverser les voies’ ‘keep off the tracks’; le train entre en gare voie 2 the train is arriving at platform 2;
    voie d'accélération acceleration lane; voie aérienne Transp air route; voie de communication Transp transport link; voie à contresens contraflow lane; voie de décélération deceleration lane; voie d'eau Naut leak; voie d'évitement Rail siding; voie express expressway; voie ferrée Rail ( infrastructure) railway track GB, railroad track US; Transp (mode de transport, ligne) railway GB, railroad US; voie fluviale Transp (inland) waterway; voie de garage Rail siding; mettre qn sur une voie de garage fig to shunt sb onto the sidelines; voie de gauche fast lane; voie hertzienne Télécom Hertzian waves (pl); par la voie hertzienne by Hertzian waves; voie hiérarchique Admin right channels (pl); Voie lactée Astron Milky Way; voie maritime Transp sea route; voie navigable Transp waterway; voie privée Admin private road; voie publique Jur public highway; sur la voie publique on the public highway; voie de raccordement Rail connecting track; Gén Civ slip road; voie rapide expressway; voie de recours Jur path for appeal; voie sans issue Gén Civ, fig dead end; ( sur panneau) no through road; voie souterraine underpass; voies de fait Jur ( agression) battery (sg); Admin, Jur ( atteinte aux droits) infringement of civil liberties; voies nasales Anat nasal passages; voies respiratoires Anat respiratory tract (sg); voies urinaires Anat urinary tract (sg).
    [vwa] nom féminin
    1. [rue] road
    voie de passage/raccordement major/access road
    voie sans issue no through road, cul-de-sac
    2. [moyen d'accès] way
    [itinéraire] route
    par voie de terre overland, by land
    ouvrir la voie à quelqu'un/quelque chose to pave the way for somebody/something, to make way for somebody/something
    voie aérienne air route, airway
    voie maritime sea route, seaway
    3. RAIL
    ‘ne pas traverser les voies’ ‘do not cross the tracks’
    voie de garage ou de service ou de dégagement siding
    4. [procédure, moyen]
    suivre la voie hiérarchique/diplomatique/normale to go through the official/diplomatic/usual channels
    par des voies détournées by devious means, by a circuitous route
    c. [dans une enquête] to put somebody on the right track
    par voie nasale/rectale through the nose/the rectum
    8. ANATOMIE & PHYSIOLOGIE tract, duct
    voies respiratoires airways, respiratory tract
    voie humide/sèche wet/dry process
    10. INFORMATIQUE & TÉLÉCOMMUNICATIONS [sur bande] track
    [de communication] channel
    ————————
    voies nom féminin pluriel
    en bonne voie locution adjectivale
    maintenant, les affaires sont en bonne voie business is looking up
    ————————
    en voie de locution prépositionnelle
    en voie de construction being built, under construction
    en voie de guérison getting better, on the road to recovery
    ————————
    par la voie de locution prépositionnelle

    Dictionnaire Français-Anglais > voie

  • 18 Edison, Thomas Alva

    [br]
    b. 11 February 1847 Milan, Ohio, USA
    d. 18 October 1931 Glenmont
    [br]
    American inventor and pioneer electrical developer.
    [br]
    He was the son of Samuel Edison, who was in the timber business. His schooling was delayed due to scarlet fever until 1855, when he was 8½ years old, but he was an avid reader. By the age of 14 he had a job as a newsboy on the railway from Port Huron to Detroit, a distance of sixty-three miles (101 km). He worked a fourteen-hour day with a stopover of five hours, which he spent in the Detroit Free Library. He also sold sweets on the train and, later, fruit and vegetables, and was soon making a profit of $20 a week. He then started two stores in Port Huron and used a spare freight car as a laboratory. He added a hand-printing press to produce 400 copies weekly of The Grand Trunk Herald, most of which he compiled and edited himself. He set himself to learn telegraphy from the station agent at Mount Clements, whose son he had saved from being run over by a freight car.
    At the age of 16 he became a telegraphist at Port Huron. In 1863 he became railway telegraphist at the busy Stratford Junction of the Grand Trunk Railroad, arranging a clock with a notched wheel to give the hourly signal which was to prove that he was awake and at his post! He left hurriedly after failing to hold a train which was nearly involved in a head-on collision. He usually worked the night shift, allowing himself time for experiments during the day. His first invention was an arrangement of two Morse registers so that a high-speed input could be decoded at a slower speed. Moving from place to place he held many positions as a telegraphist. In Boston he invented an automatic vote recorder for Congress and patented it, but the idea was rejected. This was the first of a total of 1180 patents that he was to take out during his lifetime. After six years he resigned from the Western Union Company to devote all his time to invention, his next idea being an improved ticker-tape machine for stockbrokers. He developed a duplex telegraphy system, but this was turned down by the Western Union Company. He then moved to New York.
    Edison found accommodation in the battery room of Law's Gold Reporting Company, sleeping in the cellar, and there his repair of a broken transmitter marked him as someone of special talents. His superior soon resigned, and he was promoted with a salary of $300 a month. Western Union paid him $40,000 for the sole rights on future improvements on the duplex telegraph, and he moved to Ward Street, Newark, New Jersey, where he employed a gathering of specialist engineers. Within a year, he married one of his employees, Mary Stilwell, when she was only 16: a daughter, Marion, was born in 1872, and two sons, Thomas and William, in 1876 and 1879, respectively.
    He continued to work on the automatic telegraph, a device to send out messages faster than they could be tapped out by hand: that is, over fifty words per minute or so. An earlier machine by Alexander Bain worked at up to 400 words per minute, but was not good over long distances. Edison agreed to work on improving this feature of Bain's machine for the Automatic Telegraph Company (ATC) for $40,000. He improved it to a working speed of 500 words per minute and ran a test between Washington and New York. Hoping to sell their equipment to the Post Office in Britain, ATC sent Edison to England in 1873 to negotiate. A 500-word message was to be sent from Liverpool to London every half-hour for six hours, followed by tests on 2,200 miles (3,540 km) of cable at Greenwich. Only confused results were obtained due to induction in the cable, which lay coiled in a water tank. Edison returned to New York, where he worked on his quadruplex telegraph system, tests of which proved a success between New York and Albany in December 1874. Unfortunately, simultaneous negotiation with Western Union and ATC resulted in a lawsuit.
    Alexander Graham Bell was granted a patent for a telephone in March 1876 while Edison was still working on the same idea. His improvements allowed the device to operate over a distance of hundreds of miles instead of only a few miles. Tests were carried out over the 106 miles (170 km) between New York and Philadelphia. Edison applied for a patent on the carbon-button transmitter in April 1877, Western Union agreeing to pay him $6,000 a year for the seventeen-year duration of the patent. In these years he was also working on the development of the electric lamp and on a duplicating machine which would make up to 3,000 copies from a stencil. In 1876–7 he moved from Newark to Menlo Park, twenty-four miles (39 km) from New York on the Pennsylvania Railway, near Elizabeth. He had bought a house there around which he built the premises that would become his "inventions factory". It was there that he began the use of his 200- page pocket notebooks, each of which lasted him about two weeks, so prolific were his ideas. When he died he left 3,400 of them filled with notes and sketches.
    Late in 1877 he applied for a patent for a phonograph which was granted on 19 February 1878, and by the end of the year he had formed a company to manufacture this totally new product. At the time, Edison saw the device primarily as a business aid rather than for entertainment, rather as a dictating machine. In August 1878 he was granted a British patent. In July 1878 he tried to measure the heat from the solar corona at a solar eclipse viewed from Rawlins, Wyoming, but his "tasimeter" was too sensitive.
    Probably his greatest achievement was "The Subdivision of the Electric Light" or the "glow bulb". He tried many materials for the filament before settling on carbon. He gave a demonstration of electric light by lighting up Menlo Park and inviting the public. Edison was, of course, faced with the problem of inventing and producing all the ancillaries which go to make up the electrical system of generation and distribution-meters, fuses, insulation, switches, cabling—even generators had to be designed and built; everything was new. He started a number of manufacturing companies to produce the various components needed.
    In 1881 he built the world's largest generator, which weighed 27 tons, to light 1,200 lamps at the Paris Exhibition. It was later moved to England to be used in the world's first central power station with steam engine drive at Holborn Viaduct, London. In September 1882 he started up his Pearl Street Generating Station in New York, which led to a worldwide increase in the application of electric power, particularly for lighting. At the same time as these developments, he built a 1,300yd (1,190m) electric railway at Menlo Park.
    On 9 August 1884 his wife died of typhoid. Using his telegraphic skills, he proposed to 19-year-old Mina Miller in Morse code while in the company of others on a train. He married her in February 1885 before buying a new house and estate at West Orange, New Jersey, building a new laboratory not far away in the Orange Valley.
    Edison used direct current which was limited to around 250 volts. Alternating current was largely developed by George Westinghouse and Nicola Tesla, using transformers to step up the current to a higher voltage for long-distance transmission. The use of AC gradually overtook the Edison DC system.
    In autumn 1888 he patented a form of cinephotography, the kinetoscope, obtaining film-stock from George Eastman. In 1893 he set up the first film studio, which was pivoted so as to catch the sun, with a hinged roof which could be raised. In 1894 kinetoscope parlours with "peep shows" were starting up in cities all over America. Competition came from the Latham Brothers with a screen-projection machine, which Edison answered with his "Vitascope", shown in New York in 1896. This showed pictures with accompanying sound, but there was some difficulty with synchronization. Edison also experimented with captions at this early date.
    In 1880 he filed a patent for a magnetic ore separator, the first of nearly sixty. He bought up deposits of low-grade iron ore which had been developed in the north of New Jersey. The process was a commercial success until the discovery of iron-rich ore in Minnesota rendered it uneconomic and uncompetitive. In 1898 cement rock was discovered in New Village, west of West Orange. Edison bought the land and started cement manufacture, using kilns twice the normal length and using half as much fuel to heat them as the normal type of kiln. In 1893 he met Henry Ford, who was building his second car, at an Edison convention. This started him on the development of a battery for an electric car on which he made over 9,000 experiments. In 1903 he sold his patent for wireless telegraphy "for a song" to Guglielmo Marconi.
    In 1910 Edison designed a prefabricated concrete house. In December 1914 fire destroyed three-quarters of the West Orange plant, but it was at once rebuilt, and with the threat of war Edison started to set up his own plants for making all the chemicals that he had previously been buying from Europe, such as carbolic acid, phenol, benzol, aniline dyes, etc. He was appointed President of the Navy Consulting Board, for whom, he said, he made some forty-five inventions, "but they were pigeonholed, every one of them". Thus did Edison find that the Navy did not take kindly to civilian interference.
    In 1927 he started the Edison Botanic Research Company, founded with similar investment from Ford and Firestone with the object of finding a substitute for overseas-produced rubber. In the first year he tested no fewer than 3,327 possible plants, in the second year, over 1,400, eventually developing a variety of Golden Rod which grew to 14 ft (4.3 m) in height. However, all this effort and money was wasted, due to the discovery of synthetic rubber.
    In October 1929 he was present at Henry Ford's opening of his Dearborn Museum to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the incandescent lamp, including a replica of the Menlo Park laboratory. He was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal and was elected to the American Academy of Sciences. He died in 1931 at his home, Glenmont; throughout the USA, lights were dimmed temporarily on the day of his funeral.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    Member of the American Academy of Sciences. Congressional Gold Medal.
    Further Reading
    M.Josephson, 1951, Edison, Eyre \& Spottiswode.
    R.W.Clark, 1977, Edison, the Man who Made the Future, Macdonald \& Jane.
    IMcN

    Biographical history of technology > Edison, Thomas Alva

  • 19 Spooner, Charles Easton

    [br]
    b. 1818 Maentwrog, Merioneth (now Gwynedd), Wales
    d. 18 November 1889 Portmadoc (now Porthmadog), Wales
    [br]
    English engineer, pioneer of narrow-gauge steam railways.
    [br]
    At the age of 16 Charles Spooner helped his father, James, to build the Festiniog Railway, a horse-and-gravity tramroad; they maintained an even gradient and kept costs down by following a sinuous course along Welsh mountainsides and using a very narrow gauge. This was probably originally 2 ft 1 in. (63.5 cm) from rail centre to rail centre; with the introduction of heavier, and therefore wider, rails the gauge between them was reduced and was eventually standardized at 1 ft 11 1/2 in (60 cm). After James Spooner's death in 1856 Charles Spooner became Manager and Engineer of the Festiniog Railway and sought to introduce steam locomotives. Widening the gauge was impracticable, but there was no precedent for operating a public railway of such narrow gauge by steam. Much of the design work for locomotives for the Festiniog Railway was the responsibility of C.M.Holland, and many possible types were considered: eventually, in 1863, two very small 0–4–0 tank locomotives, with tenders for coal, were built by George England.
    These locomotives were successful, after initial problems had been overcome, and a passenger train service was introduced in 1865 with equal success. The potential for economical operation offered by such a railway attracted widespread attention, the more so because it had been effectively illegal to build new passenger railways in Britain to other than standard gauge since the Gauge of Railways Act of 1846.
    Spooner progressively improved the track, alignment, signalling and rolling stock of the Festiniog Railway and developed it from a tramroad to a miniaturized main line. Increasing traffic led to the introduction in 1869 of the 0–4–4–0 double-Fairlie locomotive Little Wonder, built to the patent of Robert Fairlie. This proved more powerful than two 0–4–0s and impressive demonstrations were given to engineers from many parts of the world, leading to the widespread adoption of narrow-gauge railways. Spooner himself favoured a gauge of 2 ft 6 in. (76 cm) or 2 ft 9 in. (84 cm). Comparison of the economy of narrow gauges with the inconvenience of a break of gauge at junctions with wider gauges did, however, become a continuing controversy, which limited the adoption of narrow gauges in Britain.
    Bogie coaches had long been used in North America but were introduced to Britain by Spooner in 1872, when he had two such coaches built for the Festiniog Railway. Both of these and one of its original locomotives, though much rebuilt, remain in service.
    Spooner, despite some serious illnesses, remained Manager of the Festiniog Railway until his death.
    [br]
    Bibliography
    1869, jointly with G.A.Huddart, British patent no. 1,487 (improved fishplates). 1869, British patent no. 2,896 (rail-bending machinery).
    1871, Narrow Gauge Railways, E. \& F.N.Spon (includes his description of the Festiniog Railway, reports of locomotive trials and his proposals for narrow-gauge railways).
    Further Reading
    J.I.C.Boyd, 1975, The Festiniog Railway, Blandford: Oakwood Press; C.E.Lee, 1945, Narrow-Gauge Railways in North Wales, The Railway Publishing Co. (both give good descriptions of Spooner and the Festiniog Railway).
    C.Hamilton Ellis, 1965, Railway Carriages in the British Isles, London: George Allen \& Unwin, pp. 181–3. Pihl, Carl Abraham.
    PJGR

    Biographical history of technology > Spooner, Charles Easton

  • 20 Behr, Fritz Bernhard

    [br]
    b. 9 October 1842 Berlin, Germany
    d. 25 February 1927
    [br]
    German (naturalized British in 1876) engineer, promoter of the Lartigue monorail system.
    [br]
    Behr trained as an engineer in Britain and had several railway engineering appointments before becoming associated with C.F.M.-T. Lartigue in promoting the Lartigue monorail system in the British Isles. In Lartigue's system, a single rail was supported on trestles; vehicles ran on the rail, their bodies suspended pannier-fashion, stabilized by horizontal rollers running against light guide rails fixed to the sides of the trestles. Behr became Managing Director of the Listowel \& Ballybunion Railway Company, which in 1888 opened its Lartigue system line between those two places in the south-west of Ireland. Three locomotives designed by J.T.A. Mallet were built for the line by Hunslet Engine Company, each with two horizontal boilers, one either side of the track. Coaches and wagons likewise were in two parts. Technically the railway was successful, but lack of traffic caused the company to go bankrupt in 1897: the railway continued to operate until 1924.
    Meanwhile Behr had been thinking in terms far more ambitious than a country branch line. Railway speeds of 150mph (240km/h) or more then lay far in the future: engineers were uncertain whether normal railway vehicles would even be stable at such speeds. Behr was convinced that a high-speed electric vehicle on a substantial Lartigue monorail track would be stable. In 1897 he demonstrated such a vehicle on a 3mile (4.8km) test track at the Brussels International Exhibition. By keeping the weight of the motors low, he was able to place the seats above rail level. Although the generating station provided by the Exhibition authorities never operated at full power, speeds over 75mph (120 km/h) were achieved.
    Behr then promoted the Manchester-Liverpool Express Railway, on which monorail trains of this type running at speeds up to 110mph (177km/h) were to link the two cities in twenty minutes. Despite strong opposition from established railway companies, an Act of Parliament authorizing it was made in 1901. The Act also contained provision for the Board of Trade to require experiments to prove the system's safety. In practice this meant that seven miles of line, and a complete generating station to enable trains to travel at full speed, must be built before it was known whether the Board would give its approval for the railway or not. Such a condition was too severe for the scheme to attract investors and it remained stillborn.
    [br]
    Further Reading
    H.Fayle, 1946, The Narrow Gauge Railways of Ireland, Greenlake Publications, Part 2, ch. 2 (describes the Listowel \& Ballybunion Railway and Behr's work there).
    D.G.Tucker, 1984, "F.B.Behr's development of the Lartigue monorail", Transactions of
    the Newcomen Society 55 (covers mainly the high speed lines).
    See also: Brennan, Louis
    PJGR

    Biographical history of technology > Behr, Fritz Bernhard

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