1) The history of railway construction…. 2) The first tram ways…. 3) The first rails and sleepers…. 4) Coal and other goods…. 5) In the Western Europe the carts with coal were driven by the workers, but in Russia…. 6) The wooden carts were called…. 7) Much was done for the railway construction by…. 8) Yartsev suggested replacing…. 9) The first railway with cast iron rails…. 10) The Cherepanovs, father and son…. 11) The first steam engine…. 12) The first steam locomotive could…. 13) The Nizhniy Tagil railway….
TEXT B
Below there are four texts about famous people of Great Britain and the USA. Choose any text you like, read it and make up the list of the words you don’t know. Look up the meaning of the unknown words in your dictionary. Be careful because one of your group-mates will translatethe text you have chosen without a dictionary, using only the list of words you have written out.
THE STEPHENSON FAMILY
George Stephenson was born on June 9, 1781, in the mining village of Wylam, Northumberland, England. He went to work as a horse-driver in a coal-mine at an early age and without formal schooling. At nineteen George was put to work on a steam engine. Now he had time to learn reading and writing. In 1814 Stephenson made a design of the Blocher, one of the first railroad locomotives. But George couldn’t build it because he had no money. In 1815 he patented an engine with a steam blast*, by which exhaust steam was redirected up the chimney. The new design increased the engines power and made the locomotive truly practical. In the same year Stephenson also invented a safety lamp for miners.
In 1822 he was commissioned to build a steam locomotive for a railroad line to be built from Stockton to Darlington. His son, Robert, assisted him in survey work for the tracks, and on Sept. 27, 1825, the railroad was opened for public traffic. In 1823 George Stephenson established a locomotive works in Newcastle. George and Robert then cooperated in the construction of a railway connecting Liverpool and Manchester. In 1829, the railway company held a competition to find a suitable locomotive for the line; George and Robert won the contest with the Rocket, an engine with a multi-tubular boiler**. George Stephenson died in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, on Aug. 12, 1848.
Robert Stephenson was George’s only son. He was born in Willington Quay, Northumberland, on Oct. 16, 1803. He studied mathematics at Bruce’s Academy in Newcastle upon Tyne and later attended Edinburgh University. He managed the Newcastle locomotive works and in 1833 was appointed chief engineer of the London and Birmingham Railway, the first railway into London. He directed several major engineering works, but he is best known for his long-span railroad bridges***. Robert died in London on Oct. 12, 1859.
George Robert Stephenson (1819–1905), a civil engineer**** educated at King William College on the Isle of Man, entered his uncle George Stephenson's employ in 1837 during the construction of a railway from Manchester to Leeds. He helped Robert build the Victoria Bridge across the St. Lawrence River in Canada and served as a consultant and designer on independent projects in England and abroad. Upon Robert's death in 1859, George Robert became director of the Newcastle locomotive works.
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Notes: *steam blast – выхлоп пара
**multi-tubular boiler – многотрубный паровой котёл
***bridge span – пролёт моста
****civil engineer – инженер строитель
THE BRUNELS FAMILY
Two engineers whose inventions had a major influence on transportation methods were Marc Isambard Brunel and his only son, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Marc solved the historic problem of underwater tunneling. Isambard, a civil* and mechanical engineer, was the designer of the first transatlantic steamer.
Marc Isambard Brunel was born on April 25, 1769, in Hacqueville, France. Because of his Royalist sympathies, he fled to the United States in 1793 during the French Revolution. He held the post of chief engineer of New York.
After Brunel improved a method for loading ships by mechanical means, rather than by hand, he sailed to England in 1799 to market his plans to the British government. A prolific inventor, he also designed machines for sawing timber, boot making, knitting, and printing. In 1818, in his practice as a civil engineer, he patented the tunneling shield**, a device that made safe underwater tunneling possible. In 1825 operations began for building the Brunel-designed tunnel under the Thames River. This project, which had no precedent, was completed in 1842, after great physical and financial difficulties. Brunel, who was knighted for his engineering feat, died in London on Dec. 12, 1849.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel was born in Portsmouth, England, on April 9, 1806. At the age of 19 he was appointed resident-engineer*** when work on the Thames Tunnel began. Later he served as engineer at the Bristol Docks and also designed several other docks in England. In 1833 he was appointed chief engineer to the Great Western Railway. His introduction of the broad-gauge railway, with tracks 7 feet (2 meters) apart, made possible high speeds that helped stimulate rail progress. Brunel was responsible for building railways in Great Britain and Italy and served as an adviser on projects in Australia and India.
The younger Brunel's outstanding contributions to marine engineering were his three ships, each the largest in the world at its launching date. The Great Western (1837), a wooden paddle vessel****, was the first steamship to provide regular transatlantic service. The Great Britain (1843) was the first large vessel driven by a screw propeller. The Great Eastern (1858) achieved fame by laying the first successful transatlantic cable. During the Crimean War, he designed a complete prefabricated hospital building that was shipped in parts to the Crimea and a floating armored barge that was used in warfare. Isambard Brunel died on Sept. 15, 1859, in London.
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Notes: *civil engineer – инженер строитель
**tunneling shield – туннельный щит
***resident-engineer – прораб
****paddle vessel – колёсное судно
GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE (1846 – 1914)
“If I understand you, young man, you propose to stop a railroad train with wind. I have no time to listen to such nonsense.” Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, the powerful railroad owner, thus dismissed George Westinghouse and his new air brake. But within a few years the old hand brakes on trains were replaced with air brakes, launching Westinghouse into a notable career as inventor and industrialist.
Westinghouse was born on Oct. 6, 1846, in Central Bridge, N.Y. (the USA). The son of a manufacturer of farm implements, he explored the world of machines at an early age. After serving in both the Union Army and the Navy in the Civil War, Westinghouse received in 1865 his first patent—for a rotary steam engine. In that same year he invented a device for replacing derailed* freight cars on their tracks. Railroad problems fascinated Westinghouse. Among his other inventions was a device called a frog that allowed wheels on one rail of a track to cross an intersecting rail. He bought various patents on railroad switches** and signals and combined them with his own developments into an efficient switching system. The air brake, his greatest invention, was patented in 1869, the same year he organized the Westinghouse Air Brake Company. With various design improvements, the air brake became widely accepted, and the Railroad Safety Appliance Act of 1893 made them compulsory on trains in the United States.
Westinghouse was chiefly responsible for the adoption of alternating current (AC)*** systems for electric power transmission in the United States, which up to the 1880s had used direct current (DC)**** systems. Importing an AC system from Europe, Westinghouse purchased the patents of Nikola Tesla’s AC motor and hired him to improve and modify the motor for use in the power system. Once the new system was ready, advocates of DC power set out to discredit AC power. Public acceptance of AC power came soon after Westinghouse dramatically proved its advantages at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago (1893). Using incandescent lighting, the fairground was set aglow with light. With buildings set like jewels against the evening sky, the display marked the start of large-scale outdoor lighting and of illuminated advertising signs.
Most of the Westinghouse factories were located in Pittsburgh and associated companies were established throughout the world. Westinghouse lost most of his control over his industrial empire during the financial panic of 1907. He died in New York City on March 12, 1914.
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Notes: *to derail – сходить с рельсов
**switch – стрелочный перевод
***alternating current – переменный ток
****direct current – постоянный ток
CASEY JONES (1864 – 1900)
Casey Jones was the great American locomotive engineer hero who would not save* his own life but died doing his duty. Casey worked as an engineer of the American train the Cannon-ball which ran between Tennessee and Mississippi on Illinois Central Railroad. He was a skilful engine-driver and always brought the train in on time. Casey was skilful with the whistle too – the locomotive whistle. He had a special way of blowing it: beginning very softly, rising to a shriek, and dying away. It would** made people’s hair stand on end*** as the train passed by in the night. “There Casey is going,” they said.
On the night of April 29, 1900 when Casey had just finished his own run and brought the Cannon-ball into the town on time, he was said that the engineer of another train fell ill and couldn’t make his run. Casey offered to substitute his friend and pulled the train out of the station at 11 p.m. The train was already one hour and thirty-five minutes late at the start.
Casey wanted to make up the time**** and he ran his locomotive at a high speed. By four o’clock in the morning he had made up most of the time, but suddenly in front of his engine, as he came round a curve, he saw a standing freight train on the rails.
“Jump, Sim,” he cried.
Sim Webb, fireman to Casey Jones, jumped and lived to tell the story. Casey’s body was found with one hand still on the whistle and one on the air-brake.
There is a monument to Casey Jones in his native town in Kentucky. In 1950 the United States Government put out a three-cent stamp in honor of American railroad engineers, which has the portrait of Casey Jones and a picture of the old Locomotive 382.
Notes: *would not save – не захотел спасти
**would – зд: бывало
***to stand on end – вставать дыбом
****to make up the time – наверстать время
TEXT C