[8] BUILDING THE RAILROAD
Before a railroad is built there are usually several alternative routes to be considered. Maps, aerial photographs, and profiles* showing the features of each route are prepared and carefully studied. Experts then choose what they consider to be the best route. The choice they make has much to do with the success or failure of the new railroad line. One route may be fairly level, requiring only a few cuts through hills and fills through valleys. Such a route, however, may require a long tunnel to get through an intervening mountain or several expensive bridges to get over rivers. This would make it more costly in the end than one with moderate cuts and fills all the way. Another route, though less expensive to build, may run through unsettled country. Hence it may be wiser to build the more expensive line for the sake of the greater local business it can get.
The selected route is then surveyed carefully, and building commences. Sometimes work parties begin at each end and build toward the middle, as was the case with the transcontinental railroad in the United States. The constructed sections of track carry trains with supplies for the construction workers. Today parties can be stationed at various points and receive supplies from other railroads already built nearby. This method gets the road finished and earning money much more quickly.
The first step is the preparation of the roadbed**. Following the stakes*** and plans set up by the surveyors, the working parties clear away trees, make cuts and fills, and otherwise prepare the way. Other workers set up bridges and dig tunnels. As fast as the roadbed is ready, crossties and rails are laid, either by hand or by machines. Working on level ground, tracklayers can complete several miles in a day. Finally, the track must be ballasted, preferably with gravel, cinders****, or broken stone.
In the United States the usual practice was to build a single-track line with as few tunnels, bridges, and expensive cuts and fills as possible. Then the track was doubled, first at portions where most trains passed and finally over the entire route, and thus the railroad grew into a first-class line. This method was largely responsible for the development of great railroads in the United States. Companies built roads through the open frontier. Soon communities***** appeared along the lines, and new businesses were started. These enabled the railroads to prosper. While track undergoes constant maintenance and improvement, there has been very little new construction in the United States in recent years, and it is estimated that the existing track system could carry 25 percent more traffic. In some areas, new communications and train control systems have allowed the elimination of double tracks in favor of single-track operations.
Notes: *profile – чертёж ж/д пути в вертикальном разрезе
**roadbed – земляное полотно
***stake – опорный столбик, веха
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****cinder – шлак
*****community – населённый пункт
[9] FRENCH TRANSPORT
Transport systems have long been vital to France, serving to unite the nation in an administrative sense while promoting the growth of regional economies and linking the country to the rest of Europe and to the world. Paris has always been the hub* of French transportation.
The Industrial Revolution brought innovations in transportation to France. For example, a complex system of canals was built, connecting many navigable rivers and providing low-cost water transport for products of the mines and factories.
The railroad age began while the canal-building era was at its height. The first French line began operating in 1827, between St.-Étienne and Andrézieux, and steel rails soon linked most parts of the country. By 1934 France had 33,282 miles (53,561 kilometers) of railways. Most of the main lines were built in a radial pattern**, with Paris at the center, thus reinforcing the importance of the capital. Paris continued to grow and prosper at a remarkable rate because people had difficulty traveling between any two points in France without passing through the capital. Also, rail lines made it easier for rural people displaced by the Industrial Revolution to migrate to Paris than to any other city.
The appearance of the automobile just before 1900, and the airplane a few years later, added new perspectives to transportation. Highways, duplicating the earlier railway patterns, radiated in all directions from Paris, and the distance to any point in France was calculated from the front steps of the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Air transportation to and from the airfield at Le Bourget, near Paris, began in 1919.
Today, French transportation systems are changing to cope with three problems: rapid technological change, the obsolete condition of many earlier systems, and increasing pressure to reduce the dependency of the entire country on Paris. Although lagging behind several other European countries, France has, since about 1960, embarked on a major program of superhighway construction. Many of the new highways have necessarily duplicated the older ones centered on Paris, but engineers have made great efforts to enable travelers to go to and from other parts of France without passing through the capital.
Rail traffic has declined, as it has in nearly every country, but is still important in France. The high-speed TGV travels between Paris and Lyon in only two hours, compared with four hours for conventional service, and the TGV service is being expanded to other lines as well. Air travel has also increased enormously. Traffic at Paris is divided among the airport at Orly, south of the city, and Charles de Gaulle, to the northeast, in Roissy. With Le Bourget, which today handles only charter flights, these airports accommodated a total of about 30 million passengers per year in the early 1980s, making Paris the second busiest European air travel center after London. Paris is also the airfreight capital of Europe, handling about 625,000 tons of cargo in 2001. Other major international airports include those at Marseilles, Nice, Lyon, Lille, and Strasbourg.
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Notes: *hub – центр
**radial pattern – радиальная схема
[10] AUSTRALIAN TRANSPORT
In Australia railways were constructed in all colonies between 1854, when a line was built between Melbourne and Port Melbourne, and 1871. Trivial disagreements among the self-protecting colonies blocked the creation of any master plan and saddled Australia with three different rail gauges: the standard gauge of 4 feet 81/2 inches (144 centimeters) in New South Wales; the broad gauge of 5 feet 3 inches (160 centimeters) in Victoria and South Australia; and the narrow gauge of 3 feet 6 inches (107 centimeters) in Queensland, Tasmania, Western Australia, and the northern extremities of South Australia. It took until 1970 to standardize one continuous line between Perth and Brisbane, along which the India-Pacific train now travels. It crosses the Nullarbor Plain on the longest straight stretch of rail track in the world – 300 miles (480 kilometers).
State governments control most of the railways, including the profitable electrified commuter lines in the cities. These help offset the losses* on run-down rural services. The Commonwealth government controls the railways of Tasmania, the Northern Territory, and parts of the transcontinental line. Private freight lines convey iron ore, sugar, coal, and other goods to the nearest ports. Trams served the larger cities until buses replaced them by the 1960s – except in Melbourne, where trains still run along broad streets laid out in a grid pattern.
Australia's busiest ports are Sydney, Melbourne, Newcastle, Hay Point, Dampier, and Port Hedland. The last three of these are occupied primarily with carrying mineral exports.
Australia originally depended on shipping for all contact with England, Europe, and other trading partners. In 1787–88, the fleet bringing the original convict settlers arrived after being eight months at sea. The travel time from England to Australia was cut to 60 days – a time set in 1871 by the Thermopylae, after clipper ships, including the famous Cutty Sark, had entered the Australian run. They mainly carried wool to Europe.
The airplane made connections with other countries much swifter. Qantas and Imperial Airways flew their first passengers to Britain in 1935. By the 1960s, ships to Southampton, Genoa, and San Francisco had carried their last passengers, though fleets of cruise ships** still ply*** the Australian waters.
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Mercantile shipping is now dominated by the Australian National Line, established by the federal government in 1956. River transport is negligible in a land beset by droughts, sand-clogged channels, and the scarcity of navigable rivers.
Aviation solved the problem of Australia's vast internal distances and remoteness from overseas centers. In 1919, Keith and Ross Smith flew from England to Darwin in 28 days. The first flight across the Pacific, from California to Brisbane, was completed in 1928 by Charles Kingsford-Smith, after whom Sydney's airport is named. Such exploits made Australians air-conscious and promoted the domestic market. Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services (Qantas) was founded in 1920. It became the nation's flagship carrier after being nationalized by the federal government in 1947. Its safety record is unmatched.
Thirty overseas carriers now serve Australia, mostly under bilateral agreements which give Qantas reciprocal landing rights. Domestic airline services were controlled between 1952 and 1987 by a two-airline policy. This maintained a regulated monopoly on interstate routes, with the government airline (Australian Airlines) in sole direct competition with one private airline (Ansett). Remote outposts have been served by the Royal Flying Doctor Service since 1928, using aerial ambulances, radio and landline networks, and mobile clinics. The School of the Air for outback children began in 1951 by using the same two-way radio transmitters.
Notes: *to offset the losses – возмещать убытки
**cruise ship – круизное судно
***to ply – курсировать
[11] СHINESE RAILWAYS
Railway construction began in China late in the 19th century, and the first line, between Shanghai and Peking (Beijing), was opened in 1903. By World War II more than 15,500 miles (25,000 kilometers) of track had been built, primarily in the eastern and northeastern parts of the country. Much of the network was destroyed during the war, but rail construction began anew after 1949 and has continued ever since. By 1993 China had an estimated 43,131 miles (69,412 kilometers) of railroads. (By comparison, the United States had about three times as much trackage in that year.) By 1983 every province-level administrative unit except Tibet was served by rail, and plans were being made to extend a line south from the Lanzhou-UrUmqi line to Lhasa, in Tibet.
Railways have become the most important form of transportation in China. For example, more than 50 percent of the country’s traffic is moved by the railroad system. China’s rail network consists of a series of north-south trunk lines, crossed by a few major east-west lines. Most of the large cities are served by these trunk lines. But many of the main lines cannot meet the demand for service. The sixth five-year plan (1981 to 1985) called for continued large investment in railways. The investment was used to improve the carrying capacity of existing lines through double tracking or electrification, and to construct short lines where the government decided there was a crucial need for service.
Nowadays much attention is paid to the development of high speed railway transportation. Unexpected growth of air and road transport has hit the railways hard. The Chinese Minister of Railways has noted that during the ‘good old days’ such things as customer service and fast, reliable trains didn’t matter too much. “The timetable was fixed and we had nothing to worry about but watching passengers struggling for tickets,” he said. “But today we have to go out and look for food like horses.”
Worldwide, high speed trains moving at 250 km/h or more operate over 3,700 km of specially-built track, while passenger trains in Chine still mainly run at 80-100 km/h. The situation needs to change and change quickly if railways in the world’s most populous* country are to continue to play their important social and economic role. In recognition of this, China is planning several thousand kilometers of new lines in order to transport 1.5 billion passengers and 2.1 billion tones of freight a year. Specific plans have been drawn up to upgrade the busiest main lines for semi-express passenger trains running at 160 km/h, or express trains moving at 250 km/h, while at the same time experiments are going ahead for 300 to 350 km/h operation.
So, despite a drift away from passenger train travel by some people, there is no possibility of railways in China becoming obsolete. The country is vast and still developing which means that the railways are and will remain the chief means of transport.
Note: *populous - густонаселённый
[12] JAPANESE TRANSPORTATION
Modern transportation facilities* link all parts of Japan and provide the swift, efficient movement of people and goods. Railways are the main form of land transportation. Railway stations are the hubs** of mass-transportation systems, which also include buses, taxis, subways, and the vanishing trolleys.
The first Japanese railway was laid in 1872 between Tokyo and Yokohama. By 1930 a rail network covered the four main islands. Most private lines were nationalized in 1906 and passed to a public corporation, the Japan National Railways (JNR), in 1949. The JNR operates about four fifths of Japan's 17,000 miles (27,000 kilometers) of railway lines, including all long-distance trunk lines. It owns about 90 percent of all rolling stock. The private railways operate commuter lines in the metropolitan areas. Japanese railways use narrow-gauge track – 3 feet 6 inches – and relatively small and light rolling stock. About three fifths of the JNR lines are double-tracked or electrified. Diesel and electric units have replaced coal-burning locomotives.
Postwar population and economic growth has placed an enormous strain on the carrying capacity of Japan's railways. The high-speed, broad-gauge New Tokaido Line went into operation in 1964. Its fastest express trains make the 320-mile (515-kilometer) run from Tokyo to Osaka in a little more than three hours. An extension known as the New Sanyo Line was completed from Osaka to Okayama in 1972. The railways of Honshu are linked to Kyushu and Hokkaido by undersea tunnels and to Shikoku by ferry service. Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Kobe, Sapporo, and Yokohama have subways.
Modern highway construction has lagged badly behind the needs of automobile and truck traffic. About 70 percent of the total mileage of roads is paved. By 1990 there were 692,661 miles (1,114,699 kilometers) of national expressways and general roadways for a country that had more than 60 million registered motor vehicles. City traffic is speeded by street widening and by the construction of elevated expressways.
Domestic air service links all major cities. Japan Air Lines (JAL) operates round-the-world service. Tokyo International Airport at Narita, more than 40 miles (60 kilometers) from downtown Tokyo, was completed in 1973. Its opening was delayed until 1978 because of protests by opponents of the facility. The planned addition of two runways at Narita in the 1990s was also prevented by protests from environmentalists. The new Kansai International Airport was scheduled to open at Osaka in 1994. Built at a cost of 14 billion dollars, it was the world's most expensive airport. It is located on an artificial 1,300-acre (526-hectare) island in Osaka Bay. The island itself cost 4.5 billion dollars to construct. The airport's designer was Italian architect Renzo Piano. To ease congestion at the major airports, the government decided to upgrade local airports at Kobe, Nagoya, Yokohama, Kyoto, and other cities to handle the large increase in air traffic.
There were more than 7,000 vessels carrying passengers and cargo in coastal shipping in 1990. For passenger service between cities there are jetfoils*** and air-cushion vessels****. Considering the very large volume of Japanese imports and exports, most products are carried in oceangoing vessels registered to other countries.
Notes: *transportation facilities – средства транспорта
**hub – центр
***jetfoil – судно на подводных крыльях
****air-cushion vessel – судно на воздушной подушке
[13] RAILROAD MODERNIZATION
Like their younger competitors, the railroads have become specialized carriers that concentrate on the types of transportation for which they are best suited. Railroads are particularly efficient at moving large volumes of bulk commodities* such as coal or ore over long distances and transporting marine containers and piggyback highway trailers**. Railroads are also efficient at carrying commuter passengers between suburbs and city centers and providing comfortable, fast intercity passenger services.
New technologies – in design, materials, and methods – have helped railroads become still more efficient. After World War II, for example, strong concrete crossties replaced wooden ties on many railroads, especially in Europe. Rail welded*** into long sections became the standard for most busy main lines. By the 1960s high-speed passenger trains were introduced.
Japan's so-called “bullet train” was in the forefront of the new technology. It began operating on Oct. 1, 1964, to mark Asia's first Olympic Games, which were held in Tokyo. The first section of the fabled Shinkansen (New Trunk Line, known as the New Tokaido Line) was a 320-mile (515-kilometer) stretch between Tokyo and Osaka. A 100-mile (160-kilometer) extension from Osaka to Okayama was completed in 1972, and the final segment – a 244-mile (393-kilometer) run to the Hakata station in Fukuoka, northern Kyushu – opened in 1975. Other lines, completed in 1982, radiate north of Tokyo to Niigata and Morioka. The Shinkansen was privatized in 1987.
France's TGV became the supertrain of the 1970s and 1980s. It set a new world speed record of 320 miles an hour in 1990. The newer ten-car TGV trains are powered by front and rear electric locomotives. Computerized controls provide on-board signalization and fail-safe braking****.
Some of the other countries where superspeed trains are running or planned are Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Finland, Ireland, Australia, Canada, and the United States. High speed train called Metroliners make daily three-hour trips between New York City and Washington, D.C.; although the trains are capable of faster runs up to 160 miles (260 kilometers) per hour, drawbacks on the existing line hold speeds to a maximum of 100 miles (160 kilometers) per hour.
Several American railroads operate trains of RoadRailers, vehicles that have both rail and highway wheels. On the railroad they run coupled***** together in trains pulled by locomotives, then are separated and moved by highway tractors to their final destinations.
Among the more advanced systems proposed is the magnetic levitation******, or maglev, train. Instead of wheels or steel rails, the system uses coils in the surface of the track, or guide way, to create a magnetic field that lifts the vehicles and propels them forward. By the late 1980s only short test systems had been built in Germany and Japan. Successful experimental runs were first made in the early 1990s using locomotives powered by environmentally friendly natural gas.
Notes: *bulk commodities – бестарные грузы, грузы насыпью
**piggyback highway trailers – автополуприцепы или прицепы
***to weld – сваривать
****fail-safe braking – гарантированно надёжное торможение
*****to couple – сцеплять
******magnetic levitation – магнитная левитация (поднятие)
[14] ADVANCES IN TRANSPORTATION
Technological advances in transportation have included the development of superspeed trains, such as Japan’s ‘bullet train’ of the 1960s and Frances TGV (Train de Grand Vitesse) of the 1970s and 1980s. These advances gave engineers the inspiration to design such experimental railroad systems as the magnetic levitation*, or maglev train, which by the early 1990s had only short test systems set up in Germany and Japan. Improvements in power generation and transmission and concern for the air and noise pollution caused by diesel engines have prompted automobile makers to develop cars that will run on alternative types of fuel. One result has been the prototype of an electric car. A greater variety of ships, including submarine tankers and fast surface ships, have been developed. Other new types of vessels that are available include the hydrofoil**, which travels on sea wings with its hull*** above water, and the hovercraft****, which rides above the water on a cushion of air. The widespread use of atomic power for ship propulsion is a major research goal. STOL (short takeoff and landing), VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing), and supersonic aircraft have been adopted. These new technologies have made vehicles quieter. Passenger travel has improved in speed and comfort. Freight transport costs less because larger vehicles are used and operating efficiency has increased. The computer is used for record keeping, traffic control, navigation, and other routine operations.
In the more distant future, rocket transportation may become feasible, perhaps in combination with orbiting satellites, enabling all points on Earth to be connected in less than an hours travel time. Underground gravity vacuum tubes may permit freight and passengers to travel between stations thousands of miles apart also in less than an hour. Improvements may be expected in transportation management techniques. Some forms of transportation now under private ownership, management, and operation will increasingly depend on public financing or control, just as urban mass transit now does. Some forms of transportation will be integrated into multimodal organizations, both public and private, in order to move people and goods with a minimum of cost, inconvenience, and delay. Innovative communications systems, however, have already made much travel unnecessary. Teleconferencing enables people to hold meetings and see each other without having to travel. Computer networking makes cooperative work possible, without the workers leaving home or office.
Notes: *magnetic levitation – магнитная левитация (поднятие)
**hydrofoil – корабль на подводных крыльях
***hull – корпус
****hovercraft – судно на воздушной подушке