A few nice Rail images I found:
Tay Rail Bridge Winter Sunset
Image by féileacán
Appeared in Dundee's Local paper 'The Courier' on Tuesday 6th January 2009.
Spent two weeks in Dundee and not one decent sunset then on my last day there was an absolutely stunning sunset. I'm glad i lugged a heavy camera around and stood for 45mins on a feckin freezing day waiting for this.
The Tay Bridge (sometimes unofficially the Tay Rail Bridge) is a railway bridge approximately two and a quarter miles (three and a half kilometres) long that spans the Firth of Tay in Scotland, between the city of Dundee and the suburb of Wormit in Fife.
The original Tay Bridge was designed by noted railway engineer Thomas Bouch, who received a knighthood following the bridge's completion. It was a lattice-grid design, combining cast and wrought iron. The design was well known, having been used first by Kennard in the Crumlin Viaduct in South Wales in 1858, following the innovative use of cast iron in The Crystal Palace. However, the Crystal Palace was not as heavily loaded as a railway bridge. A previous cast iron design, the Dee bridge which collapsed in 1847, failed due to poor use of cast-iron girders. Later, Gustave Eiffel used a similar design to create several large viaducts in the Massif Central (1867).
Proposals for constructing a bridge across the River Tay date back to at least 1854. The North British Railway (Tay Bridge) Act received the Royal Assent on 15 July 1870 and the foundation stone was laid on 22 July 1871. As the bridge extended out into the river, it shortly became clear that the original survey of the estuary had not been competent. The bedrock, at a shallow depth near the banks, was found to descend deeper and deeper, until it was too deep to act as a foundation for the bridge piers. Bouch had to redesign the piers, and to set them very deep in the estuary bed to compensate for having no support underneath. He also reduced the number of piers by making the spans of the superstructure girders longer than before. The first engine crossed the bridge on 22 September 1877, and upon its completion in early 1878 the Tay Bridge was the longest in the world. The bridge was opened on 1 June 1878.
While visiting the city, Ulysses S. Grant commented that it was "a big bridge for a small city".
On 28 December 1879, the first bridge collapsed during a violent storm, while a train was crossing it. Seventy-five people were killed, including Sir Thomas' son-in-law. The disaster was commemorated in one of the best-known verse efforts of William McGonagall.
A new double-track bridge was designed by William Henry Barlow and built by William Arrol & Co. 60 ft (18 m) slightly upstream of, and parallel to, the original bridge. The bridge proposal was formally incorporated in July 1881 and the foundation stone laid on 6 July 1883. Construction involved 25,000 tons of iron and steel, 70,000 tons of concrete, ten million bricks (weighing 37,500 tons) and three million rivets. Fourteen men lost their lives during its construction, mostly due to drowning.
The second bridge opened on 13 July 1887 and remains in use. In 2003, a £20.85 million strengthening and refurbishment project on the bridge won the British Construction Industry Civil Engineering Award, in consideration of the staggering scale and logistics involved. More than 1,000 tonnes of bird droppings were scraped off the ironwork lattice of the bridge using hand tools, and bagged into 25 kg sacks. Hundreds of thousands of rivets were removed and replaced, all work being done in very exposed conditions, high over a firth with fast-running tides.
The stumps of the original bridge piers are still visible above the surface of the Tay even at high tide.
source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay_Rail_Bridge
Jersey City - Hudson-Bergen Light Rail
Image by wallyg
The Hudson-Bergen Light Rail (HBLR) is a light rail system, owned by New Jersey Transit and operated by the 21st Century Rail Corporation, that connects the communities of Bayonne, Jersey City, Hoboken, Weehawken, Union City and North Bergen.
A public transportation system had been on the drawing board for over 15 years to ease increasing congestion along the Hudson River waterfront. After extensive studies, it was determiend that a light rail system would be the most efficient and cost effective solution. The light rail opened to the public in April 2000, with the initial operating segment connecting Bayonne (34th Street) and Jersey City (Exchange Place), as well as a spur line to West Side Avenue in Jersey City. Later that year, the service was extended northward to Pavonia-Newport. In 2002, service was extended out to Hoboken Terminal, which completed the first Minimum Operating Segment (MOS) of the project. MOS-2 of the project involved extending service south to 22nd Street in Bayonne (which was completed in 2003), west and north of Hoboken Terminal into Weehawken (which was completed in to Lincoln Harbor in 2004 and to Port Imperial in 2005), and through Union City to Tonnelle Avenue in North Bergen (which commenced on February 25, 2006).
With an eventual overall cost of approximately .2 billion, the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail is one of the largest public works projects ever in New Jersey and when completed, the length of the line will be 20.6 miles (33.2 km).
Colourful Sunset of the Tay Rail Bridge
Image by Ross2085
The fading sun slowly moving surrounded by a blue sky, this beautiflul view is providing a fitting backdrop to the Tay Rail Bridge. The calm water slowly rippling away next to the gentle sun. Summers nights were made for views like this!
Orignal From: Cool Rail images
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