82-690: British Thomson-Houston ( BTH ) was a British engineering and heavy industrial company, based at Rugby, Warwickshire , England. Originally founded to sell products from the Thomson-Houston Electric Company , it soon became a manufacturer using licences from the American company. They were known primarily for their electrical systems and steam turbines . BTH merged with the Metropolitan-Vickers company in 1928 to form Associated Electrical Industries (AEI), but
164-516: A streetcar or trolley in the United States) is a type of urban rail transit consisting of either individual railcars or self-propelled multiple unit trains that run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way . The tramlines or tram networks operated as public transport are called tramways or simply trams/streetcars. Because of their close similarities, trams are commonly included in
246-622: A tram engine in the UK) at the head of a line of one or more carriages, similar to a small train. Systems with such steam trams included Christchurch , New Zealand; Sydney, Australia; other city systems in New South Wales ; Munich , Germany (from August 1883 on), British India (from 1885) and the Dublin & Blessington Steam Tramway (from 1888) in Ireland. Steam tramways also were used on
328-521: A 890 kW (1,200 bhp) gas turbine for the Auris , the first commercial ship to use gas-turbine propulsion. In 1955 BTH supplied 18 New Zealand DSC class locomotive Rolls-Royce powered locomotives for New Zealand Railways . The Ediswan trademark appeared on semiconductors in 1956 and the following year British Rail Class 15 diesel-electric locomotives were designed by BTH. To try to cure internal political and efficiency problems, AEI stopped using
410-520: A Vermont blacksmith, had invented a battery-powered electric motor which he later patented. The following year he used it to operate a small model electric car on a short section of track four feet in diameter. Attempts to use batteries as a source of electricity were made from the 1880s and 1890s, with unsuccessful trials conducted in among other places Bendigo and Adelaide in Australia, and for about 14 years as The Hague accutram of HTM in
492-533: A consolidated research effort at Aldermaston in Berkshire, England. The research centre was based at Aldermaston Court , a large stately home owned by AEI that had been requisitioned for military use in the war era. One of the BTH-built batch of New Zealand Railways DSC class Bo-Bo shunters has been preserved and is used in industrial service, complete with original Rolls-Royce engines. The locomotive (DSC406)
574-547: A hundred of the apprentices - who came to Rugby from all over the UK, and a few from abroad - lodged in the nearby Apprentices' Hostel at Coton House which was uphill from Rugby on the road to Lutterworth and Leicester. Each year in Rugby there was a big parade of floats run by the apprentices. In 1980, G.E.C. Turbine Generators Ltd, on the Rugby site, was awarded a Queen's Awards for Enterprise . The company Laing, Wharton and Down
656-726: A similar technology, Pirotsky put into service the first public electric tramway in St. Petersburg, which operated only during September 1880. The second demonstration tramway was presented by Siemens & Halske at the 1879 Berlin Industrial Exposition. The first public electric tramway used for permanent service was the Gross-Lichterfelde tramway in Lichterfelde near Berlin in Germany, which opened in 1881. It
738-946: A well-known tourist attraction . A single cable line also survives in Wellington (rebuilt in 1979 as a funicular but still called the " Wellington Cable Car "). Another system, with two separate cable lines and a shared power station in the middle, operates from the Welsh town of Llandudno up to the top of the Great Orme hill in North Wales , UK. Hastings and some other tramways, for example Stockholms Spårvägar in Sweden and some lines in Karachi , used petrol trams. Galveston Island Trolley in Texas operated diesel trams due to
820-640: Is still in operation in modernised form. The earliest tram system in Canada was built by John Joseph Wright , brother of the famous mining entrepreneur Whitaker Wright , in Toronto in 1883, introducing electric trams in 1892. In the US, multiple experimental electric trams were exhibited at the 1884 World Cotton Centennial World's Fair in New Orleans, Louisiana , but they were not deemed good enough to replace
902-599: Is the primary motive power at Alliance Ltd, Pukeuri , New Zealand. All the others were scrapped between 1986 and 1990. Metro-Cammell-BTH diesel electric locomotive 4102 has been preserved in New South Wales, Australia. Another BTH diesel locomotive is preserved in the UK This locomotive was purchased from Ford Dagenham by AEI and presented to the Kent and East Sussex Railway for preservation. See Rolling stock of
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#1732783827953984-734: Is the sole survivor of the fleet). In Italy, in Trieste , the Trieste–Opicina tramway was opened in 1902, with the steepest section of the route being negotiated with the help of a funicular and its cables. Cable cars suffered from high infrastructure costs, since an expensive system of cables , pulleys , stationary engines and lengthy underground vault structures beneath the rails had to be provided. They also required physical strength and skill to operate, and alert operators to avoid obstructions and other cable cars. The cable had to be disconnected ("dropped") at designated locations to allow
1066-713: The Bleecker Street Line until its closure in 1917. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania , had its Sarah Street line drawn by horses until 1923. The last regular mule-drawn cars in the US ran in Sulphur Rock, Arkansas , until 1926 and were commemorated by a U.S. postage stamp issued in 1983. The last mule tram service in Mexico City ended in 1932, and a mule tram in Celaya, Mexico , survived until 1954. The last horse-drawn tram to be withdrawn from public service in
1148-774: The Cork Electric Tramways and Lighting Company , followed by the Isle of Thanet Electric Tramways on 4 April 1901 and the Chatham and District Light Railways Company in June 1902. In 1903 BTH was contracted to supply the electrical equipment for the Tyneside Electrics railway network in Newcastle upon Tyne . In 1907 BTH started a joint venture with Wolseley Motors to make petrol-electric buses and in 1909
1230-933: The Lamm fireless engines then propelling the St. Charles Avenue Streetcar in that city. The first commercial installation of an electric streetcar in the United States was built in 1884 in Cleveland, Ohio , and operated for a period of one year by the East Cleveland Street Railway Company. The first city-wide electric streetcar system was implemented in 1886 in Montgomery, Alabama , by the Capital City Street Railway Company, and ran for 50 years. In 1888,
1312-526: The Mazda trademark . For much of the late 19th century BTH competed for electrical generation and distribution contracts with British Westinghouse , mirroring the same company's battles in the US between their parents, General Electric and Westinghouse . The Power Act 1900 let BTH and British Westinghouse get new contracts to supply electric power to large areas. As well as manufacturing, BTH also began to move into transport. On 22 December 1898 BTH opened
1394-715: The Richmond Union Passenger Railway began to operate trams in Richmond, Virginia , that Frank J. Sprague had built. Sprague later developed multiple unit control, first demonstrated in Chicago in 1897, allowing multiple cars to be coupled together and operated by a single motorman. This gave rise to the modern subway train. Following the improvement of an overhead "trolley" system on streetcars for collecting electricity from overhead wires by Sprague, electric tram systems were rapidly adopted across
1476-824: The West Midlands Metro in Birmingham , England adopted battery-powered trams on sections through the city centre close to Grade I listed Birmingham Town Hall . Paris and Berne (Switzerland) operated trams that were powered by compressed air using the Mekarski system . Trials on street tramways in Britain, including by the North Metropolitan Tramway Company between Kings Cross and Holloway, London (1883), achieved acceptable results but were found not to be economic because of
1558-1241: The 1850s, after which the "animal railway" became an increasingly common feature in the larger towns. The first permanent tram line in continental Europe was opened in Paris in 1855 by Alphonse Loubat who had previously worked on American streetcar lines. The tram was developed in numerous cities of Europe (some of the most extensive systems were found in Berlin, Budapest , Birmingham , Saint Petersburg , Lisbon , London , Manchester , Paris , Kyiv ). The first tram in South America opened in 1858 in Santiago, Chile . The first trams in Australia opened in 1860 in Sydney . Africa's first tram service started in Alexandria on 8 January 1863. The first trams in Asia opened in 1869 in Batavia (Jakarta), Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia) . Limitations of horsecars included
1640-713: The 1894-built horse tram at Victor Harbor in South Australia . New horse-drawn systems have been established at the Hokkaidō Museum in Japan and also in Disneyland . A horse-tram route in Polish gmina Mrozy , first built in 1902, was reopened in 2012. The first mechanical trams were powered by steam . Generally, there were two types of steam tram. The first and most common had a small steam locomotive (called
1722-487: The 1980s GEC Rugby shrank and buildings were demolished. The south part of the area to the west of the Black Path became a supermarket site. The Boughton Road site became several separate small firms. In 1989 GEC Rugby split into GEC Alsthom and Cegelec Projects , which were reunited in 1998 as Alstom . The firm's clubhouse on Hillmorton Road was demolished in 2007, and the south edge of its surrounding sports field
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#17327838279531804-420: The 1980s. The history of passenger trams, streetcars and trolley systems, began in the early nineteenth century. It can be divided into several distinct periods defined by the principal means of power used. Precursors to the tramway included the wooden or stone wagonways that were used in central Europe to transport mine carts with unflanged wheels since the 1500s, and the paved limestone trackways designed by
1886-481: The Australian state of Queensland between 1909 and 1939. Stockholm , Sweden, had a steam tram line at the island of Södermalm between 1887 and 1901. Tram engines usually had modifications to make them suitable for street running in residential areas. The wheels, and other moving parts of the machinery, were usually enclosed for safety reasons and to make the engines quieter. Measures were often taken to prevent
1968-613: The BTH and Metrovick names on 1 January 1960. This led to a huge decline in sales because no-one had heard of "AEI" before, and in turn, a massive drop in AEI's stock price. Continued attempts to streamline what was two separate management structures continued to fail, and by the mid-60s the entire AEI group was in financial trouble. The AEI name was first used on products in 1961. By 1967 AEI brands included Siemens Edison Swan, Hotpoint , Birlec and W.T. Henley . The AEI research lab (building BR57)
2050-462: The British newspaper Newcastle Daily Chronicle reported that, "A large number of London's discarded horse tramcars have been sent to Lincolnshire where they are used as sleeping rooms for potato pickers ". Horses continued to be used for light shunting well into the 20th century, and many large metropolitan lines lasted into the early 20th century. New York City had a regular horsecar service on
2132-774: The Entertainment Centre, and work is progressing on further extensions. Sydney re-introduced trams (or light rail) on 31 August 1997. A completely new system, known as G:link , was introduced on the Gold Coast, Queensland , on 20 July 2014. The Newcastle Light Rail opened in February 2019, while the Canberra light rail opened on 20 April 2019. This is the first time that there have been trams in Canberra, even though Walter Burley Griffin 's 1914–1920 plans for
2214-583: The Irish coach builder John Stephenson , in New York City which began service in the year 1832. The New York and Harlem Railroad's Fourth Avenue Line ran along the Bowery and Fourth Avenue in New York City. It was followed in 1835 by the New Orleans and Carrollton Railroad in New Orleans, Louisiana , which still operates as the St. Charles Streetcar Line . Other American cities did not follow until
2296-551: The Kent & East Sussex Railway (heritage) for details. Heavy industry Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.150 via cp1114 cp1114, Varnish XID 925982175 Upstream caches: cp1114 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 08:50:28 GMT Tram A tram (also known as
2378-632: The Lutterworth Power Jets work was nationalised. After World War II Oliver Lyttelton took over as chairman of AEI, and started a massive expansion. He returned as chairman between 1954 and 1963 and oversaw the opening of a massive new £8 million turbine works was opened at Larne in 1957. In 1955 AEI acquired Siemens Brothers , which was merged with Edison Swan in 1957 to form the Siemens Edison Swan subsidiary. Rivalry with Metrovick intensified, particularly after BTH won
2460-545: The Netherlands. The first trams in Bendigo, Australia, in 1892, were battery-powered, but within as little as three months they were replaced with horse-drawn trams. In New York City some minor lines also used storage batteries. Then, more recently during the 1950s, a longer battery-operated tramway line ran from Milan to Bergamo . In China there is a Nanjing battery Tram line and has been running since 2014. In 2019,
2542-739: The North Sydney line from 1886 to 1900, and the King Street line from 1892 to 1905. In Dresden , Germany, in 1901 an elevated suspended cable car following the Eugen Langen one-railed floating tram system started operating. Cable cars operated on Highgate Hill in North London and Kennington to Brixton Hill in South London. They also worked around "Upper Douglas" in the Isle of Man from 1897 to 1929 (cable car 72/73
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2624-747: The Romans for heavy horse and ox-drawn transportation. By the 1700s, paved plateways with cast iron rails were introduced in England for transporting coal, stone or iron ore from the mines to the urban factories and docks. The world's first passenger train or tram was the Swansea and Mumbles Railway , in Wales , UK. The British Parliament passed the Mumbles Railway Act in 1804, and horse-drawn service started in 1807. The service closed in 1827, but
2706-413: The Second Street Cable Railroad, which operated from 1885 to 1889, and the Temple Street Cable Railway, which operated from 1886 to 1898. From 1885 to 1940, the city of Melbourne , Victoria, Australia operated one of the largest cable systems in the world, at its peak running 592 trams on 75 kilometres (47 mi) of track. There were also two isolated cable lines in Sydney , New South Wales, Australia;
2788-562: The UK at Lytham St Annes , Trafford Park , Manchester (1897–1908) and Neath , Wales (1896–1920). Comparatively little has been published about gas trams. However, research on the subject was carried out for an article in the October 2011 edition of "The Times", the historical journal of the Australian Association of Timetable Collectors, later renamed the Australian Timetable Association. The world's first electric tram line operated in Sestroretsk near Saint Petersburg invented and tested by inventor Fyodor Pirotsky in 1875. Later, using
2870-410: The UK took passengers from Fintona railway station to Fintona Junction one mile away on the main Omagh to Enniskillen railway in Northern Ireland. The tram made its last journey on 30 September 1957 when the Omagh to Enniskillen line closed. The "van" is preserved at the Ulster Transport Museum . Horse-drawn trams still operate on the 1876-built Douglas Bay Horse Tramway on the Isle of Man , and at
2952-462: The UK's largest electrical group. A year later GEC acquired English Electric , prompting a series of mergers and reorganisations. GEC-AEI Electronics (Blackbird Road and New Parks, Leicester) was merged with Marconi's Radar Division (Chelmsford) and Elliott's Aerospace Control Division to form Marconi Radar Systems Ltd. (MRSL) in 1969. In 1980 GEC Turbine Generators Ltd received The Queen's Award for Enterprise: International Trade (Export) . During
3034-508: The advantages over earlier forms of transit was the low rolling resistance of metal wheels on steel rails, allowing the trams to haul a greater load for a given effort. Another factor which contributed to the rise of trams was the high total cost of ownership of horses. Electric trams largely replaced animal power in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Improvements in other vehicles such as buses led to decline of trams in early to mid 20th century. However, trams have seen resurgence since
3116-460: The busiest tram line in Europe, with a tram running once per minute at rush hour. Bucharest and Belgrade ran a regular service from 1894. Ljubljana introduced its tram system in 1901 – it closed in 1958. Oslo had the first tramway in Scandinavia , starting operation on 2 March 1894. The first electric tramway in Australia was a Sprague system demonstrated at the 1888 Melbourne Centennial Exhibition in Melbourne ; afterwards, this
3198-439: The capital then in the planning stage did propose a Canberra tram system. In Japan, the Kyoto Electric railroad was the first tram system, starting operation in 1895. By 1932, the network had grown to 82 railway companies in 65 cities, with a total network length of 1,479 km (919 mi). By the 1960s the tram had generally died out in Japan. Two rare but significant alternatives were conduit current collection , which
3280-458: The car up the hill at a steady pace, unlike a low-powered steam or horse-drawn car. Cable cars do have wheel brakes and track brakes , but the cable also helps restrain the car to going downhill at a constant speed. Performance in steep terrain partially explains the survival of cable cars in San Francisco. The San Francisco cable cars , though significantly reduced in number, continue to provide regular transportation service, in addition to being
3362-402: The cars to coast by inertia, for example when crossing another cable line. The cable then had to be "picked up" to resume progress, the whole operation requiring precise timing to avoid damage to the cable and the grip mechanism. Breaks and frays in the cable, which occurred frequently, required the complete cessation of services over a cable route while the cable was repaired. Due to overall wear,
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3444-409: The city's hurricane-prone location, which would have resulted in frequent damage to an electrical supply system. Although Portland, Victoria promotes its tourist tram as being a cable car it actually operates using a diesel motor. The tram, which runs on a circular route around the town of Portland, uses dummies and salons formerly used on the Melbourne cable tramway system and since restored. In
3526-416: The combined coal consumption of the stationary compressor and the onboard steam boiler. The Trieste–Opicina tramway in Trieste operates a hybrid funicular tramway system. Conventional electric trams are operated in street running and on reserved track for most of their route. However, on one steep segment of track, they are assisted by cable tractors, which push the trams uphill and act as brakes for
3608-740: The company supplied major coal-fired steam generators to London to power an electric trolley system that was being set up. During World War I BTH expanded into naval electrical equipment, supplying the Royal Navy with various lighting, radio and signalling gear. After the war BTH expanded dramatically, adding or expanding factories at Willesden , Birmingham , Chesterfield , and Lutterworth . It later had factories in Coventry , and in Larne in Northern Ireland . From 1924 to 1927 Demetrius Comino worked as an apprentice for BTH. In 1926 Gerard Swope, president of General Electric , proposed that BTH, Westinghouse, General Electric Company (GEC) and English Electric should amalgamate. Lord Hirst of GEC
3690-413: The contract to build the new Buenos Aires Central Costanera S.A. power station, valued at £35 million, in 1957. Lyttelton continued to try to reduce this friction, leading to several unsuccessful reorganisations and slipping profits. The postwar period saw continued development at BTH. The Hungarian scientist Dennis Gabor invented holography at the BTH site in Rugby in 1947, and in 1951 BTH supplied
3772-430: The downhill run. For safety, the cable tractors are always deployed on the downhill side of the tram vehicle. Similar systems were used elsewhere in the past, notably on the Queen Anne Counterbalance in Seattle and the Darling Street wharf line in Sydney. In the mid-20th century many tram systems were disbanded, replaced by buses, trolleybuses , automobiles or rapid transit . The General Motors streetcar conspiracy
3854-446: The engines from emitting visible smoke or steam. Usually the engines used coke rather than coal as fuel to avoid emitting smoke; condensers or superheating were used to avoid emitting visible steam. A major drawback of this style of tram was the limited space for the engine, so that these trams were usually underpowered. Steam trams faded out around the 1890s to 1900s, being replaced by electric trams. Another motive system for trams
3936-429: The entire length of cable (typically several kilometres) had to be replaced on a regular schedule. After the development of reliable electrically powered trams, the costly high-maintenance cable car systems were rapidly replaced in most locations. Cable cars remained especially effective in hilly cities, since their nondriven wheels did not lose traction as they climbed or descended a steep hill. The moving cable pulled
4018-439: The fact that any given animal could only work so many hours on a given day, had to be housed, groomed, fed and cared for day in and day out, and produced prodigious amounts of manure, which the streetcar company was charged with storing and then disposing. Since a typical horse pulled a streetcar for about a dozen miles a day and worked for four or five hours, many systems needed ten or more horses in stable for each horsecar. In 1905
4100-425: The following year. In 1927 BTH sold the Chatham and District Light Railways Company to Maidstone and District Motor Services Ltd. Throughout the 1920s BTH made turbo generators and motors for ocean liners including RMS Mooltan , RMS Viceroy of India , RMS Strathnaver and RMS Strathaird . The BTH factory in Northern Ireland made the turbo generator and propulsion motor for one of
4182-420: The footpath that runs north through the AEI site in Rugby to the Leicester Road, known in the area as the Black Path because it was surfaced with cinders, clinker and bitumen . During World War II BTH expanded north of the River Avon into the Boughton Road site to make magnetos for aircraft engines and other war products. BTH had a major role in developing the world's first prototype jet engine , which
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#17327838279534264-444: The late 19th and early 20th centuries a number of systems in various parts of the world employed trams powered by gas, naphtha gas or coal gas in particular. Gas trams are known to have operated between Alphington and Clifton Hill in the northern suburbs of Melbourne , Australia (1886–1888); in Berlin and Dresden , Germany; in Estonia (1921–1951); between Jelenia Góra , Cieplice , and Sobieszów in Poland (from 1897); and in
4346-402: The late 19th and early 20th centuries. There was one particular hazard associated with trams powered from a trolley pole off an overhead line on the early electrified systems. Since the tram relies on contact with the rails for the current return path, a problem arises if the tram is derailed or (more usually) if it halts on a section of track that has been heavily sanded by a previous tram, and
4428-475: The necessity of overhead wire and a trolley pole for street cars and railways. While at the University of Denver he conducted experiments which established that multiple unit powered cars were a better way to operate trains and trolleys. Electric tramways spread to many European cities in the 1890s, such as: Sarajevo built a citywide system of electric trams in 1895. Budapest established its tramway system in 1887, and its ring line has grown to be
4510-421: The oldest operating electric tramway in the world. Also in 1883, Mödling and Hinterbrühl Tram was opened near Vienna in Austria. It was the first tram in the world in regular service that was run with electricity served by an overhead line with pantograph current collectors . The Blackpool Tramway was opened in Blackpool, UK on 29 September 1885 using conduit collection along Blackpool Promenade. This system
4592-415: The poor paving of the streets in American cities which made them unsuitable for horsebuses , which were then common on the well-paved streets of European cities. Running the horsecars on rails allowed for a much smoother ride. There are records of a street railway running in Baltimore as early as 1828, however the first authenticated streetcar in America, was the New York and Harlem Railroad developed by
4674-454: The railway in Rugby for £10,000, from Thos. Hunter & Co., to build their factory on it. The Mill Road factory opened in 1902 and made electric motors and generators . In the same year BTH obtained a licence to produce the Curtis steam turbine , which became one of the company's major products. In 1905 BTH made its first turbo-alternator and in 1911 got licences for all of General Electric's drawn-wire light bulbs , which it produced under
4756-419: The suburban tramway lines around Milan and Padua ; the last Gamba de Legn ("Peg-Leg") tramway ran on the Milan- Magenta -Castano Primo route in late 1957. The other style of steam tram had the steam engine in the body of the tram, referred to as a tram engine (UK) or steam dummy (US). The most notable system to adopt such trams was in Paris. French-designed steam trams also operated in Rockhampton , in
4838-436: The tracks. Siemens later designed his own version of overhead current collection, called the bow collector . One of the first systems to use it was in Thorold, Ontario , opened in 1887, and it was considered quite successful. While this line proved quite versatile as one of the earliest fully functional electric streetcar installations, it required horse-drawn support while climbing the Niagara Escarpment and for two months of
4920-416: The tram and completing the earth return circuit with their body could receive a serious electric shock. If "grounded", the driver was required to jump off the tram (avoiding simultaneous contact with the tram and the ground) and pull down the trolley pole, before allowing passengers off the tram. Unless derailed, the tram could usually be recovered by running water down the running rails from a point higher than
5002-407: The tram loses electrical contact with the rails. In this event, the underframe of the tram, by virtue of a circuit path through ancillary loads (such as interior lighting), is live at the full supply voltage, typically 600 volts DC. In British terminology, such a tram was said to be 'grounded'—not to be confused with the US English use of the term, which means the exact opposite. Any person stepping off
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#17327838279535084-427: The tram, the water providing a conducting bridge between the tram and the rails. With improved technology, this ceased to be an problem. In the 2000s, several companies introduced catenary-free designs: Alstom's Citadis line uses a third rail, Bombardier's PRIMOVE LRV is charged by contactless induction plates embedded in the trackway and CAF URBOS tram uses ultracaps technology As early as 1834, Thomas Davenport ,
5166-399: The two brand identities were maintained until 1960. The holding company, AEI, was bought by GEC in 1967. In the 1960s AEI's apprenticeships were highly thought-of, both by the apprentices themselves and by their future employers, because they gave the participants valuable experience in the design, production and overall industrial management of a very wide range of electrical products. Over
5248-804: The wider term light rail , which also includes systems separated from other traffic. Tram vehicles are usually lighter and shorter than main line and rapid transit trains. Most trams use electrical power, usually fed by a pantograph sliding on an overhead line ; older systems may use a trolley pole or a bow collector . In some cases, a contact shoe on a third rail is used. If necessary, they may have dual power systems—electricity in city streets and diesel in more rural environments. Occasionally, trams also carry freight . Some trams, known as tram-trains , may have segments that run on mainline railway tracks, similar to interurban systems. The differences between these modes of rail transport are often indistinct, and systems may combine multiple features. One of
5330-409: The winter when hydroelectricity was not available. It continued in service in its original form into the 1950s. Sidney Howe Short designed and produced the first electric motor that operated a streetcar without gears. The motor had its armature direct-connected to the streetcar 's axle for the driving force. Short pioneered "use of a conduit system of concealed feed" thereby eliminating
5412-401: The world's first turbo-electric merchant ships, the banana boat SS San Benito , in 1921. This was followed by turbo generators and propulsion motors for the banana boats SS Musa , SS Platano and SS Darien . The site at Rugby was also developed. Building 52, the research laboratory, was purpose-built in 1924. In the late 1920s AEI started to build buildings west of
5494-429: The world's first hydrogen fuel cell vehicle tramcar at an assembly facility in Qingdao . The chief engineer of the CSR subsidiary CSR Sifang Co Ltd. , Liang Jianying, said that the company is studying how to reduce the running costs of the tram. Trams have been used for two main purposes: for carrying passengers and for carrying cargo. There are several types of passenger tram: There are two main types of tramways,
5576-401: The world. Earlier electric trains proved difficult or unreliable and experienced limited success until the second half of the 1880s, when new types of current collectors were developed. Siemens' line, for example, provided power through a live rail and a return rail, like a model train , limiting the voltage that could be used, and delivering electric shocks to people and animals crossing
5658-504: Was a case study of the decline of trams in the United States. In the 21st century, trams have been re-introduced in cities where they had been closed down for decades (such as Tramlink in London), or kept in heritage use (such as Spårväg City in Stockholm). Most trams made since the 1990s (such as the Bombardier Flexity series and Alstom Citadis ) are articulated low-floor trams with features such as regenerative braking . In March 2015, China South Rail Corporation (CSR) demonstrated
5740-526: Was built by Frank Whittle 's Power Jets company at the BTH works in Rugby in 1937. Development was later moved to the Lutterworth works, which were falling into disuse at the time. BTH's directors seemed sceptical of the design and offered little help, and in 1940 decided they were not really interested in making jet engines due to their commitment to electrical equipment. Rover was soon selected to make jet engines, but exchanged jet engine production with Rolls-Royce for making tank engines in 1943. In 1944
5822-435: Was built by Werner von Siemens who contacted Pirotsky. This was the world's first commercially successful electric tram. It drew current from the rails at first, with overhead wire being installed in 1883. In Britain, Volk's Electric Railway was opened in 1883 in Brighton. This two kilometer line along the seafront, re-gauged to 2 ft 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 in ( 825 mm ) in 1884, remains in service as
5904-507: Was built in 1960 at the Boughton Road site. At this point the size of the Rugby site peaked, with all of the company's land west of the Black Path built over. Britain's first commercial nuclear power facility was built between 1956 and 1962 at Berkeley . This was followed by the building and commissioning of the 25 m Chilbolton radar dish at Chilbolton Observatory between 1963 and 1967. In 1967 GEC bought AEI outright and became
5986-692: Was encroached along for house building. By 2011 the Mill Road factory site was greatly changed and included Rugby College . Quartzelec, and Converteam worked on electrical engineering projects in some of the early BTH buildings, notably buildings 4, 193 and 140. A public road was built through the site between its former east and west gates. In 2012 Converteam was bought out by General Electric , therefore coming full circle back to when they were partnered in AEI. Converteam (now GE) produced rotating machines and used former-BTH equipment (machines) for running tests. During post-World War II Britain, AEI established
6068-434: Was formed in 1886 to sell products from the Thomson-Houston Electric Company . Laing, Wharton and Down soon won a contract for electrical lighting for the east end of London. In 1894 Laing, Wharton and Down purchased patents and exclusive production rights from the American company, now known as General Electric after Thomson-Houston merged with Edison General Electric Company in 1892. At this stage Laing, Wharton and Down
6150-487: Was installed as a commercial venture operating between the outer Melbourne suburb of Box Hill and the then tourist-oriented country town Doncaster from 1889 to 1896. Electric systems were also built in Adelaide , Ballarat , Bendigo , Brisbane , Fremantle , Geelong , Hobart , Kalgoorlie , Launceston , Leonora , Newcastle , Perth , and Sydney . By the 1970s, the only full tramway system remaining in Australia
6232-461: Was not interested in Swope's scheme, but a new holding company was formed, Associated Electrical Industries (AEI), and in 1928 AEI bought BTH and Metropolitan-Vickers (Metrovick). BTH had been in the process of buying Edison Swan (Ediswan) and Ferguson, Pailin & Co , with AEI completing the purchases in 1929. Howard C. Levis, chairman of BTH from 1916, became chairman of AEI in 1928, retiring
6314-485: Was renamed as British Thomson-Houston and General Electric became the majority owner of the company. Once BTH had the production licences for Thomson-Houston's products it started setting up factories in the English Midlands , with Rugby, Warwickshire chosen as the main location due to its good accessibility by rail and a local coal supply. In 1900 BTH bought Glebe Farm on the west side of Mill Road north of
6396-621: Was restarted in 1860, again using horses. It was worked by steam from 1877, and then, from 1929, by very large (106-seat) electric tramcars, until closure in 1960. The Swansea and Mumbles Railway was something of a one-off however, and no street tramway appeared in Britain until 1860 when one was built in Birkenhead by the American George Francis Train . Street railways developed in America before Europe, due to
6478-628: Was tested in San Francisco , in 1873. Part of its success is attributed to the development of an effective and reliable cable grip mechanism, to grab and release the moving cable without damage. The second city to operate cable trams was Dunedin , from 1881 to 1957. The most extensive cable system in the US was built in Chicago in stages between 1859 and 1892. New York City developed multiple cable car lines, that operated from 1883 to 1909. Los Angeles also had several cable car lines, including
6560-635: Was the Melbourne tram system. However, there were also a few single lines remaining elsewhere: the Glenelg tram line , connecting Adelaide to the beachside suburb of Glenelg , and tourist trams in the Victorian Goldfields cities of Bendigo and Ballarat. In recent years the Melbourne system, generally recognised as the largest urban tram network in the world, has been considerably modernised and expanded. The Adelaide line has been extended to
6642-411: Was the cable car, which was pulled along a fixed track by a moving steel cable, the cable usually running in a slot below the street level. The power to move the cable was normally provided at a "powerhouse" site a distance away from the actual vehicle. The London and Blackwall Railway , which opened for passengers in east London, England, in 1840 used such a system. The first practical cable car line
6724-830: Was widely used in London, Washington, D.C., and New York City, and the surface contact collection method, used in Wolverhampton (the Lorain system), Torquay and Hastings in the UK (the Dolter stud system), and in Bordeaux , France (the ground-level power supply system). The convenience and economy of electricity resulted in its rapid adoption once the technical problems of production and transmission of electricity were solved. Electric trams largely replaced animal power and other forms of motive power including cable and steam, in
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