Railway Technologies

If you are a railway buff or are seeking unusual accommodation for your next holiday then why not consider renting an old railway carriage or perhaps a disused station or waiting room?

The idea is not new: the Times newspaper recently wrote about two 19th-century railway carriages in West Wittering in West Sussex “that were turned into a seaside holiday home after the First World War [and] have [now] been saved from the scrapheap” (Times OnLine, May 19th 2008).

Today, there are several locations to choose from, in the UK and a little further afield. We offer some examples that captured our attention during our research:

Rail Leisure, Lincolnshire

Located in a quiet leafy corner of Lincolnshire the Station Master’s House and The Old Station Yard is ideally situated for the rail enthusiast or more demanding holidaymaker. The holiday homes are trackside, adjacent to The Lincolnshire Wolds Railway, a working heritage line with steam and diesel running days, steeped in character and history and an ideal family destination.
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CN’s transportation-services division is using an RFID-based trailer-chassis rental system that not only reduces congestion but also improves chassis management.
Last year, business was booming for the intermodal transportation services arm of the Canadian National Railway (CN). Increased usage of its intermodal freight transportation terminal in Brampton, Ontario, however—where cargo containers arrive on railcars and are transferred onto trailer chassis, after which trucks haul them away—was causing congestion. To alleviate this problem, the terminal turned to an RFID-based chassis-rental system that has not only freed up traffic at the facility’s cargo-container storage area, but has also led to improvements in CN’s chassis management. These improvements, combined with a reliable billing system, have generated a return on CN’s RFID investment to the tune of a half-million Canadian dollars, according to Remy Benmiloud, CN’s intermodal services product manager. Read the rest of this entry »

The Importance of Transport
There are various reasons why developments in transportation affected the industrial revolution as well as vice versa. Arguably changes in transportation contributed to the onset of the industrial revolution in the first place.
Transportation and the Industrial Revolution were strongly inter connected with each other because without improved modes of transportation it would have been harder for the industrial producers of the industrial revolution to produce and then sell their goods to ever wider markets. Read the rest of this entry »

Vintage railways in Connecticut offer scenic excursions through the beautiful New England countryside and a step back into a past era. Historic steam locomotives, diesel engines and electric trolley cars power vintage passenger coaches.
Excursions on the historic railways are a terrific family outing, that fun as well as educational. Historic rail lines are an integral part of America’s transportation history. Vintage railways in Connecticut include the Essex Steam Train and Riverboat and the Connecticut Electric Railway. Read the rest of this entry »

Major hub on the European rail network
As one of the major hubs on the European rail network, the Belgian capital Brussels is an excellent city to visit by train. Whilst cheap flights do go there, it is often cheaper, quicker and more environmentally friendly to use train services for a Brussels city break holiday.
Booking train tickets to Brussels online
Before booking train tickets to Brussels – which are almost invariably cheaper to buy online – it is worth paying attention to a couple of matters. The first is the fact that Brussels is bilingual, with Flemish and French used almost interchangeably when describing major landmarks in information guides and booklets. Hence, for the main train station, Bruxelles Central and Brussel Centraal are the same place. Read the rest of this entry »