首页
登录
职称英语
The coming of the railways in the 1830s transformed society and economic life
The coming of the railways in the 1830s transformed society and economic life
游客
2023-12-20
39
管理
问题
The coming of the railways in the 1830s transformed society and economic life by providing, for the first time, mass transport for passengers and goods. One man, George Stephenson, is sometimes called the "father of the railways" although he did not invent either the locomotive or the rails. The basic idea of a "railway" was an old one, mainly used in mines. In the sixteenth century, miners found it was easier to push their loads in a truck with wooden wheels over planks than to push it through mud and over rocks. Later they developed plateways, which were long pieces of iron fixed to the ground to channel the wheels along, in place of the wooden planks.
So these were the early rails, but what about the locomotives? Locomotive is short for locomotive engine, which means a self-propeled engine. Steam engines were well - known in mines and factories by the early nineteenth century, and some people had the idea of putting them on wheels as a substitute for human and horse power in pulling loads.
The first such locomotive was built by an English man called Richard Trevithick in the year 1804. His engine worked but there were serious technical problems. The locomotives were very heavy, for example and kept breaking the track. At this stage, they didn’t even offer any economic advantage. So locomotives didn’t really catch on then.
One early enthusiast, though, was George Stephenson, who had been doing various mechanical and engineering jobs at coal mines since he was a boy. He didn’t have much formal education, but he was good at fixing things, from shoes to clocks to steam engines. He had devised on ingenious safety lamp for the mines, one that wouldn’t cause explosions underground.
The engines at the mines were mostly stationary, fixed machines for pumping water or for winding or hauling loads by cables. But George Stephenson also built a number of experimental locomotives. That’s how he came to be involved, in september 1825, with the opening of an innovative railway line in northern England. Until then, the only railways had been small, private lines carrying coal or metal ores from mines to the nearest fiver or canal. The Stockton and Darlington railway was different. It was a public railway and for this new railway, George Stephenson designed a locomotive called" locomotion" which was used to haul passengers from the first day.
The idea of carrying passengers as well as freight was born and soon turned out, quite unexpectedly, to be a phenomenal success. The booming Industrial Revolution also meant a growing demand for goods trans port, which the railways were able to meet. But although railways were now becoming established, locomotives weren’t. They still faced competition from both horsepower and stationary winding engines. This is really where George Stephenson comes in.
The next big railway project was a fifty-kilometre line to link Liverpool and Manchester, again in northern England. The directions couldn’t decide which method of haulage they should go for. On the whole they favoured winding engines, stationed every two or three kilometres along the track. But Stephenson, who was on the board of directors, argued doggedly in favor of locomotives, and in the end they agreed to offer a prize to see if anyone could build one good enough to do the job. Stephenson entered the contest, of course -- he was competitive by nature anyway -- with a locomotive built by his son, Robert George him self was too busy surveying the railway line but Robert was also an excellent engineer and he designed a magnificent engine called the Rocket, the tree ancestor of the modem steam locomotive.
The most important feature of the Rocket was its multi - tube boiler. Instead of just one wide tube carry ing hot air from the furnace through the water of the boiler, beating it into steam, the Rocket had twenty five little tubes, which gave it a much greater surface area in contact with the water, so it made more steam, much faster. It also had a blast pipe. In other words, exhaust steam was sent up the chimney in a rapid blast which pulled a draught of air across the furnace, making it burn better. All this made the locomotive more powerful. On the last run of the trials, George opened the throttle up and the Rocket achieved an amazing speed of thirty miles an hour. This really proved the feasibility of using locomotives to haul trains on railways. [br] In a true sense, plateways are the earliest and most primitive railways invented by ______.
选项
A、industrial workers
B、George Stephenson
C、the miners
D、the miner’s work
答案
C
解析
既是问的发明者,必定是人,因此在四个选项中首先可以排除D,其它三个中哪个最正确就需要寻找原文中的相关信息了,在原文的第一段中讲到“The basic idea of a railway’was an old one,mainly used in mines”,随后又讲到矿井中的矿工们如何发明最原始的“铁路”来运送货物的,因此答案C为最佳选择。
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3289519.html
相关试题推荐
TheUSeconomyshouldexpandmodestlyincomingmonthsasahealthyjobmark
TheUSeconomyshouldexpandmodestlyincomingmonthsasahealthyjobmark
Fiftyyearsago,RobertSolowpublishedthefirstoftwopapersoneconomic
Fiftyyearsago,RobertSolowpublishedthefirstoftwopapersoneconomic
Inthisseasonofcelebritybabies,withthecomingofBabySuri,TomandKa
Inthisseasonofcelebritybabies,withthecomingofBabySuri,TomandKa
Inthisseasonofcelebritybabies,withthecomingofBabySuri,TomandKa
InearlyJune,theOrganizationforEconomicCooperationandDevelopment(OE
InearlyJune,theOrganizationforEconomicCooperationandDevelopment(OE
Howisurbanizationnegativelyaffectingoursociety?Theanswertothisques
随机试题
[originaltext]Theaveragepersonlearnsmostofthe30,000-40,000wordswho
()是目前最常用、最经济的超导材料冷却介质。A.液氮 B.液汞 C.液氧
春色满园关不住,一枝红杏出墙来之于()相当于欲把西湖比西子,淡妆浓抹总
柱下条形基础梁的高度宜为柱距的下列何种比值范围?()A.柱距的1/6~1/3
根据《营业性演出管理条例》规定,下列被县级人民政府文化主管部门处以8倍以上10倍
高血压病十余年,一年来活动后呼吸困难,夜间常胸闷气急而惊醒,坐位可以缓解。此病例
某一研究者需要收集近年来国家教育事业发展的有关数据,最可靠的信息来源是 A.
根据《人民警察警衔条例》第8条和第9条的规定,担任行政职务的人民警察实行职务等级
股票上市交易申请经()审核同意后,签订上市协议的公司应当在规定的期限内公告股
立法体制包括立法权限的划分、立法机关的设置和立法权的行使等各方面的制度,关于我国
最新回复
(
0
)