Helical band actuator

A helical band actuator, generally known by the trademark Spiralift, is a complex and specialized linear actuator used in stage lifts and material handling lifts. The actuator forms a high-capacity telescoping tubular column (lifting capacities to 25,000 pounds, travel to 40 feet).
Raison d'être.
Pierre Gagnon was awarded a US patent for the “Push Actuator” in 1989. Gagnon developed the actuator to substitute hydraulic cylinders in stage and orchestra lift systems. Hydraulic jacks were the predominant push actuators used in performing arts facilities, but they had their issues.
The piston rods of a hydraulic lift extend below the platform they support by more than the length that the lift travels. For lifts at grade, housings for the rods are often sunk into support holes, known as caissons, that are inaccessible and often complicated by groundwater levels. If placed above ground, the space occupied by the rod housings is unusable. Gagnon’s actuator eliminates caissons and reduces the volume of unusable space below the platform of the lift.
Another significant issue with hydraulic lifts is platform drift, the tendency of a platform to lower due to depressurization of the hydraulic system over time. Helical band actuators do not suffer from platform drift because they are rigid mechanical devices.
Traveling nut screw jacks and rigid chain actuators can also be effective at addressing these issues with hydraulic jacks, and are also used for stage lifts.
Principle of operation.
The telescoping column is formed by a pair of interlocking stainless steel bands. One band has a vertical rectangular profile and the other horizontal, much like an oversized Slinky. The vertical band spirals up on itself into a stacked helix, forming the wall of the column, while at the same time, the horizontal band interlocks the continuous spiral seam of the vertical band. When the column lowers, the bands separate and retract into two compact coils. The bands are combined, separated and stored by an assembly located at the base of the column. The result is an efficient (50%-80%) telescoping lifting column.
To incorporate the device into a lift system, multiple helical band actuators are arranged below the lift platform where they are powered by an electric motor(s) and synchronized transmission. Helical band actuators require a separate lateral support mechanism, usually provided in the form of guide rails or self-guiding frame, such as a pantograph (e.g. a scissor lift).


Max Senn

Max Senn (born 11 February 1883 – 21 July 1933) was a Swiss watchmaker and football player. He played as striker.
Private life.
Born in Basel, Max Senn was the son of the Basel watchmaker Emil Senn and his wife Frida née Bürgin. For professional reasons in 1901 he moved Hannover and worked for the firm Uhren-Stellmann as instructor for watchmakers for at least two years. After a lengthy, unspecified absence, he registered back in Basel on 3 August 1906. On 18 February 1909, he married Emma Louise Karolina Zehnder, born 24 September 1870. The couple had four children: Max Kurt, born 24 April 1910; Emil Alfred, born 15 December 1911, Jeanne Louise, born 20 November 1914; Yvonne, born 15 June 1916. Senn ran his own watchmaking business, but had to file for bankruptcy in November 1926. He died on 21 July 1933.
Football career.
Senn played his youth football with FC Basel. In 1901 he joined Hannoverscher Fußball-Club 1896, a forerunner of the club Hannover 96. Apart from the fact that a number of English people were involved in the founding of many German football clubs, the player Max Senn is one of the first foreigners ever to be on record in German football. He was the first Swiss person to be top scorer in the German League.
Senn rejoined Basel, in first team, for their 1906–07 season. He played his first friendly match for Basel 14 October 1906. He scored both goals as Basel won 2–1 against Grasshopper Club. Senn played his domestic league debut for the club in the away game on 28 October as Basel won 6–2 against FC Bern.<ref name="fcb-achiv-bern-fcb-1906/07"></ref> He scored his first (recorded) league goal for his club in the away game on 18 November. It was the match winning goal as Basel won 2–1 against Aarau.<ref name="fcb-achiv-aarau-fcb-1906/07"></ref> At the end of the league group stage Basel had to compete in a play-off against Old Boys, which they won on the third attempt. Basel thus advanced to the finals, but were beaten in both games.
Senn remained with the club for another season. In the home game at the Landhof on 18 November 1907 he scored a hat-trick as Basel won 6–0 against Young Fellows Zürich.<ref name="fcb-achiv-fcb-yf-1907/08"></ref> Together with Siegfried Pfeiffer, Senn was the club's top league goal scorer that season. Both netted seven times.
Between the years 1906 and 1908 Senn played a total of 28 games for Basel scoring a total of 13 goals. 22 of these games were in the Nationalliga A and the others were friendly games. He scored 10 goals in the domestic league, the other three were scored during the test games.


Reginald Mountain

Reginald William Mountain (1899–1981) was a British civil engineer.
Mountain was born in London in 1899. He served as an officer of the British Army's Royal Engineers during the First World War. From 1919 to 1922 Mountain studied for a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering at Northampton Engineering Day College, graduating with a degree awarded by London University. He left the regular army and was placed in the Royal Engineers Special Reserve of Officers on 1 July 1921. At that point he held the rank of Second Lieutenant with seniority of 16 April 1921. He remained in the reserve and was promoted to Lieutenant on 7 August 1925 with his seniority backdated to 16 April 1923. Mountain left the reserve and resigned his commission on 15 November 1930.
Mountain undertook three years of pupillage with an engineer in Switzerland. During this time he wrote an academic paper on "Rotary converters for railway use" that was published by the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) and won the institution's Miller Prize and James Forrest Medal. By 1931 Mountain had become an Associate Member of the ICE and was involved in hydro-electric energy and electricity systems. Mountain continued to publish academic papers on subjects relating to hydroelectricity including a description of the method of electricity transmission used by the Central Electricity Board in Scotland and economic aspects of hydroelectric developments. He wrote about the Galloway hydro-electric power scheme, co-authoring a book on the subject and writing a journal article on the connection of the scheme with the National Grid. Mountain collaborated with fellow hydroelectric engineer Angus Paton on a paper describing Paton's Owen Falls hydroelectric scheme built in 1948.
Mountain served as President of the ICE for the November 1962 to 1963 session. By this point he was a member of both the ICE and the Institution of Electrical Engineers. Mountain died in 1981.
References.


Dave Stetson

Dave Stetson (born 1946 in Pittsburg, California) is co-creator and founding member of the Caricature Carvers of America. He served as the first CCA Vice President in 1990 and 1991 and served as president in 1992 and 1993.
He moved to Vermont with his family in 1946, Dave spent his formative years in the country on his grandfather's farm. He lived in Vermont until 1962 and then, at the end of his junior year in high school, his father moved the whole family to Phoenix, Arizona.
He teaches woodcarving. He married Michelle Carville.


Amplified piezoelectric actuator

Amplified piezoelectric actuators are specific actuators using piezoelectric materials as active material and have a specific design to overcome traditional limitations of classical direct piezoelectric actuators, the limited stroke. As classical piezoelectric materials have a strain of 0.1%, it is practically impossible to reach significant stroke without displacement amplification (1 mm displacement would require 1 meter of piezoelectric material). The solution to reach middle range stroke is to use an amplification system.
Single-cell actuator.
The principle is based on the deformation of an elliptic shell to amplify the ceramic strain. The ceramic stack is aligned with the great axis of the ellipse. A small deformation of the great axis creates a large displacement of the small axis. The amplification ratio can typically reach 20 times, that means such actuators can reach strokes of 1 mm.
The goal of the elliptic shell is not only to amplify the displacement. It has also to apply the correct pre-stress to the piezoelectric material in order to allow dynamic and precise motion. The other advantage is that this kind of flextentional actuator is very reliable.
Displacement amplification can also be accomplished by using rigid struts connected by flexure bearings. This separation allows inverted geometries, allowing either contraction or expansion of the output even if the dominant motion of the piezo is expansion. Actuators of this type can have a stroke of 2 mm.
Multi-cell actuator.
In diamond shaped amplifiers, using 4 piezo crystals instead of one increases control of movement, particularly in changing temperatures. More movers result in more force at similar displacement.
Lever arm amplification.
Another method of amplifying the piezo stroke is to use a lever arm, which can be a primary or a secondary amplification mechanism, and can be used to generate displacements with 10 to 40 times magnification. The lever arm amplification method were used as amplified piezoelectric actuator in 1980s as a piezoelectric impact printer element by T.Yano et al. from EM Precicison Technologies Ltd.(later renamed Mechano Transformer Corporation).
Later, the company introduced another kind of secondary amplification mechanism by using the lever arm and spring leaf. With this combination, the amplification ratio can achieve more than 10 times.
Applications.
Piezoelectric actuators, and especially amplified piezoelectric actuators, have been historically studied and used in aerospace applications. NASA, for example, studied and tested its own actuators for cryogenic applications. Other organizations like ESA or ISRO are also studying such solutions. The space industry's interest in amplified piezoelectric actuators is due to the high power density of these actuators, high positioning accuracy, high reliability, and low power losses when used in quasistatic operation.
Amplified piezoelectric actuators have no sliding parts due to the flexural hinges and do not require lubrication. Lubrication-free performance is important for cryogenics, where traditional lubricants may freeze, and for vacuum applications, where lubricants could outgas or trap atmospheric gasses.
Piezoelectric actuators can also be made with nonmagnetic materials, which allows their use in MRI machine.
Controlling helicopter rotor blades using active flaps has been investigated for some time without being put into production. The most commonly used technology is the amplified piezoelectric actuator.


Roxboro-Pierrefonds station

Roxboro-Pierrefonds is a commuter rail station operated by Exo in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is served by the Deux-Montagnes line. The station will be renamed to Pierrefonds-Roxboro when Réseau express métropolitain service commences, to match the name of the borough of Pierrefonds-Roxboro.
History.
The station was originally named Roxboro, and was built as part of Canadian Northern Railway's line from Montreal to Deux-Montagnes via the Mount Royal Tunnel. It handled passengers, mail, and freight. Roxboro Station burned down in 1932 and was not immediately rebuilt. Instead the stop moved approximately west to where the railway crossed Gouin Boulevard West. This station was known as Ste-Genevieve. By 1944 the stop had returned to its original site and was once more known as Roxboro. The new, small station no longer handled freight.
Location.
The station is located in the former city of Roxboro in the Pierrefonds-Roxboro borough of Montreal, at 11100 Gouin Boulevard West. The platforms can also be accessed from the east where the line crosses Commercial Center (11th Avenue).


Paulino Bernabe II

Paulino Bernabe II (born 9 June 1960), is a Spanish luthier.
Life.
Paulino Bernabé learned the art of making classical guitars from his father, Paulino Bernabe Senior, a famous Spanish luthier. Since the early 1980s until shortly before the death of his father in 2007 the master worked together with Bernabe Senior and took over the workshop. Guitars made by Paulino Bernabé II are played by internationally known guitarists, such as John Williams and Johanna Beisteiner. In 2011 he founded the association "Spanish Guitar Foundation" in order to protect the heritage of the Spanish guitar-making style and promote young artists. The Foundation also has a fine collection of 19th and 20th century guitars.


Jude Fawley


Damiano da Bergamo

Fra Damiano da Bergamo (Damiano di Antoniolo de Zambelli) (circa 1480–1549) was an Italian artist and Dominican friar, mainly known for his wood-engraving and intarsia completed in a Renaissance style. Along with Francesco Orlandini, and owing designs to Vignola, Damiano completed the wood panels for the chapel once found in the Château de la Bastie d'Urfé in France, now in Metropolitan Museum of New York. He also completed the wooden choir stalls for San Domenico in Bologna.


State Library railway station

State Library railway station (originally under the working title of CBD North) is a railway station currently under construction as part of the Metro Tunnel project in Melbourne, Victoria. Construction commenced in 2018 with the station expected to open in 2025.
History.
In December 2008, the proposal for a new underground rail corridor running north-south through the Melbourne CBD was incorporated into the Brumby Ministry's Victorian Transport Plan after originally featuring in a report from Sir Rod Eddington. It was to be built in two stages: the first from Footscray to St Kilda Road, and the second continuing to Caulfield. The need for a new rail corridor and stations through the CBD was identified in an effort to reduce congestion on the City Loop, enabling more frequent and reliable services across Melbourne's railway network.
Following a change of State Government, in 2012/2013 the Baillieu and Napthine Ministries announced a revised plan with the tunnel instead running from South Kensington to South Yarra along a similar route to the original proposal. The revised project included five underground stations, including one under the working title 'CBD North' and was listed as the highest-priority infrastructure project in Melbourne by Infrastructure Australia.
The project went unfunded due largely to tension between the state and federal governments. In February 2015 the proposal was revived by the newly elected Andrews Ministry with construction to commence in 2018 and the tunnel and stations planned to open in 2026. The total cost of the project is A$11 billion.
Naming.
In August 2017 the Government launched a naming competition for the five new railway stations to be constructed as part of the Metro Rail Project.
Following over 50,000 submissions, in November 2017 State Library was announced as the winning entry for the working-title 'CBD North' station due to its proximity to the landmark State Library of Victoria building. The other stations will be known as Anzac, Town Hall, Parkville and North Melbourne, following the winning selection of names based on geographical locations and prominent landmarks.
Location.
The railway station is located below Swanston Street between La Trobe and Streets in the northern edges of Melbourne's CBD. The station will connect with Melbourne Central station via a pedestrian walkway, enabling transfer from other railway lines and will have entrances at the corner of Latrobe/Swanston Street and Franklin/Swanston Street, enabling more convenient access to City Baths and Queen Victoria Market.
The initial build method chosen for construction was cut-and-cover, however this was changed in order to avoid significant disruption and to keep trams running along the world's busiest tram corridor, Swanston Street.


Bois-Franc station

Bois-Franc is a future Réseau express métropolitain (REM) interchange station in the Bois-Franc neighbourhood of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. REM service is expected to begin at the station in the second quarter of 2024.
It was formerly commuter rail station on the Deux-Montagnes line until Exo ended service in 2020.
Origin of name.
Bois-Franc takes its name from the nearby Bois-Franc residential development, itself named for "chemin du Bois-Franc", the original name of the stretch of boulevard Henri-Bourassa through this area, which had previously ended at the Laurentian Autoroute. Bois Franc was also the original name of the nearby pioneer airstrip that later was known as Cartierville Airport, until its closing in the 1980s.
History.
The original station was named Lazard (likely for the merchant bank Lazard Frères & Co. which underwrote the construction of the Mount Royal Tunnel on this rail line). In 1926, the station was renamed Val-Royal. After the modernization of the Deux-Montagnes Line, between 1993 and 1995, a new station named Bois-Franc was built; the original station was then demolished at the request of the Canadian National Railway and with the permission of Transport Canada on June 5, 1995.
Location.
The station is located at 5465 Henri Bourassa Boulevard West, between Marcel-Laurin Boulevard/Boulevard Laurentien (Route 117) and Grenet Street in Saint-Laurent on the border with Cartierville.
Cartierville branch and station.
A single-track electrified (2400 V DC) branch to Cartierville, a relic of when the line terminated there in Canadian Northern Railway days, left the line at (then) Val-Royal station. When the line was run by Canadian National, only one rush-hour trip was scheduled in each direction. It was abandoned in the early 1980s when STM predecessor STCUM took over operations of the Deux-Montagnes line. The Cartierville station was located at the corner of Gouin West and Laurentian boulevards. The Cartierville Station was to have been the terminus of Line 3 (Red) of the Montreal Metro.


John Lawrence (lord mayor)

Sir John Lawrence (died 26 January 1692) was an English merchant who was Lord Mayor of London from 1664 to 1665. He was therefore Lord Mayor during the period of the Great Plague of London.
Lawrence was widely acclaimed for his role in mitigating some of the effects of the plague in the city: 'in particular, his efforts in keeping the bread ovens baking and food supplies plentiful earned him considerable praise'.
Lawrence was a city of London merchant and a member of the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers. In 1658 he was elected an alderman of the City of London for Queenhithe ward. He was one of the Sheriffs of London from 1658 to 1659 and was Master of the Haberdashers Company at the same time. He was a member of the committee of the East India Company in 1659–60, and colonel of the White Regiment from 1659 to 1660. He was knighted on 17 June 1660. In 1664, he was elected Lord Mayor of London and was also Master of the Haberdashers. He was Governor of the Irish Society from 1668 to 1676, and president St Thomas' Hospital from 1668 to 1683.
Lawrence was one of the leaders who opposed the influence of the court in civic affairs. An account of him written in 1672, said that "he hath put all the affronts and indignities imaginable upon all those persons that have been willing to venture their lives and estates in any military employment for His Majesty" and that he "hath always had three or four busie turbulent followers to crye him up in all parts of the cittie, and to assist him in all popular elections. From 1675 to 1678 he was again a member of the committee of the East India Company, and in 1677 Master of the Haberdashers Company. He served twice more on the committee of the E.I.C. from 1679 to 1680 and from 1681 to 1683. He interrupted his period as alderman in 1683 but was re-elected for Queenhithe in 1688. He was president of St Thomas' Hospital again from 1688 to 1692, and Governor of the Irish Society again from 1690 to 1692. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1673.
Lawrence was buried at his death in St Helen's Church, Bishopsgate. He had married and had children. One daughter married Sir George Vyner, 2nd Baronet, son of Sir Thomas Vyner (Lord Mayor from 1653 to 1654), and another married Charles Chamberlain (Alderman from 1687 to 1688).


Suvorovskaya (Moscow Metro)

Suvorovskaya () is a station under construction on the Koltsevaya Line of the Moscow Metro. It will be connected to Dostoyevskaya on the Lyublinsko-Dmitrovskaya Line. The station was deemed to be not economically feasible and construction was cancelled in 2017.
Although there was land cleared for the construction of the station, the city elected not to proceed with development of the station. According to Maksim Vasiliev, a manager with MosKomArkhitektura, construction of the station would be too technically complex, too long, and too costly to compete. Consequently, Vasiliev stated that the station was unlikely to be built. On August 19, 2019 works on Suvorovskaya station construction site resumed .


Moon Landrieu

Maurice Edwin Landrieu (born July 23, 1930) is an American politician from Louisiana who served as the 56th Mayor of New Orleans from 1970 to 1978. He also is a former judge. He represented New Orleans' Twelfth Ward in the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1960 to 1966, served on the New Orleans City Council as a member at-large from 1966 to 1970 and was the United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under U.S. President Jimmy Carter from 1979 to 1981. He is a member of the Democratic Party.
Early life and career.
Landrieu was born in Uptown New Orleans. He went to Jesuit High School. Landrieu won a baseball scholarship at Loyola University New Orleans, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in business administration in 1952 and a law degree in 1954. As an undergraduate, he was elected student body president at Loyola. After a three-year stint in the United States Army, Landrieu opened a law practice and taught accounting at Loyola.
In the late 1950s, Landrieu became involved in the youth wing of Mayor deLesseps Morrison's Crescent City Democratic Organization. Running on Morrison's ticket, Landrieu was elected by the 12th Ward of New Orleans to the Louisiana House of Representatives in 1960 to succeed J. Marshall Brown. There he voted against the "hate bills" of the segregationists, which the legislature passed in the effort to thwart the desegregation of public facilities and public schools.
In 1962, Landrieu ran for New Orleans City Council and lost but, in 1966, he was elected Councilman-at-large. In 1969, he led a successful push for a city ordinance outlawing segregation based on race or religion in public accommodations, an issue that had been addressed nationally in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. As councilman, Landrieu also voted to remove the Confederate flag from the council chambers and voted to establish a biracial human relations committee. He succeeded with both votes.
Landrieu as mayor.
Landrieu was elected mayor of New Orleans in the election of 1970 to succeed fellow Democrat Victor Schiro. His opponent in the Democratic primary runoff was Louisiana Lieutenant Governor Jimmy Fitzmorris. Landrieu won by assembling a coalition comprising 90 percent of black voters and 39 percent of whites. Perennial candidate Addison Roswell Thompson, the operator of a taxicab stand and a member of the Ku Klux Klan, also ran again for mayor in the Democratic primary, but polled negligible support. In the general election, Landrieu defeated Ben C. Toledano. In that contest, Landrieu received 99 percent support from black voters.
On May 3, 1970, the day before he took his oath of office as mayor, Landrieu received a death threat by telephone, but authorities quickly caught the culprit. During his tenure as mayor, Landrieu oversaw desegregation of city government and public facilities as well as encouraging integration within business and professional organizations. Before Landrieu was elected, there were no high-ranking black employees or officials in City Hall; he worked actively to change this by appointing African Americans to top positions, including Chief Administrative Officer, the number two position in the executive branch of city government. When Landrieu took office in 1970, African Americans made up 19 percent of city employees; by 1978, this number had risen to 43 percent. He also appointed Reverend A.L. Davis to fill a temporary vacancy on the City Council; Davis was the city's first black city councilor. Landrieu also employed an African American assistant: Robert H. Tucker, Jr.
Landrieu obtained federal funds for the revitalization of New Orleans' poor neighborhoods, and he promoted the involvement of minority-owned businesses in the city's economic life. Like his predecessor, Landrieu presided over continued suburban-style growth in the Algiers and New Orleans East districts, with Algiers essentially built-out, having exited its greenfield development stage, by the end of his administration. Landrieu was also involved in the planning and construction of the Louisiana Superdome, the Piazza d'Italia, and other projects designed to improve the economy of New Orleans. He advocated the creation of the Downtown Development District to revitalize the New Orleans CBD, and worked to promote the city's tourism industry. His tourism-related projects included the Moon Walk, a riverfront promenade facing the French Quarter, the Louisiana Superdome, as well as renovations of the French Market and Jackson Square.
By the midpoint of Schiro's mayoral administration, an accelerating number of building demolitions were approved and other projects were also being contemplated, such as the elevated Claiborne Expressway and Riverfront Expressway segments of I-10. Landrieu authorized the 1972 New Orleans Housing and Neighborhood Preservation Study. Most of that study's recommendations were enacted by Landrieu, including the 1976 establishment of the Historic District Landmarks Commission ("HDLC"), which extended design review and demolition controls for the first time to parts of New Orleans outside the French Quarter . In this period, Congress passed federal tax incentives favoring the rehabilitation of historic buildings. Combined with the founding of HDLC, New Orleans had hundreds of historic tax credit-subsidized redevelopment projects in the ensuing decades, representing hundreds of millions of dollars of new investment.
During 1975–1976, Landrieu served as president of the United States Conference of Mayors. He was reelected in 1974 and served until April 1978. After leaving office, he was succeeded by Dutch Morial, the city's first black mayor. Landrieu was the last white elected mayor of New Orleans until his son Mitch was elected in 2010.
After city hall.
After leaving office in 1978, Landrieu served as Secretary of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Landrieu served as judge of the Louisiana 4th Circuit Court of Appeals from 1992 until his retirement in 2000. He is the father of former U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu and former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu. In 2004, Landrieu was inducted in the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame in Winnfield. His daughter Mary was inducted into the organization three years later. Landrieu's personal papers are archived at Loyola University New Orleans and the New Orleans Public Library.


Battleship Cove station

Battleship Cove is a proposed MBTA Commuter Rail station in Fall River, Massachusetts. It is planned to be the southern terminus of the Fall River branch of the South Coast Rail project, and will open in 2030 as part of the project's Phase II. The station will have no parking - it is intended for tourists visiting Battleship Cove and the Fall River waterfront, with Fall River station to the north serving commuters - and will be open seasonally. Previous passenger service to Fall River included stations at Fall River Wharf (1847-1937) and Ferry Street (1864-1958). The Wharf station was the terminus of the Fall River Line steamship service.
History.
Previous stations.
The Fall River Railroad opened from Myricks to Fall River in June 1845, and to the Old Colony Railroad at South Braintree in December 1846. The first Fall River station was located at the south end of a short tunnel under Central Street. In 1847, the Fall River and Old Colony began running the Boston–Fall River "Boat Train", which met Fall River Line steamers from New York at the Fall River Wharf; the Central Street station closed at that time. Wharf station also served the surrounding industrial area. The two railroads merged in 1854; after several name changes, it again became the Old Colony Railroad in 1872.
The Old Colony subsidiary Old Colony and Newport Railroad opened between Fall River and Newport in 1864, with an additional station at Ferry Street in Fall River. Newport was the terminal of the steamers until 1869, when they returned to Fall River. A station may have been briefly located at Cherry Street in the early 1870s. In 1872, the Fall River Line became part of the Old Colony system; in 1893, the Old Colony in turn became part of the New Haven Railroad.
Steamship service between Fall River and New York ended in 1937, and passenger service between Fall River and Newport ended the next year. Passenger service to Boston, with Ferry Street as the terminal, continued (except for 1949-1952) until September 5, 1958. The line continued to be used for freight service by the New Haven and its successors Penn Central and Conrail, then finally as the CSX Fall River Subdivision. After the state purchased the line in 2010, freight service (which runs only as far south as Ferry Street) was transferred to the Massachusetts Coastal Railroad
New station.
In September 2008, MassDOT released 18 potential station sites for the South Coast Rail project, including two sites in Fall River. Fall River station would be a full-time station serving commuters, while Battleship Cove station would be a seasonal station for tourists visiting Battleship Cove and the Fall River waterfront. A 2009 conceptual design called for a single side platform serving one track, with access at the center of the platform from City Gates Plaza. Plans released as part of the Final Environmental Impact Report in 2013 moved the platform about to the south, and added a second track for freight trains to pass the station.
In 2017, the project was re-evaluated due to cost issues. A new proposal released in March 2017 called for early service via Middleborough by 2024, followed by full service via Stoughton by 2029. Battleship Cove would have only been built during the second phase. By mid-2017, plans called for the first phase to be completed in 2022, and to include stations at Freetown and Battleship Cove in Phase 1 rather than Phase 2. However, the Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Report released in January 2018 pushed Battleship Cove back to Phase II.


Francis Putnam Burns

Francis Putnam Burns (Born: February 6, 1807) was a pioneering piano maker in Albany, New York. Burns was born in Galway, New York and trained as a cabinet-maker. He learned the craft of piano-making from John Osborne at Meacham & Co. in Albany, and from 1834-1835 was partnered with Thomas Clemence in that city. He then began the F. P. Burns Company to manufacture pianos, and won a diploma in 1847 from the New York State Agricultural Society for "best piano". Although the firm nearly went bankrupt during the American Civil War, his son Edward returned on disability and saved the company.
A Burns piano was reportedly the first piano in California. According to an 1884 article in the "Santa Cruz Daily Surf": "It was made in Albany, NY by E P Burns [sic] and brought around cape Horn in the fall of 1849 by Capt Wilson, and was put together on the schooner where its delightful strains helped to vary the monotony of the long voyage. It was regarded as a great curiosity when it arrived in San Francisco and crowds flocked to see the instrument and listen to its melody."


Conical pendulum

A conical pendulum consists of a weight (or bob) fixed on the end of a string or rod suspended from a pivot. Its construction is similar to an ordinary pendulum; however, instead of swinging back and forth, the bob of a conical pendulum moves at a constant speed in a circle with the string (or rod) tracing out a cone. The conical pendulum was first studied by the English scientist Robert Hooke around 1660 as a model for the orbital motion of planets. In 1673 Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens calculated its period, using his new concept of centrifugal force in his book "Horologium Oscillatorium". Later it was used as the timekeeping element in a few mechanical clocks and other clockwork timing devices.
Uses.
During the 1800s, conical pendulums were used as the timekeeping element in a few clockwork timing mechanisms where a smooth motion was required, as opposed to the unavoidably jerky motion provided by ordinary pendulums. Two examples were mechanisms to turn the lenses of lighthouses to sweep their beams across the sea, and the location drives of equatorial mount telescopes, to allow the telescope to follow a star smoothly across the sky as the Earth turns.
One of the most important uses of the conical pendulum was in the flyball governor (centrifugal governor) invented by James Watt in 1788 which regulated the speed of steam engines during the Steam Age in the 1800s. The playground game tetherball uses a ball attached to a pole by a cord which functions as a conical pendulum, although the pendulum gets shorter as the cord wraps around the pole. Some amusement park rides act as conical pendulums.
Analysis.
Consider a conical pendulum consisting of a bob of mass "m" revolving without friction in a circle at a constant speed "v" on a string of length "L" at an angle of "θ" from the vertical.
There are two forces acting on the bob:
The force exerted by the string can be resolved into a horizontal component, "T" sin("θ"), toward the center of the circle, and a vertical component, "T" cos("θ"), in the upward direction. From Newton's second law, the horizontal component of the tension in the string gives the bob a centripetal acceleration toward the center of the circle:
Since there is no acceleration in the vertical direction, the vertical component of the tension in the string is equal and opposite to the weight of the bob:
These two equations can be solved for "T"/"m" and equated, thereby eliminating "T" and "m":
Since the speed of the pendulum bob is constant, it can be expressed as the circumference 2"πr" divided by the time "t" required for one revolution of the bob:
Substituting the right side of this equation for "v" in the previous equation, we find:
Using the trigonometric identity tan("θ") = sin("θ") / cos("θ") and solving for "t", the time required for the bob to travel one revolution is
In a practical experiment, "r" varies and is not as easy to measure as the constant string length "L". "r" can be eliminated from the equation by noting that "r", "h", and "L" form a right triangle, with "θ" being the angle between the leg "h" and the hypotenuse "L" (see diagram). Therefore,
Substituting this value for "r" yields a formula whose only varying parameter is the suspension angle "θ":
For small angles "θ", cos("θ") ≈ 1; in which case
so that for small angles the period "t" of a conical pendulum is equal to the period of an ordinary pendulum of the same length. Also, the period for small angles is approximately independent of changes in the angle "θ". This means the period of rotation is approximately independent of the force applied to keep it rotating. This property, called isochronism, is shared with ordinary pendulums and makes both types of pendulums useful for timekeeping.


Parkville railway station

Parkville railway station is a railway station currently under construction as part of the Metro Tunnel project. It will be built below Grattan Street between Leicester and Elizabeth Streets. The station will be built using the cut-and-cover method. Construction commenced in 2018. It is due to open in 2025, serving the large health and education precinct in the area. It is set to be an interchange between the Metro Tunnel and the proposed Metro Tunnel 2, and provisions have been left in the design of the station to allow for this. This new station will provide a direct connection to the metropolitan train network for Parkville for the first time.
Design.
The station's materials will feature sandstone, steel, glass and bluestone.
Parkville Precinct.
Parkville will become a “grand promenade” to connect the area’s health, research and education buildings. A new tram 'super stop' will be constructed on Royal Parade, as well as realigned traffic lanes, bicycle lanes, bus stops, footpaths and pedestrian crossings. There will also be more than 250 bicycle parking spaces created.


Seiyodo Tomiharu

Seiyodo Tomiharu (1733-1810) was a Japanese netsuke carver, and the leader of its Iwami school.


Pieter Spierinckx

Pieter Spierincks or Pieter Nicolaes Spierinckx (30 August 1635, Antwerp – 30 August 1711, Antwerp or England) was a Flemish painter and designer of tapestries. He was an important representative of the Italianizing movement in Flemish landscape painting. He worked for prominent patrons including the kings of France and Spain.
Life.
Very little is known about the life and training of Pieter Spierincks. He became a master in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1655. He was active in Antwerp in the period 1655–1660. Later he was in Italy, Lyon and Paris. In Paris he worked for the French king Louis XIV of France for whom he painted landscapes. He was back in Antwerp in 1666. He was married to Jenne Marie de Jode, the daughter of the prominent engraver Gerard de Jode.
He likely died in Antwerp although it is possible that he died during a trip to England.
He was the teacher of Geeraert Cruys and Jean Carel van de Bruynel.
Work.
Pieter Spierincks is known for his landscape paintings and the designs he made for the tapestry workshops in Brussels and Oudenaarde. The landscapes he painted for the French king are said to show the influence of Salvator Rosa. His landscapes were also influenced by Paul Bril. His Italianising landscapes further show similarity to the works of Claude Lorrain, particularly in the luminosity of his countryside scenes.
His Italianising style was very popular in his time and represents the decorative trend that arose in Flemish art in the middle of the 17th century. The staffage in his landscapes was regularly the work of specialist painters such as Peter Ykens.
The cartoons he made for the tapestry workshops were often a collaborative effort with other artists such as Lodewijk van Schoor and Peter Ykens.
Some hunting still lifes formerly attributed to him are likely the work of J.J. Spoede.
A pair of his landscape paintings are held by the Museo del Prado in Madrid. They were part of the Spanish royal collection.


Loudoun Gateway station

Loudoun Gateway is a planned Washington Metro station in Loudoun County, Virginia on the Silver Line. It will be located at SR 606 (Old Ox Road) and the ramps to SR 267. Originally planned to begin operations in 2018, the station is now is now expected to open in early 2022.
In April 2015, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority approved the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors' name for the stop.
Station layout.
Planned facilities for this station include a pedestrian bridge crossing to the north side of SR 267, leading to bus bays, a kiss and ride lot, as well as an expanded 2,750-space parking facility at the Dulles North Transit Center.


John Duncan (weaver)

John Duncan (fl. 1800–1818) was a Scottish weaver who wrote an authoritative book about weaving in 1808.
Biography.
John Duncan came from Glasgow, but nothing has so far been found about his ancestry. He was the inventor of a patent tambouring machine (Patent No 2769, of 1804). This was an early sewing machine, for "raising flowers, figures and other ornaments on muslins, lawns, silks, woollens, or mixed cloths". Duncan may have used the chain stitch, which was employed for tambour lace, as was later done by Barthélemy Thimonnier. Sometimes Duncan's invention has been described as the first embroidering machine; as with other pioneering machines of the period, it was unsuccessful.
Works.
Duncan's major work was "Practical and Descriptive Essays on the Art of Weaving" (Glasgow, 1808). It was later said, by Clinton G. Gilroy, to be an unacknowledged source used in Andrew Ure's "Philosophy of Manufactures".
Duncan wrote an account of his tambouring machine in the "Edinburgh Encyclopædia", article "Chain Work," according to Harte. (p. 124)
Duncan was also the probable author of the "Cloth Manufacture" article in Volume 6 of the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, signed "(J.D.)" The entry contains "a description of a loom invented by the author of this article," which purports to improve upon the vertical loom of Mr. Johnson, also discussed in the entry. Figures 3 and 4 of Plate CXCV, entitled "Vibrating Loom," illustrate his invention.
Duncan also wrote articles for "Rees's Cyclopædia" on:
and is possibly the author of:
and perhaps the short articles on:


Slider-crank linkage

A slider-crank linkage is a four-link mechanism with three revolute joints and one prismatic, or sliding, joint. The rotation of the crank drives the linear movement the slider, or the expansion of gases against a sliding piston in a cylinder can drive the rotation of the crank.
There are two types of slider-cranks: in-line and offset.
There are also two methods to design each type: graphical and analytical.
Kinematics of the in-line slider-crank.
The displacement of the end of the connecting rod is approximately proportional to the cosine of the angle of rotation of the crank, when it is measured from top dead center (TDC). So the reciprocating motion created by a steadily rotating crank and connecting rod is approximately simple harmonic motion:
where "x" is the distance of the end of the connecting rod from the crank axle, "l" is the length of the connecting rod, "r" is the length of the crank, and "α" is the angle of the crank measured from top dead center (TDC). Technically, the reciprocating motion of the connecting rod departs from sinusoidal motion due to the changing angle of the connecting rod during the cycle, the correct motion, given by the Piston motion equations is:
As long as the connecting rod is much longer than the crank formula_3 the difference is negligible. This difference becomes significant in high-speed engines, which may need balance shafts to reduce the vibration due to this "secondary imbalance".
The mechanical advantage of a crank, the ratio between the force on the connecting rod and the torque on the shaft, varies throughout the crank's cycle. The relationship between the two is approximately:
where formula_5 is the torque and "F" is the force on the connecting rod. But in reality, the torque is maximum at crank angle of less than "α" = 90° from TDC for a given force on the piston. One way to calculate this angle is to find out when the Connecting rod smallend (piston) speed becomes the fastest in downward direction given a steady crank rotational velocity. Piston speed x' is expressed as:
For example, for rod length 6" and crank radius 2", numerically solving the above equation finds the velocity minima (maximum downward speed) to be at crank angle of 73.17615° after TDC. Then, using the triangle sine law, it is found that the crank to connecting rod angle is 88.21738° and the connecting rod angle is 18.60647° from vertical (see Piston motion equations#Example).
When the crank is driven by the connecting rod, a problem arises when the crank is at top dead centre (0°) or bottom dead centre (180°). At these points in the crank's cycle, a force on the connecting rod causes no torque on the crank. Therefore, if the crank is stationary and happens to be at one of these two points, it cannot be started moving by the connecting rod. For this reason, in steam locomotives, whose wheels are driven by cranks, the connecting rods are attached to the wheels at points separated by some angle, so that regardless of the position of the wheels when the engine starts, at least one connecting rod will be able to exert torque to start the train.
Design.
An in-line crank slider is oriented in a way in which the pivot point of the crank is coincident with the axis of the linear movement. The follower arm, which is the link that connects the crank arm to the slider, connects to a pin in the center of sliding object. This pin is considered to be on the linear movement axis. Therefore, to be considered an "in-line" crank slider, the pivot point of the crank arm must be "in-line" with this pin point. The stroke() of an in-line crank slider is defined as the maximum linear distance the slider may travel between the two extreme points of its motion. With an in-line crank slider, the motion of the crank and follower links is symmetric about the sliding axis. This means that the crank angle required to execute a forward stroke is equivalent to the angle required to perform a reverse stroke. "For this reason, the in-line slider-crank mechanism produces balanced motion." This balanced motion implies other ideas as well. Assuming the crank arm is driven at a constant velocity, the time it takes to perform a forward stroke is equal to the time it takes to perform a reverse stroke.
Graphical approach.
The graphical method of designing an in-line slider-crank mechanism involves the usage of hand-drawn or computerized diagrams. These diagrams are drawn to scale in order for easy evaluation and successful design. Basic trigonometry, the practice of analyzing the relationship between triangle features in order to determine any unknown values, can be used with a graphical compass and protractor alongside these diagrams to determine the required stroke or link lengths.
When the stroke of a mechanism needs to be calculated, first identify the ground level for the specified slider-crank mechanism. This ground level is the axis on which both the crank arm pivot-point and the slider pin are positioned. Draw the crank arm pivot point anywhere on this ground level. Once the pin positions are correctly placed, set a graphical compass to the given link length of the crank arm. Positioning the compass point on the pivot point of the crank arm, rotate the compass to produce a circle with radius equal to the length of the crank arm. This newly drawn circle represents the potential motion of the crank arm. Next, draw two models of the mechanism. These models will be oriented in a way that displays both the extreme positions of the slider. Once both diagrams are drawn, the linear distance between the retracted slider and the extended slider can be easily measured to determine the slider-crank stroke.
The retracted position of the slider is determined by further graphical evaluation. Now that the crank path is found, draw the crank slider arm in the position that places it as far away as possible from the slider. Once drawn, the crank arm should be coincident with the ground level axis that was initially drawn. Next, from the free point on the crank arm, draw the follower link using its measured or given length. Draw this length coincident with the ground level axis but in the direction toward the slider. The unhinged end of the follower will now be at the fully retracted position of the slider. Next, the extended position of the slider needs to be determined. From the pivot point of the crank arm, draw a new crank arm coincident with the ground level axis but in a position closest to the slider. This position should put the new crank arm at an angle of 180 degrees away from the retracted crank arm. Then draw the follower link with its given length in the same manner as previously mentioned. The unhinged point of the new follower will now be at the fully extended position of the slider.
Both the retracted and extended positions of the slider should now be known. Using a measuring ruler, measure the distance between these two points. This distance will be the mechanism stroke, .
Analytical approach.
To analytically design an in-line slider crank and achieve the desired stroke, the appropriate lengths of the two links, the crank and follower, need to be determined. For this case, the crank arm will be referred to as "L2", and the follower link will be referred to as "L3". With all in-line slider-crank mechanisms, the stroke is twice the length of the crank arm. Therefore, given the stroke, the length of the crank arm can be determined. This relationship is represented as:
Once "L2" is found, the follower length ("L3") can be determined. However, because the stroke of the mechanism only depends on the crank arm length, the follower length is somewhat insignificant. As a general rule, the length of the follower link should be at least 3 times the length of the crank arm. This is to account for an often undesired increased acceleration yield, or output, of the connecting arm.
Offset slider-crank design.
The position of an offset slider-crank is derived by a similar formula to that for the inline form; using the same letters as in the previous diagram and an offset of formula_7:
Its speed (the first derivative of its position) is representable as:
Its acceleration (the second derivative of its position) is representable as the complicated equation of:
Analytical approach.
The analytical method for designing an offset crank slider mechanism is the process by which triangular geometry is evaluated in order to determine generalized relationships among certain lengths, distances, and angles. These generalized relationships are displayed in the form of 3 equations and can be used to determine unknown values for almost any offset slider-crank. These equations express the link lengths, "L1, L2, and L3", as a function of the stroke,"(ΔR4)max", the imbalance angle, "β", and the angle of an arbitrary line "M", "θM". Arbitrary line "M" is a designer-unique line that runs through the crank pivot point and the extreme retracted slider position. The 3 equations are as follows:
With these relationships, the 3 link lengths can be calculated and any related unknown values can be determined.
Slider-crank inversions.
Slider-crank chain inversion arises when the connecting rod, or coupler, of a slider-crank linkage becomes the ground link, so the slider is connected directly to the crank. This "inverted slider-crank" is the form of a slider-crank linkage that is often used to actuate a hinged joint in construction equipment like a crane or backhoe, as well as to open and close a swinging gate or door.
A slider-crank is a four-bar linkage that has a crank that rotates coupled to a slider that the moves along a straight line.
This mechanism is composed of three important parts: The crank which is the rotating disc, the slider which slides inside the tube and the connecting rod which joins the parts together. As the slider moves to the right the connecting rod pushes the wheel round for the first 180 degrees of wheel rotation. When the slider begins to move back into the tube, the connecting rod pulls the wheel round to complete the rotation.
Different mechanism by fixing different link of slider crank chain are as follows :
This inversion is obtained when link 1 (ground body) is fixed.
Application- Reciprocating engine, Reciprocating compressor etc...
This inversion is obtained when link 2 (crank) is fixed.
Application- Whitworth quick return mechanism, Rotary engine, etc...
This inversion is obtained when link 3 (connecting rod) is fixed.
Application- Slotted crank mechanism, Oscillatory engine etc..,
This inversion is obtained when link 4 (slider) is fixed.
Application- Hand pump, pendulum pump or Bull engine, etc.


Tengah Plantation MRT station

Tengah Plantation MRT station is a proposed Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) station on the Jurong Region line in Tengah, Singapore.
History.
On 9 May 2018, LTA announced that Tengah Plantation station would be part of the proposed Jurong Region line (JRL). The station will be constructed as part of Phase 2, JRL (East), consisting of 7 stations between Tengah and Pandan Reservoir, and is expected to be completed in 2028.
Contract J108 for the design and construction of Tengah Plantation Station and associated viaducts was awarded to John Holland Pty Ltd – McConnell Dowell South East Asia Pte Ltd Joint Venture (JV) at a sum of S$265.4 million in March 2020. Construction will start in 2020, with completion in 2028. Contract J108 also includes the design and construction of the Tengah Park and Bukit Batok West stations and associated viaducts.
Initially expected to open in 2027, the restrictions on the construction due to the COVID-19 pandemic has led to delays in the JRL line completion, and the date was pushed to 2028.
Location.
The station will be located within the future Tengah planning area, and it is named after the future town of Tengah - called Tengah Plantation.


China-ASEAN Investment Cooperation Fund

The China-ASEAN Investment Cooperation Fund, also knowns as the China Asean Fund or CAF, is a USD-denominated offshore multilateral cooperation fund majority owned by financial institutions of the Government of the People's Republic of China. It invests throughout Southeast Asia, which the fund defines as including China.
Purpose.
The Fund is part of the Chinese strategy to deepen cooperation between China and ASEAN, Chinese Premiere Li Keqiang reiterated on September 9. 2013. In the speech, the premiere said, "China will activate a new round of special loans, make good use of the China-ASEAN Investment Cooperation Fund, and actively explore with other parties the creation of a financing platform for infrastructure development in Asia to fund major projects." China hopes to gain influence in ASEAN through the fund.
Fundraising.
The establishment of the fund was announced in 2009 by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and it began operations in 2010. Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping sees the fund as a way for the Chinese government to provide financial support to ASEAN. The fund, which is sponsored by the Export-Import Bank of China, among other institutional investors, became the first Southeast Asia-focused private equity fund approved by China's State Council and the National Development and Reform Commission. The Export-Import Bank of China is the "anchor sponsor" with a "seed investment" of US$300 million. Three other Chinese institutions were "cornerstone investors", investing a combined US$500 million. The sovereign wealth fund, the China Investment Corporation, " jointly founded" the fund along with the Export-Import Bank, according to the China Economic Review, quoting "The Wall Street Journal". The International Finance Corporation of the World Bank invested US$100 million and became another "cornerstone investor." The Export-Import Bank owns 52% of the management company while the China Investment Corporation owns 24%.
The fund seeks ultimately to raise US$10 billion to invest in ASEAN countries. It has raised US$1 billion, of which US$400 million was invested in four companies in Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines and Thailand.
Investments.
The fund targets investment opportunities in infrastructure, energy and natural resources in the ASEAN countries.
Philippines.
Its maiden investment was in the Philippines when it helped Negros Navigation buy out Aboitiz Transport Services owners of SuperFerry. Through an equity infusion, it took control of the former Negros Navigation and purchased the Aboitiz Transport System for US$105 million. The Aboitiz Transport System had been formed by first the break up of WG&A SuperFerry into SuperFerry and Carlos A. Gothong Lines and then the merging of SuperFerry with Cebu Ferries and SuperCat fast ferries into the Aboitiz Transport System. Negros Navigation was subsequently rebranded the 2GO Group and is the Philippines largest ferry and domestic freight company.


Purple Line (Maryland)

The Purple Line is a planned light rail line intended to link the Maryland suburbs of Bethesda, Silver Spring, College Park, and New Carrollton, all in the Washington metropolitan area. The line will allow riders to move between the Maryland branches of the Red, Green/Yellow, and Orange lines of the Washington Metro without needing to ride into central Washington, D.C., and will also offer transfers to all three lines of the MARC commuter rail system. Contrary to popular belief, and similarity of the name to some of the Metrorail lines, the project is being administered by the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA), an agency of the Maryland Department of Transportation, and not the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA/Metro).
Purple Line Transit Partners, a consortium headed by Fluor Enterprises, was formed to design and build the Purple Line, and subsequently operate and maintain it for 36 years. Construction began in August 2017. Work on the line ceased in September 2020, with the consortium intending to terminate its contract due to mounting delays and leaving the project incomplete without a general contractor.
Throughout the decades-long planning process, the project had been dogged by resistance, particularly from inhabitants of the upscale community of Chevy Chase. During the administration of Governor Bob Ehrlich plans were made to build a bus rapid transit line dubbed the Bi-County Transitway instead. Legal attempts to thwart the line continued even after construction had begun; but in December 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that Purple Line construction could continue despite these objections.
History.
Early studies, public debate, design.
The "Purple Line" has been the name of two different transit proposals. In 1994, John J. Corley Jr., an architect with Harry Weese Associates (which designed the Washington Metro system) proposed a multibillion-dollar Metro line around the Capital Beltway. This would have served as a "ring" line, connecting suburb to suburb, as compared to the lines of the existing Metro system, which radiate from Washington. ("See" Rapid transit#Network topologies.) In 1998, the Beltway Purple Line received considerable political support from Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan and then-Governor Parris Glendening, which was a $10 billion, line from National Harbor to Montgomery Mall.
In 1987, after CSX expressed a desire to abandon the Georgetown Branch rail line, Maryland leaders immediately started planning to repurpose it for transit and a hiking trail. The idea of adapting the railroad for a transit line dated back at least as far as 1970, when such a use was included in the October 1970 Master Plan for the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Planning Area. Montgomery County purchased its portion of the railroad right-of-way from CSX in 1988. Eventually, this proposal came known as the "Inner Purple Line" to distinguish it from the "Beltway Purple Line". By 2001, the "Beltway Purple Line" proposal had been abandoned as too costly and the name was attached to the Bethesda to line.
Robert Flanagan, the Maryland State Secretary of Transportation under Governor Robert Ehrlich, merged the Purple Line proposal with the Georgetown Branch Light Rail Transit (GBLRT). The GBLRT was proposed as a light rail transit line from westward, following the former Georgetown Branch of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (now a short CSX siding and the Capital Crescent Trail) to .
Both Governor Ehrlich and Secretary Flanagan introduced an alternative mode – bus rapid transit – that might have been utilized in lieu of light rail transit. To reflect this possibility, the administration changed the name of the project to the "Bi-County Transitway" in March 2003. Another reason that the "Purple Line" was discouraged by the Ehrlich administration was that its associations with the other color-oriented names of the Washington Metro system (which consists of heavy rail) might lead the public to expect a heavy rail option. The new name did not catch on, however, as several media outlets and most citizens continued to refer to the project as the Purple Line. As a result, Governor Martin O'Malley and Secretary of Transportation John Porcari opted to revert to "Purple Line" in 2007.
In January 2008, the O'Malley administration allocated $100 million within a six-year capital budget to complete design documents for state approval and funding of the Purple Line. In May 2008, it was projected that the Purple Line would have about 68,000 daily trips.
A draft environmental impact study was issued on October 20, 2008. On December 22, 2008, Montgomery County planners endorsed building a light rail line rather than a bus line. On January 15, 2009, the county planning board also endorsed the light rail option, and County Executive Isiah Leggett has also expressed support. On October 21, 2009, members of the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board voted unanimously to approve the Purple Line light rail project for inclusion into the region's Constrained Long-Range Transportation Plan.
Planners intend to utilize existing Washington Metro stations and to accept the WMATA's SmarTrip farecard. Metro's 2008 annual report envisioned that the Purple Line would be fully integrated with the existing Washington Metro transit system by 2030.
The proposed project prompted support and opposition in the community:
Support for Purple Line
Support for bus
Opposition to rail
Procurement.
The Purple Line was procured as a full design-build-finance-operate-maintain public–private partnership. On December 7, 2015, four teams composed of major American and international firms submitted their bids to realize the project:
Approval.
Governor Larry Hogan opposed the Purple Line project while campaigning in 2014 but approved it in June 2015. At the same time, Hogan cancelled its sister project, the Baltimore Red Line, citing excessive costs. Hogan reduced the state's contribution to the project from $700 million to $168 million, with the savings reallocated toward increased highway construction. The budget shortfall is expected to be covered by increased funds from Prince George's and Montgomery counties, as well as lower operational costs due to longer headways.
On March 2, 2016, Hogan announced that the state has chosen a team of private companies to build, operate and maintain a light-rail Purple Line in the Washington suburbs for $3.3 billion over 36 years. Under the winning bid – proposed by the team Purple Line Transit Partners and led by construction giant Fluor Corporation – the six-year construction project began later that year, and the 16-mile line may be open for service by late 2022 (according to MTA officials), or else 2023 or 2024 (according to Purple Line Transit Partners).
On April 6, 2016, the Maryland Board of Public Works – made up of Hogan, State Treasurer Nancy K. Kopp, and State Comptroller Peter Franchot – unanimously approved the contract, as expected. The $5.6 billion contract is 876 pages long and, according to "The Washington Post" is "believed to be the most expensive government contract ever in Maryland" and "one of the largest public-private partnerships on a U.S. transportation project" ever. The contract approval allows the Maryland Transit Administration to finalize $900 million in federal construction grants.
In August 2016, U.S. District Court Judge Richard J. Leon found that the Maryland Transit Administration and the Federal Transit Administration did not study whether Metro's maintenance issues and ridership decline would affect the Purple Line. Judge Leon decided to vacate the Purple Line's federal approval. A federal funding agreement cannot be signed without the reinstatement of the environmental approval, and Maryland has said it cannot afford to build the Purple Line without sufficient federal funding. On August 21, 2017, despite the ongoing court case over the environmental analysis, $900 million of federal funding was granted for the light rail project. On December 19, 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled in favor of the Purple Line, specifically stating that declining ridership on the Washington Metro system does not require Maryland to complete a new environmental study for the Purple Line. This federal appeals court ruling allowed for construction to continue and effectively ended the three-year legal battle surrounding the 16-mile light-rail line project. On April 13, 2020, U.S. District Judge James Bredar dismissed the third and final lawsuit brought by opponents of the Purple Line.
Purple Line Transit Partners quits.
By 2020, the project had accrued over $800 million in change orders from Purple Line Transit Partners and the opening date had slipped 32 months. The consortium sent a letter to the state on May 1 that year making known their intent to cease work on the line and terminate their contract. A temporary restraining order which had halted the company from quitting work was lifted in September, and PLTP began packing up construction sites the following week.
In November 2020, the Maryland Department of Transportation announced that MDOT and the Maryland Transit Administration have assumed many of the Purple Line’s contracts, including the manufacturing of light-rail cars, operations, and maintenance, as well as design and construction contracts. On November 24, 2020, the Maryland Department of Transportation agreed to pay $250 million to settle the costs of overruns that caused the contractor to quit and to resume construction of the Purple Line. In mid-December 2020, Maryland’s Board of Public Works officially and unanimously voted to approve the $250 million legal settlement to PLTP to resolve the contract disputes and resume construction within the next nine months.
Route and station locations.
The planned rail line will connect the existing Metro, MARC commuter rail, and Amtrak stations at:
The following stations are part of the "Locally Preferred Alternative" route approved by Governor Martin O'Malley on August 9, 2009:
Potential further expansion.
Although the majority of discussions about the Purple Line describe the project as a 16-mile east–west line between Bethesda and New Carrollton, there have been several proposals to expand the line further into Maryland or to mirror the Capital Beltway as a loop around the entire Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The Sierra Club has argued for a Purple Line that would "encircle Washington, D.C." and "connect existing suburban metro lines." Maryland Lieutenant Governor Anthony G. Brown, while campaigning in 2006, similarly stated that he would "like to see the Purple Line go from Bethesda to across the Woodrow Wilson Bridge," adding, "Let's swing that boy all the way around" (a reference to having the Purple Line circle through Virginia and back to the line's point of origin in Bethesda).
An advocacy group known as "The Inner Purple Line Campaign" has stated that the Purple Line could be extended westward to Tysons Corner and eastward to Largo, and that it could eventually cross the new Wilson Bridge from Suitland through Oxon Hill to Alexandria, eventually forming a rail line that encircles the city. The reconstruction of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge (I-495's southern crossing over the Potomac River) provides capacity for the bridge to carry a heavy or light rail line. Suggested stops along this proposed Purple Line expansion include:
Rolling stock.
The light rail vehicles designed to run on the Purple Line are being constructed by CAF at their Elmira, New York facility. Vehicles are long and can carry up to 431 passengers. Cars are planned to enter the testing phase of operation in 2020.


William Gordon Harris

Sir William Gordon Harris (10 June 1912 – 20 February 2005) was a British civil engineer. His early career was with the London, Midland and Scottish Railway and in the Sudanese Irrigation Department before he began a 26-year spell with the Admiralty Civil Engineers Department. Harris rose to become Civil Engineer in Chief in 1959 and was responsible for building facilities to cope with the change in focus of the Royal Navy from gunnery ships to aircraft carriers and submarines, including the nuclear submarine docks at Faslane. Harris was later made director-general of highways in the Ministry of Transport during which time he was responsible for the construction of the 650 miles of motorway, a focus on ground investigation at pre-tender stage and the development of new motorway signalling and telecommunications systems. He later entered private practice as a consulting engineer and was chairman of the Port of Dover. Harris also served as president of the Institution of Civil Engineers and of the Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers.
Early career.
Harris was born in Liverpool on 10 June 1912 to Captain James Whyte Harris and Margaret Roberts Buchanan Harris (née Forsyth). His father was a captain in the Royal Naval Reserve. Harris was educated at Liverpool College before studying the Mechanical Sciences Tripos at Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge. Harris worked for the London, Midland and Scottish Railway as an engineer from 1932 until 1935 when he transferred to the Irrigation Department of Sudan. He returned from Sudan in 1937 to work in the Civil Engineer's Department of the Admiralty, the start of a 26-year association with that department. Harris married Margaret Harvie in 1938, they would have three sons and one daughter together and would be grandparents to sixteen. Harris received several promotions during his time with the Admiralty, becoming Assistant Civil Engineer in Chief in 1950, Deputy Civil Engineer in Chief in 1955 and Civil Engineer in Chief in 1959. Harris gained a Commonwealth Fund of New York Scholarship in 1950 which allowed him to spend two years with the US Navy Bureau of Yards and Docks. In 1960 he became the Director-General of Navy Works at the Admiralty, a post he would hold until the reorganisation which followed the merger of the Royal Navy, Royal Air Force and British Army administrations into the Ministry of Defence in 1963. During his time with the Admiralty Harris saw the last large gunnery ships go out of service to be replaced with submarines and aircraft carriers. This change of fleet composition required a revolution in dockyard facilities, for which he was responsible, especially those at Faslane, the submarine base.
Director-general of works and highways.
In the 1963 Queen's Birthday Honours Harris was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath, and also became Director-General of Works at the Ministry of Public Building and Works. From 1965 Harris was the Director-General of Highways at the Ministry of Transport (later the Department of the Environment). During this time he was responsible for all design, construction and maintenance of roads in England. He was responsible for securing agreement from the county councils and the Association of Consulting Engineers on road schemes and for presenting these to the secretary of state, Barbara Castle. In 1967-68 he split England into six regions, each the responsibility of a roads construction unit to manage the delivery of regional infrastructure. Harris was chair of a committee into contracting by the ministry and recommended that competitive tendering be maintained but that more ground investigation was required into the subsoil prior to tender and that this information should be shared with the contractor. He also implemented the use of standard methods of compaction in place of the more time-consuming method of validation testing after the works were completed. Harris implemented a new signalling system for motorways and implemented a new telecommunications system, for which he allocated £27 million of funding. Harris's tenure as Director-General saw the construction of 650 miles of motorways and an expenditure of £2.2 billion on new road construction.
Harris was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1969 Birthday Honours. Harris was the chief British delegate to the Permanent Association of Navigation Congresses (PIANC) from 1969 until 1985 and from 1970 to 1971 was the country's chief delegate to the Permanent Association of Roads Congresses. Harris was a vice-president of the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) from 1971 to 1974 and president from November 1974 to November 1975. He also updated the ICE's contract documentations (including the 5th edition of ICE Conditions of Contract published in June 1973) and its standard method of measurement.
Later career.
In 1973 Harris left the Department of the Environment and became a partner at Peter Fraenkel & Partners, a position he held for the next five years. From 1976 to 1979 Harris was chairman of the Construction Industry Manpower Board and from 1978 to 1987 was the chairman of the B&CE Holiday Management Company and Benefit Trust Company, a provider of benefits, holiday pay and pensions to the construction industry. Harris was the deputy chairman of the board of the Port of Dover for 1980 to 1982, having been a member of the board since 1959.
In 1977 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, then named the Fellowship of Engineering. In 1984 he was elected president of the Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers. In 1985 he received the Department of Defense Distinguished Civilian Service Award from the US Army Corps of Engineers in recognition of his work to secure an international agreement upon the disposal of dredged material. His wife, Margaret, died in 1991 and in 1992 he married Rachel Bishop. Harris died at East Carlton, Northamptonshire on 20 February 2005. PIANC, in conjunction with the ICE, holds an annual "Sir William Harris lecture" in his honour.
References.


Reed Crawford

Reed Crawford (born John Reed-Crawford) was a British milliner of the 1950s and 1960s. He produced a series of high-fashion designs that matched the Swinging London mood of the 1960s, including helmet-style cloche hats and designs in unusual material combinations, such as plastic and fur. He became especially associated with couture, working with the designer John Cavanagh from 1959 and joining the Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers as an associate member from 1961.
One of Reed Crawford's designs was chosen as part of the first Dress of the Year ensemble in 1963.
Early life and career.
Reed Crawford was interested in hats from childhood and, after military service, he attended Liverpool College of Art; later, he moved on to Royal College of Art to study fashion. After graduating, he joined the milliner Miss Hammond, who was based in Brook Street, Mayfair. From there, he moved on to work with Rose Vernier, a prestigious milliner whose clients included Princess Marina. In 1954, he set up his own hatmaking business.
Work with John Cavanagh.
Reed Crawford joined the couturier and Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers (IncSoc) member John Cavanagh in July 1959 and his designs soon attracted coverage in the fashion press. Writing in "The Guardian" about the autumn fashion shows, Belle Lawrie described: "the fantastic impact of Reed Crawford's tall hats (this milliner has been with Cavanagh for but the past ten days)". In "The Times" these new models were described as: "high, narrow, domed hats...rather reminiscent of the early twenties". Reed Crawford's high helmet-like cloche hats for John Cavanagh continued in 1960, but they were also joined by similarly high-line designs in pleated tulle. In 1961 John Cavanagh was chosen to design the dress for the wedding of Katharine Worsley to Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and, along with fellow Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers members Angele Delanghe and Hardy Amies, Cavanagh provided a preview in "The Times" of three designs to be worn by guests at the wedding. Cavanagh's outfit, a suit with pleated skirt and long jacket, was accessorised with a small white petal hat created by Reed Crawford. In 1961 Reed Crawford was elected as an associate member of the Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers (IncSoc) – a category reserved for accessories designers – one of only four milliners within IncSoc at this point.
In 1962, Reed Crawford, still working with Cavanagh, was designing models to add length to the fashion silhouette; these included chefs' caps, turbans and trilbies; materials used for his designs included velvet, felt and velour. For evening wear, he designed small caps topped with aigrettes and plumes of tulle.
A year later, his grey trilby was chosen, in combination with a Mary Quant dress, for the very first Dress of the Year outfit; it was selected by the Fashion Writers' Association.
Brand hallmarks.
Although Reed Crawford was working within the couture system, his key interest was in radical design and material combinations. A collection of plastic hats created in 1965 for visitors to Royal Ascot attracted international attention, with designs comprising a modified souwester, a helmet hat and a bonnet style with visor. He described the hats as "wet paddock" millinery; a Canadian newspaper suggested they would be excellent for fishing in combination with hip-waders. He undertook occasional publicity stunts, including 'icing' felt hats using a syringe filled with quick-drying plastic glue and creating a hat called 'Dollar Princess' made of aluminium milk bottle tops – both publicising the work of IncSoc members. More unusual fabric combinations included his 1966 transparent PVC hats trimmed with mink fur.
His aspirations as a designer did not always dovetail with the market he served. In a 1990s interview for the Costume Society, he said: "we basically dealt with the gentry. That was a bit difficult for me because I wanted to be in the avant-garde of fashion". In the same interview, he described his interest being primarily in the sculptural aspects of hatmaking and the variety of techniques and materials that could be used to create them.
Not all his designs met with approval from the fashion press. Alison Adburgham of "The Guardian" described him as a milliner of "outrageous convictions". Reviewing his 1964 autumn/winter collection, she said: "As for Reed Crawford's hats, they beggar description, especially his cocktail confections: high-standing exclamation pieces stuck through with monstrous hat-pins. Funnier hats have appeared in pantomimes, but not much funnier".
Later career and legacy.
Following his career in couture, Reed Crawford became a lecturer at the London College of Fashion.
A selection of images of his work with John Cavanagh is held by the University of the Arts' VADS archive. His Dress of the Year hat – one of his less radical designs – is part of the permanent collection at the Fashion Museum, Bath.


Theobald Boehm

Theobald Böhm (or Boehm) (April 9, 1794 – November 25, 1881) was a German inventor and musician, who perfected the modern Western concert flute and improved its fingering system (now known as the "Boehm system"). He was a Bavarian court musician, a virtuoso flautist and a renowned composer.
The fingering system he devised has also been adapted to other instruments, such as the oboe and the clarinet.
Life and works.
Born in Munich in Bavaria, Boehm learned his father's trade of goldsmithing. After making his own flute, he quickly became proficient enough to play in an orchestra at the age of seventeen, and at twenty-one he was first flautist in the Royal Bavarian Orchestra. Meanwhile, he experimented with constructing flutes out of many different materials—tropical hardwoods (usually Grenadilla wood), silver, gold, nickel and copper—and with changing the positions of the flute's tone holes.
After studying acoustics at the University of Munich, he began experimenting on improving the flute in 1832, first patenting his new fingering system in 1847. He published "Über den Flötenbau" ("On the construction of flutes"), also in 1847. His new flute was first displayed in 1851 at the London Exhibition. In 1871 Boehm published "Die Flöte und das Flötenspiel" ("The Flute and Flute-Playing"), a treatise on the acoustical, technical and artistic characteristics of the Boehm system flute.
Boehm's experience as a goldsmith was a key factor in his ability to redesign the flute. For example, in "The Flute and Flute-Playing" he recounts having made a flute with moveable tone holes, in order to determine the proper location of each hole for correct intonation -- a remarkable piece of metal-working.
Traditional flutes were limited in size because the player had to be able to reach all the tone holes in the span of two hands. By substituting mechanically covered tone holes, Boehm eliminated this limitation, and was able to make larger, deeper flutes, such as the alto flute. Boehm was very fond of the alto flute, and recounts a time he was playing it when someone mistook it for a french horn.
Legacy.
Some of the flutes he made are still being played. The fingering system he devised has also been adapted to other instruments, such as the oboe and the clarinet.
He inspired Hyacinthe Klosé, the inventor of the modern clarinet fingering system. Klosé invented a system for the clarinet that today is the standard nearly worldwide (except Austria, Germany and others). Boehm was his inspiration, and so Klosé named the new system the Boehm system just like the modern western flute. The Boehm system clarinet and flute are not exactly the same. However, they are very similar in one of the clarinet's registers. If one plays the clarinet with the register key on, the fingerings are the same as the flute when the flute is in the lower and mid register. The differences are that the clarinet's second register is a twelfth above its lowest register, unlike the flute's which is an octave higher, and the clarinet is a transposing instrument, so an F on the flute is played as a G on the clarinet.


Chalk line

A chalk line or chalk box is a tool for marking long, straight lines on relatively flat surfaces, much farther than is practical by hand or with a straightedge. They may be used to lay out straight lines between two points, or vertical lines by using the weight of the line reel as a plumb line.
It is an important tool in carpentry, the working of timber in a rough and unplaned state, as it does not require the timber to have a straight or squared edge formed onto it beforehand.
Use.
A chalk line draws straight lines by the action of a taut nylon or similar string that has been previously coated with a loose dye, usually chalk. The string is then laid across the surface to be marked and pulled tight. Next, the string is then plucked or snapped sharply, causing the string to strike the surface, which then transfers its chalk to the surface along that straight line where it struck.
Chalk lines are typically used to mark relatively flat surfaces. However, as long as the line is taut and the two ends of the chalk line are in nearly the same plane, the chalk line will mark all points that the string touches on or near that plane once snapped. The objects to be marked do not need to be continuous along the line. Chalk lines can also be used across irregular surfaces and surfaces with holes in them, for example on an unfinished stud wall.
The primary problems associated with improper maintenance of a chalk line are string breakage due to excessive tension on the line, and degradation of the line associated with moisture contamination.
Chalk lines and plumb-bobs are often sold as a single tool.
History.
Chalk lines have been in use since ancient Egypt, and used continuously by builders in various cultures since.
Continuing development of this simple but effective tool focuses on the coloration for the chalk or marking compound, as well as the outer case and method of handling.
Ink lines.
In East Asia, an ink line is used in preference to a chalk line. This is a silken cord, stored on a combined reel and inkpot called a "sumitsubo" in Japanese. Alongside the line reel is a cavity filled with ink-soaked cotton fibres, which the line is drawn through as it is unreeled. These "sumitsubo" are highly decorated and much-prized by their owners. As with many such tools, they're often made by their users while apprentices.
On the completion of a major building, such as a temple, a large celebration or topping-out ceremony is held. As part of this event, a set of symbolic carpenter's tools are freshly made and presented to the new building. A "sumitsubo" is a traditional tool included with them.


The Bays railway station

The Bays railway station is a proposed station on the Sydney Metro West that will serve the Bays Precinct. It is to be built between Glebe Island and White Bay Power Station and is scheduled to open with the rest of the line by 2030.


Powell Flutes

Verne Q. Powell Flutes Inc. is a producer of professional flutes and piccolos since 1927. The company produces handmade musical instruments in wood, silver, platinum, and gold.
History.
Verne Q. Powell.
Verne Q. Powell (b. 7 Apr 1879 Danville, Indiana; d Feb 3, 1968 Needham, Massachusetts) started playing flute as a young boy in Kansas. His family were all musicians, but their trade was silversmithing. Verne was always encouraged to enjoy music, but he was trained by his family in jewelry making and engraving. In 1910, Verne visited Chicago to attend a recital by renowned flutist Georges Barrère. Barrère was performing on a silver flute, something Verne had never heard before. Verne was impressed with the sound, and set out to make a silver flute for himself.
Verne melted down various bits of silver (including a "handful of silver half-dollars," 7 spoons and 3 watch cases) to create the parts of the now famous "spoon flute." Upon completing the instrument Verne began performing on it regularly. In a short time, William S. Haynes, owner of the Wm. S. Haynes Flute Company of Boston, Massachusetts, heard of Powell's instrument and asked to see it. Upon review, he offered Verne a job at his shop.
In 1916, Verne Powell joined the Wm. S. Haynes Company to make wooden flutes and piccolos. By 1926, Powell was the shop foreman at Haynes and was running much of the business. Later that year, he left Haynes to make his own flutes. In 1927, Verne Q. Powell Flutes, Inc. was incorporated at 295 Huntington Avenue in Boston, Massachusetts.
Powell Flutes Company.
In 1961, Powell sold his company to four employees. He retired in early 1962, at age 82. The group of four ran the company until 1984 when two employees, Jim Phelan and Rob Viola, became the owners. In 1986, Steven Wasser bought the shares belonging to Mr. Viola and gained controlling ownership. Jim Phelan left the company in 1989 to pursue other interests and Mr. Wasser became the full owner.
The company moved from Boston to Arlington in 1970, to Waltham in 1989, and then Maynard in 1999. On March 31, 2016, Steven Wasser sold Verne Q. Powell Flutes, Inc. to Buffet Crampon, and Francois Kloc became the new president of the company. The company shop is located in Maynard, Massachusetts, where it employs approximately 50 staff.
Famous customers and famous flutes.
A platinum flute with sterling silver mechanism was commissioned for the 1939 World's Fair, in New York. This flute was owned and played by the famous flutist William Kincaid until shortly before his death in 1967. In 1986 this flute was auctioned by Christie's for $170,000 plus $17,000 for the auction house fee, the highest price ever paid for a flute. The same flute was again put up for auction at Christie's in 2009 and sold for $37,500. [www.christies.com]
Sonaré Winds.
In 2002, Verne Q. Powell Flutes Inc. created a division called Sonaré Winds. Sonaré flutes are intermediate level instruments which feature a body and handmade headjoint made at the Powell shop. The handmade headjoint of the Sonaré flute is used to generate the "Powell sound," while the process used in production of the body avoids the high cost of a handmade Powell instrument.
In 2005, Sonaré Winds created a line of trumpets with partner Cliff Blackburn, which are made in Elkhart, Indiana by the E.K. Blessing Co. but have a leadpipe and mouthpiece made by Cliff Blackburn.


Tunnel crankcase

A tunnel crankcase, tunnel crankshaft or disc-webbed crankshaft engine is a diesel engine where the crankshaft is designed so that the main bearings (the bearings that support the crankshaft within the crankcase) are enlarged in diameter, such that they are now larger than the crank webs (the radial arms that link the big end bearings to the main bearings). They thus form the largest diameter of any part of the crankshaft. Rather than a conventional crankcase that has webs across it to support the narrow bearings of a conventional crankcase, the crankcase now has a large tunnel through it, hence the name.
Tunnel crankcases appeared in the 1930s with the first high-speed diesel engines. They were favoured by some makers more than others, notably Saurer in Switzerland and Maybach-Motorenbau GmbH (now MTU) Friedrichshafen. They are described as both 'tunnel crankcases' and 'roller bearing cranks'; the two aspects are related and it is unclear as to which gave rise to the other.
Origins.
With the development of the high-speed diesel engine around 1930, powerful diesel engines became available in the sizes previously used by lower-powered petrol engines. In particular, their high BMEP and high torque led to high forces on the crankshaft bearings. These forces were greater than could be sustained by the small whitemetal bearings used for petrol engines. Although aircraft and sports car engines in the 1920s developed to have considerable power in a small space, these were high maintenance machines with regular servicing. The new diesels were intended for long commercial service where maintenance was a key cost to be reduced.
The need for an improved bearing technology led to the adoption of roller bearings, rather than whitemetal. Although they might be considered esoteric today, ball and roller crankshaft bearings were already in use in the 1920s for such mundane engines as the Austin 7.
Roller bearings require one-piece races for both inner and outer bearing tracks. Although split races are possible, they are expensive and difficult to fit. A simpler means of fitting roller bearings is to enlarge the diameter of the bearing, so that it becomes larger than the entire crankshaft web. Assembly is now done by putting the outer race of the bearing over the crankshaft axially from one end, rather than by assembling two pieces radially.
An early development was the semi-tunnel crankshaft. This used large ball or roller bearings of the tunnel style for their centre bearings, but the end bearings (carrying the load of pistons on only a single side) remained with a small diameter bearing of conventional style. This reduced the bearing cost, and also reduced the linear speed of these smaller bearings. This was important as it also reduced the speed of the crankcase oil seals alongside them.
Roller bearing crankshafts were favoured in central Europe: Germany, Switzerland and Czechoslovakia, owing to the local development and predominance of rolling-element bearings, in contrast to the improved metallurgy being developed for plain bearing materials in the English-speaking world.
Maybach petrol engines.
Tunnel crankshafts were only rarely applied to petrol engines. The development of large powerful engines, outside the rarefied aerospace materials of aircraft engines, coincided with the development of practical lightweight diesel engines that tended to supplant petrol.
One market that remained with petrol was that of engines for airships, a market in which Maybach was predominant. Although diesel engines were developed for airship use, these were generally unsuccessful. The British was based on medium-speed diesel engine practice and was both heavy, underpowered and unreliable. Only Maybach made significant use of tunnel crankshafts for petrol engines, with both its airship engines and also a number of World War II tank engines, such as the Maybach HL210 and HL230. These engines were used across all of the German medium and heavy tanks. Thousands of these engines were produced, although surviving examples are now extremely rare, particularly in working order.
Maybach diesel engines.
After the war, Maybach applied its knowledge of compact, high-speed engines to diesel engines, for the emerging market in diesel railway locomotives. These engines contrasted with those from other makers by being particularly powerful, both by weight and by volume. This was especially the case for the length, as Maybach's engines used a compact V layout at a time when most makers were still building long single-bank inline engines. Maybach's name became particularly associated with the tunnel crankcase design and these engines are still the best-known uses of the tunnel crankshaft. These engines were widely used in Germany, for locomotives such as the V200 class. In the UK they were both imported and also built locally under licence. Following German practice, these high-speed engines were used in conjunction with a hydraulic transmission, in order to produce a powerful, but lightweight locomotive, compared to the competing diesel-electric designs. The engines were also sold to the USA, although there they were used in the more established diesel-electric designs.
Built-up and one-piece cranks.
The first tunnel crankshafts were built-up with webs bolted to the side of the main bearings, much as for a conventional crankshaft, only larger (see cross-section illustration of the Saurer engine). Examples of these were also built by John Fowler & Co. in England.
A later development was to enlarge the main bearings sufficiently to be larger than the entire crank web. This now permitted the use of a one piece crankshaft
A tunnel crankshaft is considered to be a 'tunnel' if the outside diameter "over the outer race of the installed bearings" is larger than the maximum size of the webs. Early, or smaller, engines may have had crankshafts with bearing journals smaller than this, but were still considered as such because they were larger when the bearings were fitted.
To avoid passing the entire crankshaft through the bearings, the bearing diameters were usually stepped in size, in a conical progression. Each bearing now only needed to be slid through the length of its own width, being small enough to pass easily through any preceding housings. This meant that the crankshaft could only be inserted from one end of the crankcase.
Advantages.
Larger bearings can support the loads of these higher-force engines.
These can cope with the greater forces and higher speeds of the new high-speed engines.
The crankshaft can be inserted into an assembled crankcase, rather than the bearing caps being assembled around it. This is usually done by rotating the crankcase end-upwards and then lowering the crankshaft vertically into it.
This was a noted feature of some 1960s Maybach engines, used for diesel locomotives.
The length previously required for one web + bearing + web group is now replaced by a single bearing length, also acting as both webs.
As this reduced crankshaft length also reduces the spacing between cylinders, it was one factor in encouraging the use of tunnel crankshafts in V engines, where there is more axial distance available between adjacent cylinders. This further reduces the overall length of tunnel crankshaft engines.
The crankshaft, particularly along the webs, becomes wider and so stiffer.
Disadvantages.
By simple geometry, as the bearing diameter increases, so too does the linear speed at the bearing surface. This exceeds that possible for whitemetal bearings. Roller bearings were thus not only one reason for the enlarged tunnel crankshaft, but they were also made necessary by it.
The diameter and mass of the crankshaft is increased, such that it will no longer fit into standard crankshaft grinding machines and may require specialised machinery for their manufacture. Although the reduced length of the crankshaft may allow large engines to be built with shorter machinery.
The enlarged webs have greater mass, thus greater rotational inertia, particularly as they place this mass at the greatest radius away from the axis of the crankshaft. This gives an engine that is slower to accelerate, although it also means that the engine maintains a constant speed more easily under a rapidly varying load.
For this reason, the tunnel crankshaft is most appropriate to engines running for long periods at constant speed, such as generator sets, railway locomotives and boats. They are not used for cars, where rapid acceleration and deceleration is needed.
The large amount of material removed from the crankcase to provide the tunnel does not allow as much space for stiffening webs across the crankcase, so the overall rigidity of the crankcase may be less.
Two-stroke engines.
Many small crankcase compression two-stroke engines have a crankshaft with large circular webs, similar to the tunnel crankshaft. However these webs are merely webs, not bearings, and their bearings are of conventional small diameter alongside the webs. These enlarged webs are used instead to increase the compression ratio of the engine. By filling more of the 'dead' crankcase volume, the ratio between the swept volume of the cylinder and the remaining crankcase volume is increased.
Some multi-cylinder two-stroke engines also use crankcase compression, almost all of them marine outboard motors. In these engines, the separate crankcase volume for each cylinder must be kept separate. The webs are thus made circular, large and sealed by gas seals on their outer circumference. Again, these are not considered as tunnel crankshafts if the webs only carry a seal, but may be so if the large web also forms the bearing.