[5] Sleeping cars in the usa

The first passenger cars in the USA were high in proportion to their length, and were not fitted for movement upon rails. Their characteristics have gradually changed, so as to make them longer, lower, safer, more comfortable and convenient. One of the most important railroad inventions in the USA was a sleeping car. The earliest trains had no sleeping cars. There was really no need for them, because early railroads were short; the longest journeys lasted only a few hours, and nearly all trains went in the daytime. As a number of railroads increased, it became possible to make longer and longer journeys and night travel became common. Long journeys by night were very tiresome and uncomfortable because it was almost impossible for passengers to sleep in the car seats. Steamboats and sailing vessels had good sleeping rooms, and even canal boats used for passenger transportation had bunks in which travelers could rest at night. It can easily be seen that there was a real need for sleeping cars on the railroads, and especially upon the railroads of the USA, where the distance which one might travel was so large. The earliest sleeping cars had a row of double bunks on each side. Although these cars were more comfortable for night travel than the ordinary coach, they had one large defect. They could not be used for day travel. What was needed was a car in which the seats used during the day could be converted into beds at night.

George M. Pullman of Chicago invented the modern sleeping car. He built his first one in 1859. This car was much simpler in design than the sleeping cars of today but it was so much more suitable for long-distance travel than any other kind of car in use at that time. Encouraged by the success of his first car, Mr. Pullman built а much larger sleeping car a few years later, a car which was a great improvement over his first coach. This car was named the Pioneer. George Pullman received many orders for sleeping cars. In 1879 he bought the big site of land near Chicago. On this place the city of Pullman was constructed, and there the Pullman-Standard Car Manufacturing Company still has its great manufacturing plant, which is capable of producing many hundreds of all kinds of cars a year. Practically all of the sleeping cars on the USA's railroads are owned and operated by the Pullman Company.

To be read after Lesson 4

[6] Monorail

More used as a transportation system in industry than in cities, a monorail is a type of electric railway train that runs either above or below a single track. In factories monorails are used for moving equipment or materials from one part of a plant to another. In public transportation systems they have thus far been used only for hauling people for short distances.

One of the first monorail systems constructed was the Schwebebahn (suspension railway*) in Wuppertal, Germany. Completed in 1901, it consists of two-car trains hung from an elevated structure**. Much of the route operates over the Wupper River. The distance covered is 9.3 miles (15 kilometers).

This system, though it has proved safe and efficient, has not had many imitators. There are today only about three dozen monorails in the world, and none operates for a distance longer than 10 miles (16 kilometers). There is an 8.2-mile (13-kilometer) monorail in Japan running from Tokyo to the airport. It was constructed in 1964 on the occasion of the Summer Olympic Games. Although much newer in appearance than the one in Wuppertal, it also is suspended from an overhead beam***. A shorter line was built at Osaka for the World's Fair called Expo '70. There is a 1-mile (1.6-kilometer) monorail in Seattle, Wash., that was built for the 1962 World's Fair. Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., and Walt Disney World near Orlando, Fla., both have monorail trains operating within their grounds. The systems connect the various parts of the parks with hotels and parking lots.

The Disney and Seattle monorails ride above a beam. This system was designed in the 1950s in Sweden by Axel L. Wenner-Gren. The trains pick up an electric current from a rail attached to the side of the beam.

Although they provide swift and quiet transportation, monorails have not yet been accepted anywhere for long-distance travel. In England the Greater London Council studied the monorail as an option for urban transport. It concluded that such a system offered no advantages over existing surface and underground lines. Among the objections to monorail systems cited by critics are the huge cost of constructing a system, its unsightliness in a city, and passenger inconvenience. Such a system in any city would have the high visibility that elevated trains now have in parts of New York City, Boston, Chicago, and other urban centers.

One of the few places in the world to invest in a monorail system in the late 1980s was Malaysia. The city of Kuala Lumpur approved a project to construct a 12-mile (20-kilometer) line.

Notes: *suspension railway – подвесная железная дорога

**elevated structure – надземное сооружение, эстакада

***overhead beam – надземная балка (перекладина)