The whole purpose of a railway is to reduce the friction of the wheels, to enable a heavier load to be carried for the same amount of power. That lack of friction works against the train if it has a steep slope to climb or descend. The usual way is to tunnel through the hill, avoiding the slope altogether.
This, though, is very expensive, and, when they built the railway westward from Sydney in the 1860s, Engineer-in-Chief John Whitton did not have the money available to him to tunnel through A
Releasing steam - photo credit: Stephany Wiestling
(reprinted from BestKidFriendlyTravel.com)
My 6 year old boy loves trains, much like any other boy his age, so we HAD to ride the Sugar Cane Train while in Maui.
Initially, our hotel concierge suggested we take the train to Lahaina and then walk to our whale watching tour spot. However, upon talking to the gal at the Pacific Whale Foundation who said it’s about a 6 mile walk and too far for a little one, we did our train ride into Lahaina on a sig
I can’t say I’ve really visited Tennant Creek. I only know from hearsay that it’s not the sort of place you take your mother for a Mothers’ Day treat. Nevertheless, our train did stop there for a considerable time in the ‘small hours’, while we slept soundly in our sleeper berths.
The reason was twofold; it ensured that passengers saw as much of the Australian landscape by daylight as possible, and that the train arrived in Alice Springs at a fairly civilised hour.
You see, you don’t take an Aust
Old Orchard Beach Maine trains are now traveling eig
