Вводные упражнения к тексту а

Ex. 1 4. Переведите предложения с инфинитивом в функции определения.

Образец: The device to be fitted on the locomotive will control speed. Прибор, который будет установлен (который нужно установить) на локомотиве, будет регулировать скорость. The increase of average speeds to be obtained by electric trains is considerable. Увеличение средних скоростей, которое можно получить с помощью электропоездов, весьма значительно.

1. The main factors to be taken into account in designing high-speed vehicles are control equipment, tractive power and stability. 2. The tasks to be carried out according to the GOELRO Plan comprised the construction of numerous power plants and the electrification of heavily-used main lines. 3. The calculations to be made by electronic computers take little time and free man from a very hard job. 4. The A power plants to be erected will probably replace the thermal power stations when the supplies of natural fuel are exhausted. 5. The substations to be located along the line are to convert a. c. to d. c. 6. The fuel to be burnt (сжигать) at conventional power plants includes oil, gas and coal. 7. The voltage of the electric current to be transmitted to the trains was lowered at the substations. 8. The Dneproges power plant was one of the first to be" built in our country after the Great October Socialist Revolution.

 

Ex. 1 5. Определите значение выделенных слов и словосочетаний, не пользуясь словарем.

1. Electrification is one of the ways to increase the railway efficiency. 2. All main-line locomotives are furnished with electric current by means of the overhead system. 3. A special rail is used on the underground railways to conduct electricity to the trains. It is called a conductor or a third rail. 4. As soon as the electrification of the Moscow—Lake Baikal Railway was completed in 1961, the line was brought into use for freight and passenger traffic. 5. Railway electrification has made a great advance since the Great October Socialist Revolution. 6. If the trains run with very short intervals, we say that the railway carries dense traffic. 7. The main lines are also called the "trunk lines". 8. All electrified trunk lines use the overhead power supply system also known as the catenary. 9. Because of low efficiency steam traction has been replaced by diesel and electric haulage. 10. High efficiency and great reliability are the chief advantages of electric haulage. 11. The speed record on electrified railways belongs to the French locomotive. 12. The high cost of automatic control systems is economically justified.

 

 

 

Ex. 1 6. Прочтите текст (5 мин. на каждую часть) и (а) разделите часть I на две логические части и озаглавьте их; (б) назовите четыре проблемы, рассматриваемые в части II.

 

TEXT A. RAILWAY ELECTRIFICATION

I

(1)  World railways are now busy in search of ways to increase their economic efficiency and the speeds of passenger and goods trains. One essential condition to achieve this is electric traction.

(2)  The first attempt to apply electricity to transport purposes was made by Jacobi, a Russian physicist and electrical engineer. In 1838 he ran an electric boat at a speed of about 5 kph on the Neva river.

(3)  Another major success in using electric power was made by Werner von Siemens who was the first to produce a passenger electric locomotive. His locomotive was demonstrated at the exhibition in Berlin in 1879. It was a miniature four-wheeled loco hauling up to thirty passengers at a time round a narrow-gauged track 275 m long. The locomotive was so small that the driver straddled it like a horse. But it was a practical locomotive which was furnished with power from the third rail placed in the track between the two running rails.1

(4)  Two years later, a small electric railway, the first one in the world, was put into operation in Berlin. This line was soon followed by an electrically-operated railway brought into use in the British Isles. It was an underground railway in London opened to traffic in 1890.

(5)  The Soviet engineers always took interest in railway electrification. As is known, it was V. I. Lenin who put forward the idea of the country's electrification. To realize this idea 200 outstanding Russian scientists, engineers and economists set to work. As a result, the GOELRO Plan was worked out in 1920. According to the plan the first railways to be electrified were the ones carrying both heavy freight and passenger traffic as well as the suburban railways near big cities, such as Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev. Since that time railway electrification advanced rapidly.

(6)  The world's longest Moscow — Lake Baikal electric railway was put into service in 1961. Now the Soviet Union has about a quarter of the whole electrified network in the world.

(7)  In spite of having a relatively short history electric traction has made a remarkable progress. Now one can say that electric railways perform valuable service on every continent.

II

(8)  When we study the geographical location of the routes over which electric traction is employed, we see, first of all, that the suburban railway routes of big cities with their dense and constant traffic are operated by electric trains. We see, again, that the heavily-used trunk lines are most efficiently operated by electricity. Further, railways in mountainous country, with heavy gradients,2 are among the earliest to be converted to electric haulage.

(9)  The chief attractions of electric haulage are four in number. One is great rapidity of acceleration. The next advantage is that the electric locomotive is always ready for use and can remain in service for practically the whole of twenty-four hours continuously. It follows that under electrification the maintenance and operation costs are relatively cheap. Yet another essential benefit to be obtained is the ability of electrics to haul very long and heavy trains for there is practically no limit to the energy to be taken by the locomotive from the catenary. Besides, of all the existing kinds of traction it is the electric haulage that is most promising as regards speeds.

(10) The electric rolling stock is of two types, namely, locomotive-hauled trains and multiple-unit (m-u) trains, the latter being composed of motor coaches and trailers, that is, coaches without traction motors.

(11) Thanks to their rapid acceleration m-u trains are most suitable for suburban railways with their frequent stops and frequent services. As to electric locomotives they are mainly used to haul long-distance goods and passenger trains.

(12) Electric railways may use either direct or alternating current. For the electric current to be fed to the trains the conductor rails or a system of overhead wires, often called the catenary, are needed. It is the power supply system that makes railway electrification a costly business since electric haulage makes it necessary for railways to be equipped with a whole system of electrical substations and cables to bring the power to the track. Because of a high construction cost railway electrification is justified on the railways with a high density of traffic. Thus the greater the density of traffic the more favourable situation for the operation of electric trains.

(13) There are some other drawbacks of electric haulage to be mentioned. For example, the electric trains cannot run anywhere beyond the lines equipped with the catenary. Besides, any serious breakdown in the power supply system can bring a large number of trains to a stand. In hard winter conditions the icing of the overhead wire or the conductor rail causes many troubles on electrified lines.

 

ПРИМЕЧАНИЯ

1.    running rails — ходовые рельсы

2.    heavy gradients — крутые подъемы

УПРАЖНЕНИЯ

Ex. 17. Укажите основные моменты в развитии электрической тяги за рубежом и в нашей стране.

 

Ex. 18. (а) Скажите, когда применение электрической тяги экономически оправдано; (б) перечислите основные преимущества и недостатки электрической тяги; (в) назовите два типа электрического подвижного состава.

 

Ex. 1 9. Прослушайте вопросы и ответьте на них согласно тексту А.

1. What is one of the ways to provide further advance of railway transport? 2. What contribution did Jacobi make to the development of electric transport? 3. What major success in the field of electric traction was achieved in 1879? 4. Why may Siemens' electric locomotive be considered practical? 5. What were the first two electricailv, operated railways? 6. What were the first railways to be electrified according to the GOELRO Plan? 7. What is the Moscow—Lake Baikal Railway famous for? 8. What railway routes are most suitable for electric haulage? 9. What, are the four principal benefits of electric trains? 10. Why does rapid acceleration make the m-u trains particularly attractive for suburban routes? 11. What makes railway electrification a costly business? 12. What may cause troubles on electric lines in winter conditions?

 

  Ex. 20. Подготовьте сообщения на следующие темы.'

1.    The first steps in the development of electric traction.

2.    Electric traction; its advantages and drawbacks.

 

 

 

 

OVERHEAD LINE (CATENARY)

 

 EXERCISES

 

Ex. 21. Pay attention to the translation of the verb «to have»:

1. Multiple-units have become very popular since their introduction in many countries. 2. If trains are stopped and passengers have to be evacuated, the current has to be turned off before they can leave the cars and step on the track. 3. Top contact systems in the New York Subway have protective covers over them. 4. Recently mechanical and pneumatic systems have been developed for lifting shoes from inside the train. 5. All electrical equipment on the train has to be secured safely. 6. Sometimes the communication cable can have unequal voltages induced in it.

 

Ex.22. Pay attention to the translation of Participle-II:

1.    The first main line locomotive for standard gauge called «Атреге» was built in America in 1883.

2.    On lines equipped with AC overhead wires special precautions (меры) are taken to reduce

        interference in communication cables.

3.    The profile of the Talgo power cars was designed on the basis of the data obtained in wind tunnel

         tests.

4.    The Turbotrain (Jet Train) locomotive designed by Bombardier dem-onstrated the same speed

         and acceleration as an electric one.

5.    Almost all passenger trains in Europe have coaches equipped for passengers in wheelchairs.

 

Ex.23. Read and translate the international words:

geometry, mechanics, line, typhoon, cable, region, arc, contact, complex, formation (состав поезда), extreme.

 

Ex. 24.. Form adverbs from the following adjectives with the help of the suffix «-ly»:

lateral, horizontal, proper, simple, extreme, usual, relative, smooth, electrical, mechanical, successful, relative, direct, actual, primitive.

 

 

Ex. 25. Read and translate the text without a dictionary:

 

RUSSIA LAUNCHES ELECTRIC LOCO TRIALS

Russia's Ministry of Railways has begun trials of a new-generation class EP10 dual-voltage asynchronous electric passenger locomotive on sections of the Moscow — Rostov-on-Don — Adler main line.

The prototype, which operates on lines electrified at 3 kV DC and 25 kV AC, has been developed by Bombardier Transportation in partnership with the Research Institute of Electric Locomotives (VELNII). It has been built at the Novocherkassk Locomotive Works under a technology transfer agreement.

Bombardier supplied the traction equipment, while the body-shell, bogies, wheelsets, traction motors, pantographs and other electrical equipment have been designed and built by VELNII.

(International Railway Journal, September 2002)

 

 

OVERHEAD LINE (CATENARY)

The mechanics of power supply wiring is not as simple as it looks. Hanging a wire over the track, providing it with current and running trains under it is not easy, if the wiring is to do the job properly and work long enough. The wire must be able to carry the current (several thousand amps), remain in line with the route, withstand wind, extreme cold and heat and other weather conditions.

Overhead catenary systems have a complex geometry, usually designed by computer. The contact wire has to be held in tension horizontally and pulled laterally to negotiate curves in the track. The contact wire tension is in about 2 tonnes. The wire length is usually between 1,000 and 1,500 metres, depending on the temperature ranges. The wire is zigzagged to even the wear on the train's pantograph as it runs underneath.

The tension of the wire is maintained by weights suspended at each end of its length. Each length is overlapped by its neighbour to ensure a smooth passage for the «pan». Incorrect tension will cause the pantograph head to start bouncing. An electric arc occurs with each bounce and a pan and wire soon become worn out under such conditions.

More than one pantograph on a train can cause a similar problem when the leading pantograph head sets up a wave in the wire. High speeds worsen the problem. The French TGV (High Speed Train) has a power car at each end of the train but runs with one pantograph raised under the high speed 25 kV AC lines. The rear car is supplied through a cable running along the length of the train.