Rail transport

Rail transport is a means of conveyance of passengers and goods, by way of wheeled vehicles running on rails.

It is also commonly referred to as train transport. In contrast to road transport, where vehicles run on a prepared flat surface, rail vehicles are also directionally guided by the tracks on which they run. Track usually consists of steel rails, installed on ties (sleepers) and ballast, on which the rolling stock, usually fitted with metal wheels, moves. Other variations are also possible, such as slab track where the rails are fastened to a concrete foundation resting on a prepared subsurface.

Rolling stock in railway transport systems generally has lower frictional resistance when compared with highway vehicles and the passenger and freight cars (carriages and wagons) can be coupled into longer trains. The operation is carried out by a railway company, providing transport between train stations or freight customer facilities. Power is provided by locomotives which either draw electric power from a railway electrification system or produce their own power, usually by diesel engines. Most tracks are accompanied by a signalling system. Railways are a safe land transport system when compared to other forms of transport. Railway transport is capable of high levels of passenger and cargo utilization and energy efficiency, but is often less flexible and more capital-intensive than highway transport is, when lower traffic levels are considered.

Jackie Chan

Jackie Chan, SBS, MBE,PMW, (born Chan Kong-sang, 陳港生; 7 April 1954) is a Hong Kong actor, martial artist, film director, producer, stuntman, and singer. In his movies, he is known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons, and innovative stunts, which he typically performs himself. Chan has been training in Kung fu and Wing Chun. He has been acting since the 1960s and has appeared in over 150 films.

Chan has received stars on the Hong Kong Avenue of Stars and the Hollywood Walk of Fame. As a cultural icon, Chan has been referenced in various pop songs, cartoons, and video games. An operatically trained vocalist, Chan is also a Cantopop and Mandopop star, having released a number of albums and sung many of the theme songs for the films in which he has starred. He is also a notable philanthropist. In 2015, Forbes magazine estimated his net worth to be $350 million.

Early life

Chan was born on 7 April 1954, in British Hong Kong, as Chan Kong-sang, to Charles and Lee-Lee Chan, refugees from the Chinese Civil War. He was nicknamed Pao-pao Chinese: 炮炮 ("Cannonball") because the energetic child was always rolling around. His parents worked for the French ambassador in Hong Kong, and Chan spent his formative years within the grounds of the consul's residence in the Victoria Peak district.

Transcontinental railroad

A transcontinental railroad is a contiguous network of railroad trackage that crosses a continental land mass with terminals at different oceans or continental borders. Such networks can be via the tracks of either a single railroad, or over those owned or controlled by multiple railway companies along a continuous route. Although Europe is crisscrossed by railways, the railroads within Europe are usually not considered transcontinental, with the possible exception of the historic Orient Express.

Transcontinental railroads helped open up unpopulated interior regions of continents to exploration and settlement that would not otherwise have been feasible. In many cases they also formed the backbones of cross-country passenger and freight transportation networks.

In the United States of America, a series of transcontinental railroads built over the last third of the 19th century created a nationwide transportation network that united the country by rail. The first of these, the 3,103-kilometre (1,928 mi) "Pacific Railroad", was built by the Central Pacific Railroad and Union Pacific Railroad to link the San Francisco Bay at Oakland, California with the nation's existing eastern railroad network at Council Bluffs, Iowa/Omaha, Nebraska thereby creating the world's first transcontinental railroad when it opened in 1869. Its construction was made possible by the US Government under Pacific Railroad Acts of 1862, 1864 and 1867.

I Am

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