In the Stone Age, humans could only utilise pottery wheels to create clay blanks, and in the Bronze Age, humans used metal to improve production efficiency and reinforce stress points. Bronze tools are used to produce inexpensive wheels and axles, and bronze materials are employed to reinforce vehicle assembly, so that car was born among humans.
However, the parts and assembly alone are insufficient for humans to operate cars, because vehicles require power.
A horse tram (horsecar) in Danzig, Germany (present day Gdańsk, Poland)
Not much bigger than donkeys, horses in the Bronze Age were pulled by horses with only enough physical strength to pull the carriage and serve as a method of transportation. Horses had not yet been domesticated into weapons of war. Larger chariots and a greater capacity for goods were made possible by the stronger iron of the Iron Age, which replaced bronze and enhanced industrial efficiency.
Traveling in France or Le départ de la diligence; drawing by George Cruikshank (1818)
Therefore, in ancient times, horses were a symbol of power, energy and fire, as evidenced by the fact that the steam engine was invented in the first industrial revolution 1760-1830 and replaced the horse-drawn carriage.
Trevithick's 1802 Coalbrookdale locomotive
The steam locomotive, invented in the first industrial revolution where is the origin of today's trains, made horse-drawn carriages and sailing ships obsolete with an order of magnitude more power. As a result, horse-drawn carriages are hard to find in urban areas in many developed countries today, and are usually only seen in certain festivals or tourist areas. The royal families of monarchies such as Japan and the United Kingdom still have horse-drawn carriages for carrying state guests and royal dignitaries on solemn occasions, and countries such as Australia provide horse-drawn carriages as commercial tourism activities for tourists to visit the city at night on behalf of the pedestrian street.
The Locomotion at Darlington Railway Centre and Museum
A steam locomotive is a type of locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles through the expansion of steam. It operates by burning combustible materials, usually coal, oil, or rarely wood.
Firebox - coal stove of a steam train.
Wagonways, which were drawn by cables or propelled by horses and utilised railway lines, are where trains got their start. Trains quickly spread throughout the world once the steam locomotive was invented in the United Kingdom in 1802, making it feasible for people and goods to travel over land more quickly and affordably than ever before. In order to move huge numbers of people within and between cities, rapid transit and trams were initially constructed in the late 1800s. Beginning in the 1920s, and accelerating following World War II, diesel and electric locomotives replaced steam as the means of motive power. Train, also known as firepower car (in Japanese, Chinese etc. , Asian languages)
Eurostar is an international high-speed rail service in Western Europe that connects Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The service is managed by the Eurostar Group was founded by the merging of Eurostar, which operated trains through the Channel Tunnel to the United Kingdom, and Thalys operated in Western Europe. The operator is looking into future network extensions and hopes to double passenger volumes by 2030.
It is obvious that the Eurostar project is a sustainable strategy that integrates the all-round development of transportation, tourism, entertainment, and trade. Eurostar and Thalys merged in 2023, with the intention to double combined passenger numbers from 14.8 million to 30 million.
Bullet Train in Japan
Moreover, Japan's high-speed rail system - Shinkansen, also referred to as bullet trains in English. It was initially constructed to link remote parts of Japan with Tokyo, the country's capital, in order to promote economic expansion. Some of the parts surrounding the urban region are utilised as commuter rail networks for long-distance travel.
The ensuing high-speed train projects unfolded around the world, such as the high-speed rail network in China which is the world's longest with a total length of 45,000 kilometres by the end of 2023. India's railway, as of 2023, it maintains over 108,706 km (67,547 mi) of tracks and operates over 13,000 trains daily.
Here's one ongoing US project that has recently caught our attention comes with a typical case of engineering study on budgeting.
In December 2023, US announced an enormous $8 billion grant to fund high-speed rail projects, which aimed the first world-class, high-speed rail projects. A part of project in California is an ambitious plan aims to build a lengthy high-speed rail corridor that would ultimately connect Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and several cities in between. California voters first approved the initiative in a 2008 ballot measure.
However, California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) still has not completed a single segment of the system, the project's anticipated total cost has skyrocketed to $128 billion and growing, and no completion date is set.
California High-Speed Rail Authority said work is underway on the first 171-mile stretch of railway, and that the overall project has created more than 13,000 jobs statewide.
An additional $2.5 billion is still required for a unfinished segment, which is already under construction and expected to be finished between 2030 and 2033. Despite evidence and fact show that the California High Speed Rail project has critical issues indicating there is no reasonable path forward for successful completion of the project. But official continues to allocate substantial federal taxpayer dollars to this project.
It is evident that this project's financial outlay and postponement are the primary challenges.
If we include this project into engineering cost courses, we can dicover that the gap between the estimated construction cost and the actual cost of the project over the construction period is significantly larger than planned, or that the project has no cost estimate from the initial phase, we suppose so?
Project Cost Management (PCM) is the process of forecasting, planning, controlling, accounting, analyzing, and evaluating project costs deploying a comprehensive set of management, economics, and technical knowledge and abilities.
In accordance with the procedures, methods and basis stipulated in laws within regulations and standards, the prediction or determination of the project cost and its components is called Construction Pricing or Estimating (CPE); and the Basis for Estimate of Project Cost (BEPC) includes the engineering measurement and pricing standards related to the pricing content, pricing methods and price standards, project pricing quota and project cost information, etc.
From an academic perspective, this mega project is indeed non-compliant.
From a perspective of humanity and geography, this project raises a recurring concern for California residents: do Californians truly have such a high demand for trains? Even if employment is supplied for a period of time, once the project is completed, some people from this project will be unemployed again, or does this tell that the project will never be completed to make sure some people will never be unemployed?
California is located on the waterfront, which is conducive to the development of sea and air transportation. Due to the higher average temperature throughout the year, there is no rainfall in summer, that makes outdoor engineering challenging for labour and infrastructure operation.
Most California residents prefer a one-stop travel experience, like self-driving, enjoy private time and space while avoiding shootings, robberies and assaultings etc. in public places. Ultimately, this project seemed to be a revolution of trains versus motor vehicles: powercar ends car!
It is reasonable that the government wants to reduce urban congestion by allowing public transport to replace private to some extent. However, the advocates of this program do not appear to be California residents, and they practically have no experience living in California, at least, in the last five years. (Reported by Artpendix Research in California)
As of 2024, this Power Car project continues to burn gold with no end in sight. If this grand project had been employed to alleviate the extraordinary "unusual" earthquakes, floods, storms, hurricanes, fires, and wars of the couple of years, perhaps gold would have served its most peaceful values.
Abby Bloom
Based in London and Sydney
Co-edited by Artpendix Team
10:18 Tuesday
25 June 2024
London, UK
Artpendix Press
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