Showing posts with label transport. Show all posts
Showing posts with label transport. Show all posts

Saturday, July 24, 2021

ECE - Economic Corridors - Europe


Geostrategic Projection

Into Europe: The Blue Banana is Europe's first economic corridor. As well as being home to Europe's main financial and political centres, it was the first place where economic integration took place in the European single market. Now other economic corridors are emerging outside of the bloc and the European Union is financing infrastructure Giga-Projects as part of the Trans-European Transport Network. They to connect the economies of its different member states. These economic corridors are connecting Europe together, providing new opportunities for European and International Trade, particularly with Africa.

The Blue Banana (also known as the European Megalopolis or the Liverpool–Milan Axis) is a discontinuous corridor of urbanization spreading over Western and Central Europe, with a population of around 111 million. The concept was developed in 1989 by RECLUS, a group of French geographers managed by Roger Brunet.

It stretches approximately from North Wales through the English Midlands across Greater London to the European Metropolis of Lille, the Benelux states and along the German Rhineland, Southern Germany, Alsace-Moselle in France in the west and Switzerland (Basel and Zürich) to Northern Italy (Milan and Turin) in the south.

The Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) is a planned network of roads, railways, airports and water infrastructure in the European Union. The TEN-T network is part of a wider system of Trans-European Networks (TENs), including a telecommunications network (eTEN) and a proposed energy network (TEN-E or Ten-Energy). The European Commission adopted the first action plans on trans-European networks in 1990.

TEN-T envisages coordinated improvements to primary roads, railways, inland waterways, airports, seaports, inland ports and traffic management systems, providing integrated and intermodal long-distance, high-speed routes. A decision to adopt TEN-T was made by the European Parliament and Council in July 1996.[2] The EU works to promote the networks by a combination of leadership, coordination, issuance of guidelines and funding aspects of development.

These projects are technically and financially managed by the Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA), which superseded the Trans-European Transport Network Executive Agency Agency (TEN-T EA) on 31 December 2013. The tenth and newest project, the Strasbourg-Danube Corridor, was announced for the 2014–2020 financial period.

In addition to the various TENs, there are ten Pan-European corridors, which are paths between major urban centres and ports, mainly in Eastern Europe, that have been identified as requiring major investment.

The international E-road network is a naming system for major roads in Europe managed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. It numbers roads with a designation beginning with "E" (such as "E1").

https://community.jmp.com/t5/Scott-Wi...
https://www.researchgate.net/publicat...
https://ec.europa.eu/transport/themes...
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-conte...
https://ec.europa.eu/transport/sites/...
https://ec.europa.eu/transport/sites/...
https://ec.europa.eu/transport/sites/...
https://ec.europa.eu/eu-external-inve...
https://ecfr.eu/podcasts/episode/euro...
https://ecfr.eu/article/trump-biden-a...
https://www.kas.de/documents/282499/2...
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/press...
https://tunnelingonline.com/megaproje...
https://chinadialogue.net/en/transpor...
https://ec.europa.eu/transport/infras...
https://www.dw.com/en/building-africa...
https://www.eib.org/en/essays/the-sto...
https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/...
https://www.portseurope.com/constanta...

Saturday, March 20, 2021

Inland Waterways

23-9-4 Rivers Make America Rich - Versed > .
24-4-3 Maritime Chokepoints: Panama Canal, Red Sea & Baltimore - Shipping > .

The Merchant Marine Act of 1920 is a United States federal statute that provides for the promotion and maintenance of the American merchant marine. Among other purposes, the law regulates maritime commerce in U.S. waters and between U.S. ports. Section 27 of the Merchant Marine Act is known as the Jones Act and deals with cabotage (coastwise trade). It requires that all goods transported by water between U.S. ports be carried on ships that have been constructed in the United States and that fly the U.S. flag, are owned by U.S. citizens, and are crewed by U.S. citizens and U.S. permanent residents. The act was introduced by Senator Wesley Jones. The law also defines certain seaman's rights.

The Merchant Marine Act of 1920 has been revised a number of times; the most recent revision in 2006 included recodification in the U.S. Code.

Many economists and other experts have argued for its repeal, while military and U.S. Department of Commerce officials have spoken in favor of the law on protectionist grounds. The Act reduces domestic trade via waterways (relative to other forms of trade) and increases consumer prices.

The Jones Act is not to be confused with: the Death on the High Seas Act (another U.S. maritime law that does not apply to coastal and in-land navigable waters), or the Passenger Vessel Services Act of 1886 (which regulates passenger vessels, including cruise ships).

The Jones Act: A Burden America Can No Longer Bear c

Saturday, January 16, 2021

Martin JRM Mars


The Martin JRM Mars is a large, four-engined cargo transport flying boat designed and built by the Martin Company for the United States Navy during WW2. It was the largest Allied flying boat to enter production, although only seven were built. The United States Navy contracted the development of the XPB2M-1 Mars in 1938 as a long-range ocean patrol flying boat, which later entered production as the JRM Mars long-range transport.

The Glenn L. Martin Company scaled up their PBM Mariner patrol bomber design to produce the prototype XPB2M-1 Mars. The XPB2M-1 was launched on 8 November 1941. After a delay caused by an engine fire during ground runs, the aircraft first flew on 23 June 1942. After flight tests with the XPB2M between 1942 and 1943, she was passed on to the Navy. The original patrol bomber concept was considered obsolete by this time, and the Mars was converted into a transport aircraft designated the XPB2M-1R. The Navy was satisfied with the performance, and ordered 20 of the modified JRM-1 Mars. The first, named Hawaii Mars, was delivered in June 1945, but with the end of World War II the Navy scaled back their order, buying only the five aircraft which were then on the production line. Though the original Hawaii Mars was lost in an accident on the Chesapeake Bay a few weeks after it first flew, the other five Mars were completed, and the last delivered in 1947.

Four of the surviving aircraft were later converted for civilian use to firefighting water bombersIn 1959, the remaining Mars aircraft were to be sold for scrap, but a Canadian company, Forest Industries Flying Tankers (FIFT), was formed and bid for the four aircraft and a large spares inventory. The company represented a consortium of British Columbia forest companies, and the bid was accepted and the sale completed in December 1959. The four aircraft were flown to Fairey Aviation at Victoria, British Columbia, for conversion into water bombers. The conversion involved the installation of a 6,000 imp gal (27,000 l; 7,200 US gal) plywood tank in the cargo bay with retractable pick-up scoops to allow uploading of water while the aircraft was taxiing. The scoops allowed 30 tons of water to be taken on board in 22 seconds. Later some of the hull fuel tanks were replaced with water tanks.

Two of the aircraft still remain based at Sproat Lake just outside of Port Alberni, British Columbia, although neither are operational.

Monday, April 15, 2019

National Loaf

The National Loaf was an unpopular government-regulated and -mandated loaf of bread distributed in Britain from April 6, 1942. National Loaf bread was made from wholemeal flour with added calcium and vitamins. It was introduced in Britain in 1942 by the Federation of Bakers (FOB), set up in 1942 to produce the National Loaf. 

The loaf, similar to today's brown bread, was made from wholemeal flour to combat wartime shortages of white flour. The National Loaf was grey, mushy and unappetising; only one person in seven preferred it to white bread, which became unavailable. The government insisted on modifying flour because it saved space in shipping food to Britain, allowed better utilization of existing stocks of wheat, and discouraged the immoderate consumption of bread. The loaf was abolished in October 1956.

Although other food stuffs had been rationed since January 8 1940, the British government was reluctant to ration wheat or bread. Faced with shortages, the Ministry of Food reduced the amount of imported wheat required in the production of unrationed bread. Their compromise was the creation of “National Wheatmeal Flour” or “National Flour” in the spring of 1942.

“National wheatmeal flour” was unbleached flour of 85% extraction from hulled wheat grains, where 85% meant that 100 kg of wheat grains yielded 85 kg of flour. The flour included the starchy endosperm, the wheat germ, and the bran, with the coarser bran extracted. White flour is generally around 70% extraction, yielding 70 kg. Thus, increasing to 85% extraction rate provided an extra 15 kg of flour from that wheat. National Flour was consequently similar to wholemeal (aka wholewheat) flour, but with some of the coarser bran removed. For bread-making, some white flour was added.

White flour was still produced and imported during the war, but it could only be obtained by food manufacturers for items such as biscuits, cakes, etc, or for mixing in small quantities into 85% extraction flour to make National Flour. Flour milled in Britain, whether from domestically-grown or imported wheat, was 80% extraction (by 1945.) Imported already-milled flour was 75% extraction. To make National Flour, the imported flour was mixed in with domestic flour at a rate of about 15% imported, 85% domestic. In Scotland, for some varieties of national bread such as batch bread, etc, bakers were allowed to mix in up to an extra 12 1/2 % of imported flour.


https://howitreallywas.typepad.com/how_it_really_was/bread_rationing/ .


Wednesday, December 26, 2018

C5G - Lockheed C-5 Galaxy

.

The Lockheed C-5 Galaxy is a large military transport aircraft designed and built by Lockheed, and now maintained and upgraded by its successor, Lockheed Martin. It provides the United States Air Force (USAF) with a heavy intercontinental-range strategic airlift capability, one that can carry outsized and oversized loads, including all air-certifiable cargo. The Galaxy has many similarities to the smaller Lockheed C-141 Starlifter and the later Boeing C-17 Globemaster III. The C-5 is among the largest military aircraft in the world.

The C-5 Galaxy's development was complicated, including significant cost overruns, and Lockheed suffered significant financial difficulties. Shortly after entering service, cracks in the wings of many aircraft were discovered and the C-5 fleet was restricted in capability until corrective work was completed. The C-5M Super Galaxy is an upgraded version with new engines and modernized avionics designed to extend its service life to 2040 and beyond.

The USAF has operated the C-5 since 1969. In that time, the airlifter supported US military operations in all major conflicts including Vietnam, Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan, as well as allied support, such as Israel during the Yom Kippur War and operations in the Gulf War. The Galaxy has also distributed humanitarian aid, provided disaster relief, and supported the US space program.

Thursday, December 20, 2018

Imperial Airways

.
1920s Aviation Boom: Birth Of Commercial Aviation | Early Aviation | Spark > .

Imperial Airways were the forerunner of BOAC, BEA and the British Airways of today. In 1924, the British Government amalgamated many of the complicated array of pioneering small British airlines into one company, Imperial Airways. Original newsreels give us a fascinating and detailed insight into early operations from London s first airport in Croydon - At first, the passengers flew in comfort while the pilot still sat in an open cockpit! By 1926, there were whole fleets of airliners and new flying boats were commissioned. Amy Johnson arrived from Australia in 1929 and by 1930 the new Handley Page four-engined airliners became reality. Pioneering is dangerous - as the R-101 Airship crash proved to the airlines. Imperial Airways even experimented with a radio link between The Flying Scotsman and one of its aircraft. Imperial Airways flew the first car and even transmitted Jack Hylton and his band live from the air. Throughout the 1930s, Imperial Airways kept expanding throughout the Empire over to Australia. We spend 24 hours in Sharjah and witness a nasty crash at Croydon! 1936 saw the birth of the new giant Empire flying boats and in 1937, Imperial Airways became air partners with Pan American and trans-oceanic flying was born. The hazards of ice, early air-to-air refuelling and the Short Mayo Composite aircraft are also shown and explained. Aircraft included : Handley Page W8, W9, W10 and HP42. Armstrong Whitworth Argosy and Atalanta. De Havilland DH50, DH66, DH86, DH91 and Albatross. Short S.8 'Calcutta', S.23 & S.30 'Empire' Flying Boats and the Mayo Composite The R-101 Airship and the Lockheed Electra

Imperial Airways was the early British commercial long-range airline, operating from 1924 to 1939 and principally serving the British Empire routes to South Africa, India and the Far East, including Australia, Malaya and Hong Kong. The airplanes provided seats for about 20 passengers, typically businessman or colonial administrators. Accidents were frequent: in the first six years, 32 people died in seven incidents. Imperial Airways never achieved the levels of technological innovation of its competitors, and was merged into the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) in 1939. BOAC in turn merged with the British European Airways (BEA) in 1974 to form British Airways.

The establishment of Imperial Airways occurred in the context of facilitating overseas settlement by making travel to and from the colonies quicker, and that flight would also speed up colonial government and trade that was until then dependent upon ships. The launch of the airline followed a burst of air route surveying in the British Empire after the First World War, and after some experimental (and often dangerous) long-distance flying to the margins of Empire.


Comment: First flight of the Handley-Page HP.42, November 14, 1930, from Handley-Page Aerodrome, Radlett, Herts. The "German challenge" was the Junkers G.38, a 30-seat monoplane which first flew late in 1929. The famous Dornier Do X flying boat was of course much larger, but not a land plane. 

 As Mr Handley-Page points out, the liner came in 2 models: HP.42E for the eastern air routes (Cairo based), carrying 24 passengers plus extra freight and mails, and HP.42W for the western (European) routes, capacity 40 passengers. Four of each type were built, serving with Imperial Airways from 1931-'39 and then impressed into the RAF. All were destroyed in various accidents by 1941, including the herein featured "Hannibal", lost at sea with 8 aboard over the Gulf of Oman in 1940.

Imperial Airways ..
Imperial Airways & Flying Boats ..

Sunday, November 26, 2017

Canals of London

Barging Through Old London in 1924 > .
Modern London's Regents Canal - Little Venice to Camden Lock - Joolz > .

Take a trip on a horse-drawn towing barge from Limehouse into old Central London! The trip goes over the Regents Canal from Limehouse, via the Wharves of East London, Mile End Road, Various locks, White Chapel, Heartford Union Canal, Old Ford, Acton's Lock, Hackney, through Islington Tunnel, passes under the New River, over the GNR at Kingscross, under the Midland at St.Pancras, Kentish Town, Alpine Chalet, through Regents Park and London Zoo and ends at Paddington Basin just off Edgeware Road. Viewers have reported that this route can still be followed, either by boat or by following the old paths for the horses to draw the barges through the canal until about 50 years ago. It is remarkable how much of this film can still be recognized today. 00:00 Regents Canal Dock in Limehouse 00:13 The barge is transporting 85 tons of coal 00:33 Wharves of East London 01:00 Under Mile End Road 01:22 Another lock, raising the barge by 6 feet 01:53 Whitechapel 02:16 Heartford Union Canal; River Lee branches off to Bishops Stortford 02:40 Rural scenery at Old Ford 03:10 Acton's Lock by London Fields 03:40 Through Hackney 03:53 Past City Basin 04:20 Through Islington Tunnel, assisted by steam tug, near Angel 04:32 The tunnel is 1.2 km long, takes half an hour 04:45 End of Islington Tunnel 04:58 Over the Great Northern Railway at Kings Cross 05:27 Under the Midland at St.Pancras 05:48 Kentish Town 06:10 Lock keeper's Alpine Chalet 06:20 The 12th lock since leaving Limehouse 06:38 Camden Lock 06:50 Under the old London and Western Main Line 07:00 Primose Hill (Lovey's central) 07:08 Through Regents Park 07:18 Through London Zoo 07:44 Another tunnel without the help of a tug 07:54 Gilbeys Wharf and the old Camden Goods Station 08:18 Hard work without the assistance of Dobbin the horse 08:35 End of the journey at Paddington Basin, near Edgware Road 08:49 The End 

If you want to see what the Regents Canal looks like today, please watch the great Joolz Guides Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_Lp9... .

Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Hamble - ATA Ferry Pool (No 15)

An ATA Ferry Pool started at Hamble in September 1940, lead by Captain Brian Wardle, and at the beginning it was a sub-pool of No 1 Ferry Pool, but soon it became No 15 Ferry Pool and a year later became an all-women Ferry Pool


Monday, October 23, 2017

Futurism of the 1920s

.

"Futurism" is what people believed the future would be like at a given time. Similarly, "retrofuturism" is futurism of the past. Most people think of Victorian futurism (steampunk) and 1950s/1960s futurism (atompunk). 1920s futurism sits right in the middle, mostly forgotten.

Science and Invention magazine - August '20 to August '31 .

Science and Invention was originally called The Electrical Experimenter and published by the Experimenter Publishing Company from May 1913 to August 1929; the title changed from The Electrical Experimenter to Science and Invention in August 1920. It was published and edited by Hugo Gernsback, an electrical engineer who started publishing and editing his first magazine, Modern Electrics, only five years earlier. Modern Electrics was an overnight success. Gernsback, who had moved to New York City from Luxembourg in 1904, first became successful after starting his own business, the Electro Importing Company, which imported and sold high quality electrical components from Germany. The Experimenter Publishing Company, a subsidiary of the Electro Importing Company, and its subsequent publications under the direction of Gernsback were the result of the experience he gained while publishing a catalog listing the Electro Importing Company’s products. Gernsback also felt that there was a “general ignorance of technology amongst the American public” and set out to correct this imbalance by publishing a periodical that would disseminate technical and scientific information to the public.

The magazine’s final issue was the August 1931 issue after which it was sold to Popular Mechanics (1902) and absorbed into that magazine.

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

40-11-5 Jervis Bay

.Sinking of HMS Jervis Bay - Wartime Farm > .

HMS Jervis Bay was a British liner later converted into an armed merchant cruiser, pennant F40. She was launched in 1922, and sunk on 5 November 1940 by the German heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer.

After her acquisition and commissioning, Jervis Bay was initially assigned to the South Atlantic station before becoming a convoy escort in May 1940, based at the Royal Naval Dockyard in Bermuda. Given brief repairs at Halifax, Nova Scotia, she became the sole escort for the 37 merchant ships of Convoy HX 84 from Bermuda and Halifax, Nova Scotia to Britain (the Jervis Bay had escorted a convoy from Bermuda which had merged at sea with a convoy from Halifax, as was the practice; a single large convoy being relatively easier to protect than two smaller ones due to the decreased ratio of the circumference of a circle as its area is increased).

When the convoy encountered the German warship Admiral Scheer about 755 nautical miles (1,398 km) south-southwest of Reykjavík, the Captain of Jervis Bay, Edward Fegen, ordered the convoy to scatter, and set his own ship on a course towards the German warship to draw its fire. Jervis Bay was hopelessly outgunned and outranged by the 28 cm (11 inch) guns of the German ship, but it attacked the larger ship with its guns, firing more to distract the German ship from the merchantmen than with hopes of doing any damage. Although the German's shells ravaged the Jervis Bay, and Fegen was wounded and many crew killed, Fegen and the surviving crew fought on until their ship was sunk. Captain Fegen and many of the crew went down with the ship.

Sixty-eight survivors of Jervis Bay's crew of 254 were picked up by the neutral Swedish ship Stureholm (three later died of their wounds). Guy Byam was one of the survivors of the sinking; he was later killed while covering an air raid over Germany for the BBC.

Captain Fegen was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross as a result of this action.

Monday, July 20, 2015

India's & China's Railway Systems

.
India's Railway System: Carrying 8 Billion People Every Year - Mega > .
23-3-12 India controls Xina's main Chokepoint: Malacca Strait - Kamome > .
22-12-16 Xina vs India, Water Crisis, Xina Scared of India - BuBa > .

Saturday, June 27, 2015

Belt & Road - Africa

.

24-8-23 [What Are Xina and Ruscia Doing in Africa?] || Peter Zeihan > .23-12-2 Xina’s Real Impact on Africa - Attempted Thought > .23-3-8 Xina Vying For Zimbabwe’s Lithium Industry - CNBC > .
22-12-28 Too many people? Challenges of demographic change | DW > .
22-3-18 "Myth" of the Xinese Debt Trap in Africa - Bloomberg > .

Xiocolonialism ..

[Wage slavery is moving to Africa, as European corporations export European jobs.] 

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) -- not to be confused with African Free Trade Zone -- is a free trade area founded in 2018, with trade commencing as of 1 January 2021. It was created by the African Continental Free Trade Agreement among 54 of the 55 African Union nations. The free-trade area is the largest in the world in terms of the number of participating countries since the formation of the World Trade OrganizationAccra, Ghana serves as the Secretariat of AfCFTA and was commissioned and handed over to the AU by the President of Ghana Nana Akufo-Addo on August 17, 2020 in Accra.

The agreement was brokered by the African Union (AU) and was signed on by 44 of its 55 member states in Kigali, Rwanda on March 21, 2018. The agreement initially requires members to remove tariffs from 90% of goods, allowing free access to commodities, goods, and services across the continent. The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa estimates that the agreement will boost intra-African trade by 52 percent by 2022. The proposal was set to come into force 30 days after ratification by 22 of the signatory states. On April 2, 2019, The Gambia became the 22nd state to ratify the agreement, and on April 29 the Saharawi Republic made the 22nd deposit of instruments of ratification; the agreement went into force on May 30 and entered its operational phase following a summit on July 7, 2019.

The general objectives of the agreement are to:
  • create a single market, deepening the economic integration of the continent
  • establish a liberalised market through multiple rounds of negotiations
  • aid the movement of capital and people, facilitating investment
  • move towards the establishment of a future continental customs union
  • achieve sustainable and inclusive socioeconomic development, gender equality and structural transformations within member states
  • enhance competitiveness of member states within Africa and in the global market
  • encourage industrial development through diversification and regional value chain development, agricultural development and food security
  • resolve challenges of multiple and overlapping memberships

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Egyptian Nile - 1925


Modern Egypt is a country of nearly one hundred million people, who live in densely populated cities like Cairo as well as towns and villages. A century ago, when this film was made, the population was much smaller, and to Western visitors the way of life along the Nile River appeared to resemble that of Pharaonic Egypt. Certain agricultural practices, and some festival traditions, seemed connected to the ancient past, echoing scenes decorating tombs from 3,500 years before.

sī vīs pācem, parā bellum

igitur quī dēsīderat pācem praeparet bellum    therefore, he who desires peace, let him prepare for war sī vīs pācem, parā bellum if you wan...