Английский язык. Жесткова М.В - 125 стр.

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125
most trains passed and finally over the entire route, and thus the railroad grew into a first-class line.
This method was largely responsible for the development of great railroads in the United States.
Companies built roads through the open frontier. Soon communities
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appeared along the lines, and
new businesses were started. These enabled the railroads to prosper. While track undergoes constant
maintenance and improvement, there has been very little new construction in the United States in
recent years, and it is estimated that the existing track system could carry 25 percent more traffic. In
some areas, new communications and train control systems have allowed the elimination of double
tracks in favor of single-track operations.
Notes:
1
profile – чертёж ж/д пути в вертикальном разрезе
2
roadbed – земляное полотно
3
stake – опорный столбик, веха
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cinder – шлак
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community – населённый пункт
[9] FRENCH TRANSPORT
Transport systems have long been vital to France, serving to unite the nation in an
administrative sense while promoting the growth of regional economies and linking the country to
the rest of Europe and to the world. Paris has always been the hub
1
of French transportation.
The Industrial Revolution brought innovations in transportation to France. For example, a
complex system of canals was built, connecting many navigable rivers and providing low-cost water
transport for products of the mines and factories.
The railroad age began while the canal-building era was at its height. The first French line began
operating in 1827, between St.-Étienne and Andrézieux, and steel rails soon linked most parts of the
country. By 1934 France had 33,282 miles (53,561 kilometers) of railways. Most of the main lines
were built in a radial pattern
2
, with Paris at the center, thus reinforcing the importance of the capital.
Paris continued to grow and prosper at a remarkable rate because people had difficulty traveling
between any two points in France without passing through the capital. Also, rail lines made it easier
for rural people displaced by the Industrial Revolution to migrate to Paris than to any other city.
The appearance of the automobile just before 1900, and the airplane a few years later, added
new perspectives to transportation. Highways, duplicating the earlier railway patterns, radiated in all
directions from Paris, and the distance to any point in France was calculated from the front steps of
the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Air transportation to and from the airfield at Le Bourget, near Paris,
began in 1919.
Today, French transportation systems are changing to cope with three problems: rapid
technological change, the obsolete condition of many earlier systems, and increasing pressure to
reduce the dependency of the entire country on Paris. Although lagging behind several other
European countries, France has, since about 1960, embarked on a major program of superhighway
construction. Many of the new highways have necessarily duplicated the older ones centered on
Paris, but engineers have made great efforts to enable travelers to go to and from other parts of
France without passing through the capital.
Rail traffic has declined, as it has in nearly every country, but is still important in France. The
high-speed TGV travels between Paris and Lyon in only two hours, compared with four hours for
conventional service, and the TGV service is being expanded to other lines as well. Air travel has
also increased enormously. Traffic at Paris is divided among the airport at Orly, south of the city,
and Charles de Gaulle, to the northeast, in Roissy. With Le Bourget, which today handles only
charter flights, these airports accommodated a total of about 30 million passengers per year in the
early 1980s, making Paris the second busiest European air travel center after London. Paris is also
the airfreight capital of Europe, handling about 625,000 tons of cargo in 2001. Other major
international airports include those at Marseilles, Nice, Lyon, Lille, and Strasbourg.
Notes
:
1
hub – центр
2
radial pattern – радиальная схема

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