Japanese Railways

Ex. 1. Practice the reading of the words and phrases:

privatize, proportion, group, to organize, nationwide, widely, nearly, however, beyond, previously, literally, originally, metropolis, frequency;

government-owned Japanese National Railways, Japan Freight Railway Company, prescribed geographic area, Railway Technical Research Institute, Japanese geographical region, metropolitan areas.

Ex. 2. Practice the reading of the proper names.

• Japan [ʤə'pæn] – Япония

• Honshu ['hɔnʃuː] – Хонсю (самый крупный остров Японского архипелага)

• Kyoto ['kjəutəu] – Киото (город на о. Хонсю, древняя столица Японии)

• Nagoya [nə'gɔɪə] – Нагоя (город в Японии)

• Osaka [əu'sɑːkə] – Осака (город и порт в Японии, на острове Хонсю)

• Shinkansen ['ʃinkənˏsen] – Шинкансен (сеть высокоскоростных дорог)

• Tokaido [tɔ'kaɪdəu] – Токайдо (высокоскоростная железная дорога)

• Tokyo ['təukɪəu] – Токио (столица Японии)

Ex. 3. Copy the following words and phrases and memorize their meanings.

commuter service – пригородные перевозки commuter train (= suburban train) – пригородный поезд frequency – частота to lease – брать в аренду maglev trainset – поезд на магнитной подвеске operating company (= railway operator) – компания-оператор freight operator – (компания)-грузоперевозчик passenger operator – (компания)-пассажироперевозчик to refer to smth. – относиться к чему-либо rolling stock – подвижной состав capacity – мощность; вместимость; грузоподъемность carrying capacity – пропускная способность линии seating capacity – вместимость (пассажирского поезда/вагона)

Ex. 4. Read the sentences and translate them.

1. The program of railway reforms is being carried out now in Russia. Under this program, commuter passenger services will be financed from local budgets. At the same time, the government has promised to fund inter-city passenger services.

2. In Britain, there are four main freight operating companies, the largest of which is English, Welsh and Scottish Railway. There are also several smaller independent freight operators.

3. The Severn Valley Railway owns one of the largest collections of working steam locomotives and coaches, including some rolling stock, which is over 80 years old.

4. Japanese Railways has banned the passengers to use their cell telephones on its commuter trains. The railway company has recently received a lot of complaints (жалоба) because passengers speaking on their telephones are shouting too loud and disturbing others.

5. The double-deck car increases the passenger or freight capacity of a train without lengthening a trainset.

6. A lease is a legal contract, which allows you to use buildings, land, equipment or a vehicle for a long of time, in return for rent, especially for business purposes.

7. The term "rack car" refers to a specialized freight car designed specially for transporting motor vehicles.

8. On April 14, 1999, a five-car maglev trainset achieved 552 km/h, which was certified by Guinness World Records as a world maglev speed record.

9. The special commission set up after the train accident required the operating company to improve safety measures at the level crossings (железнодорожный переезд).

10. The carrying capacity of the underground railway depends on the number of coaches (from 2 to 8 per train), the seating capacity (from 90 to 270 passengers per coach) and the frequency of train movement, which ranges from 80 seconds to 10 minutes.

11. Under the terms of the lease, a freight operator is responsible for maintenance and repairs of rolling stock.

12. A phrase “the age of steam” is sometimes used to refer to the 18^th and 19^th centuries in Britain, when different types of steam engine were being invented and developed by people such as James Watt and George Stephenson.

13. Car-Repair Plant in St. Petersburg is the largest enterprise in Russia carrying out all types of repair and refurbishment for passenger rolling stock.

14. TheTrainLine offers Internet ticket sales for trains operated by all 25 railway operators on the Railtrack network.

15. Bombardier’s double-deck railway cars are used extensively on suburban trains in Germany.

Ex. 5. Complete the sentences with a required word from the list.

Bombardier’s double-deck railway cars are used extensively on ___ in Germany. The main feature of a ___ is that it can levitate above the ground because there is the electro-magnetic force between extremely powerful magnets. The Cider Press Company ___ the machinery and buildings for $1000 a month. The ___ plans to cut its long-distance fleet by a quarter. British Railways operate more than 30,500 containers with an average tonnage ___ of 3-4 tons. The cost of operating a railway line depends on the weight of trains, quantity of stops, ___ of traffic and other factors. Russian Railways’ ___ fleet consists of more than 19,000 locomotives and approximately 670,000 freight and passenger cars. Broad gauge is a term that ___ to any gauge wider than standard gauge or 1,435 mm. After the railway reconstruction, the speed of trains will be increased and the ___ of the line will be raised. State Railway of Thailand would like to acquire (=buy) new trains, but as it doesn’t have the capital, it is planning ___. As competition between railways and other means of transport is intensifying now, ___ have to increase comfort, speed and safety of rail services. In Europe, double-deck passenger coaches are used in four- or five-car trainsets on ___ where traffic is very heavy.

capacity carrying capacity commuter trains frequency leases leasing maglev trainset passenger operator railway operators refers rolling stock suburban lines

Ex. 6. Match the two sentences.

J R Group is a main rail network of Japan.	Its only purpose is to move the train along the tracks.
In Japan, most commuter trains are very crowded during rush hours.	It consists of 12 corporations created by the privatization of the government-owned Japanese National Railways in 1987.
The project of the Moscow Metro was developed by the Russian engineers.	This is because Japanese commuter trains can be much more crowded than Western counterparts (аналог).
Although high-speed rail is usually designed for passenger travel, some high-speed systems also carry some kind of freight service.	These trains carry passengers over the 32-km route between downtown and the airport in 8 minutes, compared with 30 minutes by automobile.
A locomotive has no payload capacity of its own.	Some trains carry many more than the number of passengers for which they were designed.
Most railroads in Latin America were originally government-owned.	This mechanism operates automatically if a coupling (сцепка) between cars breaks or if there is a leak in the compressed-air system.
Maglev trains began service in January 2004 in Shanghai, China, connecting the city to the Pudong International Airport.	Many of them were privatized in the 1990s, mainly in response to inadequate investment, excessive (чрезмерный) labor costs, poor service and maintenance during government operation.
In Japan, double-deck commuter trains are relatively fewer than those used in Europe or North America.	This operating company plans to increase freight car capacity by replacing 63-tonne wagons with 80-tonne ones.
Today all rolling stock is equipped with air brakes.	For example, the French mail service La Poste owns a few special TGV trains for carrying postal freight.
The Queensland Railway is one of the largest freight operators in Australia.	Before working out their own project, the engineers carefully studied the existing underground systems abroad.

Ex. 7. Match the words and phrases in column A with their Russian equivalents in column B.

A	B
test run	грузовые перевозки
busy railway	пассажир (регулярно совершающий поездки из пригорода в город и обратно; обычно на работу)
as a whole	часть, доля
remote	испытательный пробег
trunk line	железная дорога с интенсивным движением, загруженная железная дорога
proportion	крупный город с пригородами
commuter	удаленный, отдаленный, расположенный на расстоянии
metropolitan area	в целом
freight services	магистраль

Ex. 8. Read the sentences and translate them.

1. China is planning to build six more trunk lines and several branch lines to connect Tibet with other parts of China by 2020.

2. More than 4,000 commuter trains a day are running on the Russian Railways network; 1069 of them, in Moscow metropolitan area.

3. Thanks to the invention of the radio, it became possible to communicate with the remotest parts of the world.

4. The proportion of containerized freight carried by the Queensland Railway (Australia) has increased from 50% to about 80% during the past five years and is expected to reach 100% by the end of this year.

5. The first steam locomotive to run in the US, the English-built Stourbridge Lion, made a test run in Pennsylvania in 1829.

6. Built in the 1840s, the West Coast Main Line has developed into the UK’s busiest mixed traffic railway (responsible for 43% of Britain’s freight services) and is recognized as a leading European rail artery.

7. As a whole, the local trains of Denver’s railway network transport 1 million commuters a day but demand (спрос, потребность) is three times that number.

8. The project of the Helsinki-St.Petersburg railway reconstruction envisages (предусматривать) track modernization and installation of the safety and remote control systems.

9. The aim of the new law is to reduce the proportion of road accidents caused by drunk drivers.

10. This trunk line is being upgraded to carry heavier volumes of freight and passenger services.

Ex. 9. Read the sentences, replacing the Russian words and phrases with their English equivalents.

1. The construction of the new магистраль will be of great benefit to the region в целом.

2. In Izmir (Turkey), tourists transfer from the train to a 70-foot yacht that sails along the coast, anchoring at удалённый bays and villages.

3. A lone пассажир was waiting for a train late at night.

4. Some workers can only afford homes outside крупные города с пригородами.

5. The Japanese railways are known for the accuracy with which trains are operated on its загруженные линии.

6. The generator failed three times during испытательный пробег of the new locomotive.

7. In Australia, a considerable часть of all грузоперевозки is carried out by double-headed trains and each train consists of 80 wagons.

8. In Spain, double-deck trains are used within several крупные города с пригородами to carry more пассажиры.

Ex. 10. (A) Look up the following adverbs in a dictionary.

approximately frequently literally nearly originally previously slowly widely

(B) Read the sentences and translate them.

1. In the past, the word ‘engineer’ literally meant ‘a designer of engines’.

2. The journey took approximately seven hours.

3. Work on the new railroad is progressing slowly.

4. Buses run frequently between the city and the airport.

5. The island was originally circular in shape.

6. They build roads into previously remote areas.

7. Reinforced concrete (железобетон) and steel are widely used now for the construction of modern bridges.

8. Nearly all goods traffic went by train.

(C) Complete the sentences with a required adverb.

1. Industrial robots perform tasks that were ___ done by human operators.

2. ___ we had planned a tour of Italy, but then we won the trip to Greece.

3. Passengers complain that trains are ___ delayed.

4. The airplane will be landing in ___ 20 minutes.

5. The Olympic Games were watched by ___ billions of people.

6. ___ all the passengers got off the train at the previous station.

7. New plastic and synthetic materials are ___ used for the interior and exterior finishing of carriages.

8. Can you speak more ___? I can’t understand what you're saying.

9. ___, we had planned a tour of Scotland but we didn’t go in the end.

10. The name of the cheese is Dolcelatte, ___ meaning ‘sweet milk’.

Ex. 11. Read the text and translate it.