U n I t 3

Text: The Era of the Steam Coach

Grammar: The Passive Voice

Vocabulary

advent	– приход
a steam coach	– паровой экипаж
to power	– снабжать (силовым двигателем)
contemporary	– одновременный
o run	– управлять, руководить, действовать, вести (дело, предприятие); двигаться
rear	– задняя сторона, расположенный сзади
chassis	–шасси, ходовая часть
neck-to-neck	– параллельно
progress–on–wheels race	– серия автомобильных гонок
to collide	– сталкиваться
to explode	– взрывать(ся)
abandonment	– оставление, отказ
sporadic	– единичный, случайный
revival	– возрождение, возобновление
a speed change	– переключатель скоростей
independent front suspension	– независимая передняя подвеска
forward-mounted engine	– двигатель, смонтированный в передней части
rear driving wheels	– задние ведущие колеса
a horizontal shaft	– горизонтальный карданный вал
differential	– дифференциал

Read and translate the text and then do the following exercises.

Text

The Era of the Steam Coach

In England, the early 1820s saw the advent of the steam coach. The first name in the story of these public vehicles – powered by engines much improved in comparison with those of the first years of the century – is that of Jules Griffith, designer and constructor of a bus which was the first ever to be put into regular public service for the transport of passengers. This was in 1822, three years before Stephenson built the first steam railway These two methods of transport, developed at the same time, were to give rise to competition not only on technical level, but particularly in the commercial and financial fields.

Almost contemporary with Griffith were two other Englishmen, James and John Scott Russell, who ran a regular steam coach service¹ between Glasgow and Paisley.

Goldsworthy Gurney ran a similar one between London and Bath, a distance of over 100 miles. His steam coach carried 18 passengers at a speed of 12.5 mph and weighed two tons. Its boiler was mounted at the rear and heated by coke, while its cylinders were under the chassis.

The development of the railway ran neck-to-neck in the progress-on-wheels race. The railway had some advantage as it offered its passengers more comfort and speed. Between 1834 and 1839 a number of attacks, verbal and physical, were made on steam coaches, particularly after the first serious road accident involving one – the coach collided with a pile of stones, probably placed there by its competitors, and ran off the road. The boiler exploded, causing death and injuries. Naturally, this gave rise to great public alarm.

In France, at the same time a similar situation had developed, which resulted in the abandonment of the first coach service which ran between Paris and Versailles in 1835.

It is true that road travel by means of steam-driven vehicles was to show sporadic revivals in France, with the development of advanced vehicles, designed respectively by Lotz in 1860, and Albaret in 1865, and, Utter still, with the Obeissante – a distinctive vehicle built by Amedee Bollee. He designed and built a vehicle capable of speeds up to 25 mph and equipped with several completely new devices, such as a speed change by means of gears and independent front suspension. Later he produced an even more improved vehicle. La Mancelle, in which were evident certain ideas incorporated in the motor car – forward-mounted engine, rear driving wheels connected to the engine by a horizontal shaft, and a differential.