И. А. Курбасова Е. И. Силантьева

From the History of Russian Railways

(1) That vast Siberia is so rich in natural resources always causes surprise among the people from Europe and the USA.

(2) Early in the 20th century Siberia attracted the attention of the American magnate Edward Harriman. He wanted the tsarist government to grant him a concession for the construction of a railway that was to begin in Alaska, go through a tunnel to Chukotka, then to Kolyma, Yakutia and Trans-Baikal.
(3) Such a railway would, of course, have been very valuable for Russia but for Harriman's condition. If the line had been built Harriman would have had in his full possession a twelve-kilometre strip of land on either side of the line for a period of 90 years. With the characteristic American energy Harriman would have liked a real bite¹ out of Siberian pie!
(4) Taking into consideration the length of the line (about 6,000 km) it becomes obvious that, had the tsarist govern­ment agreed, Harriman would have got a "strip" larger than the whole of Greece.

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ПРИМЕЧАНИЕ

1. would have liked a real bite—хотел бы заполучить хороший кусок

14. Подготовьте сообщения на следующие темы:
1. The history of bridge building.
2. The Tay Bridge tragedy.
15. Прочтите текст В без словаря (15 мин.) и ответьте на вопросы.
1. What is the title of the text? 2. How many parts
does the text consist of? 3. What does the first (second,
third) part of the text tell us about? 4. Do you think the text is interesting? Give your reasons.


TEXT B. RAILWAY CIVIL ENGINEERING IN JAPAN

(1) Japan is a long island country extending north to south, with numerous mountains rising over 1,000 m above sea level. Flat lands amount to about 16 per cent of the" total area of the country. No wonder tha,t these are the most populated (населенный) territories. Most of the major cities and large industrial centres are located in these parts of the country.

(2) The J.N.R. (Japanese National Railways) network consists of longitudinal (продольный) trunk lines running' through the cities' areas and industrial regions and secon­dary lines crossing the trunk lines at several points.
(3) Another characteristic feature of the railways in Japan is of a civil engineering nature. That is to say, the topographical conditions of the country necessitate the erection of a great number of civil engineering structures such as bridges and tunnels. Frequent earthquakes (землетрясе­ние) and typhoons must also be taken into consideration. Were bridges, tunnels and buildings of conventional design, they might not withstand the forces of strong winds and earthquakes.
(4) As mentioned above, the railways in Japan have many long tunnels. Japanese engineers, however, suggest that still more tunnels should be built. The fact is that the J.N.R. has built several high-speed trunk lines on which trains travel at top speeds up to 250 kph. This, in turn, necessitates the construction of straight (прямой) lines. For this purpose, a number of new tunnelf had to be built and are to be built in the near future.
(5) As rivers in Japan are generally narrow, railway bridges to span them are relatively short in length, but recently longer railway bridges have been erected. As the result of the development in welding (сварка) technique and the,improvement of steel quality, welded bridge structures are likely to be' increasingly built in the Future.
(6) A considerable experience has also been gained in the erection of prestressed (предварительно напряженный) cpncrete bridges. At the same time, Japanese engineers are trying to reduce the weight of reinforced concrete bridges because heavy weight is considered the biggest drawback of the conventional concrete bridge structures.
16. Прочтите текст С без словаря (6 мин.) и выпи­шите названия мостов, упомянутых в тексте. Переска­жите текст по-английски, используя названия мостов в качестве плана.