title: History of rail transport

text: The first electrified high-speed rail Tōkaidō Shinkansen (series 0) was introduced in 1964 between Tokyo and Osaka in Japan. Since then high-speed rail transport, functioning at speeds up and above 300 km/h(186.4 m/h), has been built in Japan, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Taiwan, the People's Republic of China, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Scandinavia, Belgium and the Netherlands. The construction of many of these lines has resulted in the dramatic decline of short haul flights and automotive traffic between connected cities, such as the London–Paris–Brussels corridor, Madrid–Barcelona, Milan–Rome–Naples, as well as many other major lines.


title: History of rail transport

text: High-speed trains normally operate on standard gauge tracks of continuously welded rail on grade-separated right-of-way that incorporates a large turning radius in its design. While high-speed rail is most often designed for passenger travel, some high-speed systems also offer freight service.


title: History of rail transport

text: Belgium took the lead in the Industrial Revolution on the Continent starting in the 1820s. It provided an ideal model for showing the value of the railways for speeding the industrial revolution. After splitting from the Netherlands in 1830, the new country decided to stimulate industry. It planned and funded a simple cross-shaped system that connected the major cities, ports and mining areas and linked to neighboring countries. Unusually, the Belgian state became a major contributor to early rail development and championed the creation of a national network with no duplication of lines. Belgium thus became the railway center of the region.


title: History of rail transport

text: The system was built along British lines, often with British engineers doing the planning. Profits were low but the infrastructure necessary for rapid industrial growth was put in place. The first railway in Belgium, running from northern Brussels to Mechelen, was completed in May 1835.


title: History of rail transport

text: The earliest railway in Britain was a wagonway system, a horse drawn wooden rail system, used by German miners at Caldbeck, Cumbria, England, perhaps from the 1560s. A wagonway was built at Prescot, near Liverpool, sometime around 1600, possibly as early as 1594. Owned by Philip Layton, the line carried coal from a pit near Prescot Hall to a terminus about half a mile away. On 26 July 1803, Jessop opened the Surrey Iron Railway, south of London erroneously considered first railway in Britain, also a horse-drawn one. It was not a railway in the modern sense of the word, as it functioned like a turnpike road. There were no official services, as anyone could bring a vehicle on the railway by paying a toll.


title: History of rail transport

text: The oldest railway in continuous use is the Tanfield Railway in County Durham, England. This began life in 1725 as a wooden waggonway worked with horse power and developed by private coal owners and included the construction of the Causey Arch, the world's oldest purpose built railway bridge. By the mid 19th century it had converted to standard gauge track and steam locomotive power. It continues in operation as a heritage line. The Middleton Railway in Leeds, opened in 1758, is also still in use as a heritage line and began using steam locomotive power in 1812 before reverting to horsepower and then upgrading to standard gauge. In 1764, the first railway in the Americas was built in Lewiston, New York.


title: History of rail transport

text: The first passenger Horsecar or tram, Swansea and Mumbles Railway was opened between Swansea and Mumbles in Wales in 1807. Horse remained preferable mode for tram transport even after arrival of steam engines, well till the end of 19th century. The major reason was that the horse-cars were clean as compared to steam driven trams which caused smoke in city streets.


title: History of rail transport

text: In 1812, Oliver Evans, an American engineer and inventor, published his vision of what steam railways could become, with cities and towns linked by a network of long distance railways plied by speedy locomotives, greatly speeding up personal travel and goods transport. Evans specified that there should be separate sets of parallel tracks for trains going in different directions. However, conditions in the infant United States did not enable his vision to take hold. This vision had its counterpart in Britain, where it proved to be far more influential. William James, a rich and influential surveyor and land agent, was inspired by the development of the steam locomotive to suggest a national network of railways. It seems likely that in 1808 James attended the demonstration running of Richard Trevithick's steam locomotive "Catch me who can" in London; certainly at this time he began to consider the long-term development of this means of transport. He proposed a number of projects that later came to fruition and is credited with carrying out a survey of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Unfortunately he became bankrupt and his schemes were taken over by George Stephenson and others. However, he is credited by many historians with the title of "Father of the Railway".


title: History of rail transport

text: It was not until 1825, that the success of the Stockton and Darlington Railway in County Durham, England, the world's first public railway to combine locomotive power, malleable iron rails, twin tracks and other innovations such as early signalling, proto-Station buildings and rudimentary timetables in one place It proved to a national and international audience that the railways could be made profitable for passengers and general goods as well as a single commodity such as coal. This railway broke new ground by using rails made of rolled wrought iron, produced at Bedlington Ironworks in Northumberland. Such rails were stronger. This railway linked the coal field of Durham with the towns of Darlington and the port of Stockton-on-Tees and was intended to enable local collieries (which were connected to the line by short branches) to transport their coal to the docks. As this would constitute the bulk of the traffic, the company took the important step of offering to haul the colliery wagons or chaldrons by locomotive power, something that required a scheduled or timetabled service of trains. However, the line also functioned as a toll railway, on which private horse-drawn wagons could be carried. This hybrid of a system (which also included, at one stage, a horse-drawn passenger traffic when sufficient locomotives weren't available) could not last and within a few years, traffic was restricted to timetabled trains. (However, the tradition of private owned wagons continued on railways in Britain until the 1960s.). The S&DRs chief engineer Timothy Hackworth under the guidance of its principal funder Edward Pease, hosted visiting engineers from the USA, Prussia and France and shared experience and learning on how to build and run a railway so that by 1830 railways were being built in several locations across the UK, USA and Europe. Trained engineers and workers from the S&DR went on to help develop several other lines elsewhere including the Liverpool and Manchester of 1830, the next step forward in railway development.


title: History of rail transport

text: The success of the Stockton and Darlington encouraged the rich investors in the rapidly industrialising North West of England to embark upon a project to link the rich cotton manufacturing town of Manchester with the thriving port of Liverpool. The Liverpool and Manchester Railway was the first modern railway, in that both the goods and passenger traffic were operated by scheduled or timetabled locomotive hauled trains. When it was built, there was serious doubt that locomotives could maintain a regular service over the distance involved. A widely reported competition was held in 1829 called the Rainhill Trials, to find the most suitable steam engine to haul the trains. A number of locomotives were entered, including "Novelty", "Perseverance" and "Sans Pareil". The winner was Stephenson's Rocket, which steamed better because of its multi-tubular boiler (suggested by Henry Booth, a director of the railway company).


title: History of rail transport

text: The promoters were mainly interested in goods traffic, but after the line opened on 15 September 1830, they were surprised to find that passenger traffic was just as remunerative. The success of the Liverpool and Manchester railway added to the influence of the S&DR in the development of railways elsewhere in Britain and abroad. The company hosted many visiting deputations from other railway projects and many railwaymen received their early training and experience upon this line. The Liverpool and Manchester line was, however, only long. The world's first trunk line can be said to be the Grand Junction Railway, opening in 1837 and linking a midpoint on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway with Birmingham, via Crewe, Stafford and Wolverhampton.


title: History of rail transport

text: The earliest locomotives in revenue service were small four-wheeled ones similar to the Rocket. However, the inclined cylinders caused the engine to rock, so they first became horizontal and then, in his "Planet" design, were mounted inside the frames. While this improved stability, the "crank axles" were extremely prone to breakage. Greater speed was achieved by larger driving wheels at expense of a tendency for wheel slip when starting. Greater tractive effort was obtained by smaller wheels coupled together, but speed was limited by the fragility of the cast iron connecting rods. Hence, from the beginning, there was a distinction between the light fast passenger locomotive and the slower more powerful goods engine. Edward Bury, in particular, refined this design and the so-called "Bury Pattern" was popular for a number of years, particularly on the London and Birmingham.


title: History of rail transport

text: Meanwhile, by 1840, Stephenson had produced larger, more stable, engines in the form of the 2-2-2 "Patentee" and six-coupled goods engines. Locomotives were travelling longer distances and being worked more extensively. The North Midland Railway expressed their concern to Robert Stephenson who was, at that time, their general manager, about the effect of heat on their fireboxes. After some experiments, he patented his so-called Long Boiler design. These became a new standard and similar designs were produced by other manufacturers, particularly Sharp Brothers whose engines became known affectionately as "Sharpies".


title: History of rail transport

text: The longer wheelbase for the longer boiler produced problems in cornering. For his six-coupled engines, Stephenson removed the flanges from the centre pair of wheels. For his express engines, he shifted the trailing wheel to the front in the 4-2-0 formation, as in his "Great A". There were other problems: the firebox was restricted in size or had to be mounted behind the wheels; and for improved stability most engineers believed that the centre of gravity should be kept low.


title: History of rail transport

text: The most extreme outcome of this was the Crampton locomotive which mounted the driving wheels behind the firebox and could be made very large in diameter. These achieved the hitherto unheard of speed of but were very prone to wheelslip. With their long wheelbase, they were unsuccessful on Britain's winding tracks, but became popular in the US and France, where the popular expression became "prendre le Crampton".


title: History of rail transport

text: John Gray of the London and Brighton Railway disbelieved the necessity for a low centre of gravity and produced a series of locomotives that were much admired by David Joy who developed the design at the firm of E. B. Wilson and Company to produce the 2-2-2 Jenny Lind locomotive, one of the most successful passenger locomotives of its day. Meanwhile, the Stephenson 0-6-0 Long Boiler locomotive with inside cylinders became the archetypal goods engine.


title: History of rail transport

text: Railways quickly became essential to the swift movement of goods and labour that was needed for industrialization. In the beginning, canals were in competition with the railways, but the railways quickly gained ground as steam and rail technology improved and railways were built in places where canals were not practical.


title: History of rail transport

text: By the 1850s, many steam-powered railways had reached the fringes of built-up London. But the new companies were not permitted to demolish enough property to penetrate the City or the West End, so passengers had to disembark at Paddington, Euston, King's Cross, Fenchurch Street, Charing Cross, Waterloo or Victoria and then make their own way by hackney carriage or on foot into the centre, thereby massively increasing congestion in the city. A Metropolitan Railway was built underground to connect several of these separate railway terminals and was the world's first "Metro".


title: History of rail transport

text: The railways changed British society in numerous and complex ways. Although recent attempts to measure the economic significance of the railways have suggested that their overall contribution to the growth of GDP was more modest than an earlier generation of historians sometimes assumed, it is nonetheless clear that the railways had a sizeable impact in many spheres of economic activity. The building of railways and locomotives, for example, called for large quantities of heavy materials and thus provided a significant stimulus or 'backward linkage', to the coal-mining, iron-production, engineering and construction industries.


title: History of rail transport

text: They also helped to reduce transaction costs, which in turn lowered the costs of goods: the distribution and sale of perishable goods such as meat, milk, fish and vegetables were transformed by the emergence of the railways, giving rise not only to cheaper produce in the shops but also to far greater variety in people's diets.


title: History of rail transport

text: Finally, by improving personal mobility the railways were a significant force for social change. Rail transport had originally been conceived as a way of moving coal and industrial goods but the railway operators quickly realised the potential market for railway travel, leading to an extremely rapid expansion in passenger services. The number of railway passengers trebled in just eight years between 1842 and 1850: traffic volumes roughly doubled in the 1850s and then doubled again in the 1860s.


title: History of rail transport

text: As the historian Derek Aldcroft has noted, "in terms of mobility and choice they added a new dimension to everyday life".


title: History of rail transport

text: The Ruse – Varna was the first railway line in the modern Bulgarian territory, and also in the former Ottoman Empire. It was started in 1864 by the Turkish government, by commissioning for it an English company managed by William Gladstone, a politician, and the Barkley brothers, civil engineers. The line, which was 223 km long, was opened in 1866.


title: History of rail transport

text: In France, railways were first operated by private coal companies the first legal agreement to build a railway was given in 1823 and the line (from Saint-Étienne to Andrézieux) was operated in 1827. Much of the equipment was imported from Britain but this stimulated machinery makers, which soon created a national heavy industry. Trains became a national medium for the modernization of backward regions and a leading advocate of this approach was the poet-politician Alphonse de Lamartine. One writer hoped that railways might improve the lot of "populations two or three centuries behind their fellows" and eliminate "the savage instincts born of isolation and misery." Consequently, France built a centralized system that radiated from Paris (plus lines that cut east to west in the south). This design was intended to achieve political and cultural goals rather than maximize efficiency.


title: History of rail transport

text: After some consolidation, six companies controlled monopolies of their regions, subject to close control by the government in terms of fares, finances and even minute technical details. The central government department of Ponts et Chaussées [bridges and roads] brought in British engineers and workers, handled much of the construction work, provided engineering expertise and planning, land acquisition and construction of permanent infrastructure such as the track bed, bridges and tunnels. It also subsidized militarily necessary lines along the German border, which was considered necessary for the national defense. Private operating companies provided management, hired labor, laid the tracks and built and operated stations. They purchased and maintained the rolling stock—6,000 locomotives were in operation in 1880, which averaged 51,600 passengers a year or 21,200 tons of freight.


title: History of rail transport

text: Although starting the whole system at once was politically expedient, it delayed completion and forced even more reliance on temporary experts brought in from Britain. Financing was also a problem. The solution was a narrow base of funding through the Rothschilds and the closed circles of the Bourse in Paris, so France did not develop the same kind of national stock exchange that flourished in London and New York. The system did help modernize the parts of rural France it reached and help to develop many local industrial centers, mostly in the North (coal and iron mines) and in the East (textiles and heavy industry). Critics such as Émile Zola complained that it never overcame the corruption of the political system, but rather contributed to it.


title: History of rail transport

text: The railways probably helped the industrial revolution in France by facilitating a national market for raw materials, wines, cheeses and imported and exported manufactured products. In "The Rise of Rail-Power in War and Conquest, 1833–1914", published in 1915, Edwin A. Pratt wrote, "the French railways … attained a remarkable degree of success. … It was estimated that the 75,966 men and 4,469 horses transported by rail from Paris to the Mediterranean or to the frontiers of the Kingdom of Sardinia between 20 and 30 April April [during the 1859 Second Italian War of Independence] would have taken sixty days to make the journey by road. … This… was about twice as fast as the best achievement recorded up to that time on the German railways. " Yet the goals set by the French for their railway system were moralistic, political and military rather than economic. As a result, the freight trains were shorter and less heavily loaded than those in such rapidly industrializing nations such as Britain, Belgium or Germany. Other infrastructure needs in rural France, such as better roads and canals, were neglected because of the expense of the railways, so it seems likely that there were net negative effects in areas not served by the trains.


title: History of rail transport

text: An operation was illustrated in Germany in 1556 by Georgius Agricola in his work "De re metallica". This line used "Hund" carts with unflanged wheels running on wooden planks and a vertical pin on the truck fitting into the gap between the planks to keep it going the right way. The miners called the wagons "Hunde" ("dogs") from the noise they made on the tracks. This system became very popular across Europe.


title: History of rail transport

text: The takeoff stage of economic development came with the railroad revolution in the 1840s, which opened up new markets for local products, created a pool of middle managers, increased the demand for engineers, architects and skilled machinists and stimulated investments in coal and iron. Political disunity of three dozen states and a pervasive conservatism made it difficult to build railways in the 1830s. However, by the 1840s, trunk lines did link the major cities; each German state was responsible for the lines within its own borders. Economist Friedrich List summed up the advantages to be derived from the development of the railway system in 1841:


title: History of rail transport

text: Lacking a technological base at first, the Germans imported their engineering and hardware from Britain, but quickly learned the skills needed to operate and expand the railways. In many cities, the new railway shops were the centres of technological awareness and training, so that by 1850, Germany was self-sufficient in meeting the demands of railroad construction and the railways were a major impetus for the growth of the new steel industry. Observers found that even as late as 1890, their engineering was inferior to Britain's. However, German unification in 1870 stimulated consolidation, nationalisation into state-owned companies and further rapid growth. Unlike the situation in France, the goal was support of industrialisation and so heavy lines crisscrossed the Ruhr and other industrial districts and provided good connections to the major ports of Hamburg and Bremen. By 1880, Germany had 9,400 locomotives pulling 43,000 passengers and 30,000 tons of freight a day and forged ahead of France.


title: History of rail transport

text: The first line to be built on the peninsula was the Naples–Portici line, in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, which was 7.640 km long and was inaugurated on October 3, 1839, nine years after the world's first "modern" inter-city railway, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. During the first phase of development, it was operated by a locomotive derived by the British "Planet", that served the Royal convoy that traveled between the capital city of Naples and the summer residence at Royal Palace of Portici. Soon after, the line lost its exclusive nature and was rapidly expanded toward Salerno and Nola, serving both public transportation and freight needs.


title: History of rail transport

text: Rail transport in the Netherlands is generally considered to have begun on 20 September 1839 when the first train, drawn by the locomotive "De Arend", successfully made the 16 km trip from Amsterdam to Haarlem. However, the first plan for a railroad in the Netherlands was launched only shortly after the first railroad opened in Britain.


title: History of rail transport

text: Poland restored its own independence as the Second Polish Republic in 1918 from the German, Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires.


title: History of rail transport

text: New Polish locomotive Pm36-1 (140 km/h) was shown at the International Exposition of Art and Technology in Modern Life in Paris in 1937.


title: History of rail transport

text: New Polish electric locomotive EP09 (160 km/h) was designed in 1977 and started regular operation linking Warsaw and Kraków in 1987.


title: History of rail transport

text: On 14 December 2014 PKP Intercity New Pendolino trains by Alstom under the name 'Express Intercity Premium' began operating on the CMK line (224 km line from Kraków and Katowice to Warsaw) with trains reaching 200 km/h (124 mph) as a regularly scheduled operation.


title: History of rail transport

text: In the early 1830s, the Russian father and son inventors the Cherepanovs built the first Russian steam locomotive. The first railway line was built in Russia in 1837 between Saint-Petersburg and Tsarskoye Selo. It was 27 km long and linked the Imperial Palaces at Tsarskoye Selo and Pavlovsk. The track gauge was . Russia was in need of big transportation systems and geographically suited to railroads, with long flat stretches of land and comparatively simple land acquisition. It was hampered, however, by its outmoded political situation and a shortage of capital. Foreign initiative and capital were required. It was the Americans who brought the technology of railway construction to Russia. In 1842, planning began for the building of Russia's first important railway; it linked Moscow and St Petersburg.


title: History of rail transport

text: Cuba, then a Spanish colony, built its first rail line in 1837. The history of rail transport in peninsular Spain begins in 1848 with the construction of a railway line between Barcelona and Mataró. In 1852, the first narrow gauge line was built. In 1863 a line reached the Portuguese border. By 1864, the Madrid-Irun line had been opened and the French border was reached.


title: History of rail transport

text: The earliest railway in Canada was a wooden railway reportedly used in the construction of the French fortress at Louisburg, Nova Scotia.


title: History of rail transport

text: The first Canadian railway, the Champlain and St. Lawrence Railroad, was opened in 1836 outside of Montreal, a seasonal portage railway to connect river traffic. It was followed by the Albion Railway in Stellarton, Nova Scotia in 1840, a collier railway connecting coal mines to a seaport. In Canada, the national government strongly supported railway construction for political goals. First it wanted to knit the far-flung provinces together and second, it wanted to maximize trade inside Canada and minimize trade with the United States, to avoid becoming an economic satellite. The Grand Trunk Railway of Canada linked Toronto and Montreal in 1853, then opened a line to Portland, Maine (which was ice-free) and lines to Michigan and Chicago. By 1870 it was the longest railway in the world. The Intercolonial line, finished in 1876, linked the Maritimes to Quebec and Ontario, tying them to the new Confederation.


title: History of rail transport

text: Anglo entrepreneurs in Montreal sought direct lines into the US and shunned connections with the Maritimes, with a goal of competing with American railroad lines heading west to the Pacific. Joseph Howe, Charles Tupper and other Nova Scotia leaders used the rhetoric of a "civilizing mission" centered on their British heritage, because Atlantic-centered railway projects promised to make Halifax the eastern terminus of an intercolonial railway system tied to London. Leonard Tilley, New Brunswick's most ardent railway promoter, championed the cause of "economic progress," stressing that Atlantic Canadians needed to pursue the most cost-effective transportation connections possible if they wanted to expand their influence beyond local markets. Advocating an intercolonial connection to Canada and a western extension into larger American markets in Maine and beyond, New Brunswick entrepreneurs promoted ties to the United States first, connections with Halifax second and routes into central Canada last. Thus metropolitan rivalries between Montreal, Halifax and Saint John led Canada to build more railway lines per capita than any other industrializing nation, even though it lacked capital resources and had too little freight and passenger traffic to allow the systems to turn a profit.


title: History of rail transport

text: Den Otter (1997) challenges popular assumptions that Canada built transcontinental railways because it feared the annexationist schemes of aggressive Americans. Instead Canada overbuilt railroads because it hoped to compete with, even overtake Americans in the race for continental riches. It downplayed the more realistic Maritimes-based London-oriented connections and turned to utopian prospects for the farmlands and minerals of the west. The result was closer ties between north and south, symbolized by the Grand Trunk's expansion into the American Midwest. These economic links promoted trade, commerce and the flow of ideas between the two countries, integrating Canada into a North American economy and culture by 1880. About 700,000 Canadians migrated to the US in the late 19th century. The Canadian Pacific, paralleling the American border, opened a vital link to British Canada and stimulated settlement of the Prairies. The CP was affiliated with James J. Hill's American railways and opened even more connections to the South. The connections were two-way, as thousands of American moved to the Prairies after their own frontier had closed.


title: History of rail transport

text: Two additional transcontinental lines were built to the west coast—three in all—but that was far more than the traffic would bear, making the system simply too expensive. One after another, the federal government was forced to take over the lines and cover their deficits. In 1923, the government merged the Grand Trunk, Grand Trunk Pacific, Canadian Northern and National Transcontinental lines into the new the Canadian National Railways system. Since most of the equipment was imported from Britain or the US and most of the products carried were from farms, mines or forests, there was little stimulation to domestic manufacturing. On the other hand, the railways were essential to the growth of the wheat regions in the Prairies and to the expansion of coal mining, lumbering and paper making. Improvements to the St. Lawrence waterway system continued apace and many short lines were built to river ports.


title: History of rail transport

text: Railroads played a large role in the development of the United States from the industrial revolution in the North-east 1810–50 to the settlement of the West 1850–1890. The American railroad mania began with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1828 and flourished until the Panic of 1873 bankrupted many companies and temporarily ended growth.


title: History of rail transport

text: Although the South started early to build railways, it concentrated on short lines linking cotton regions to oceanic or river ports and the absence of an interconnected network was a major handicap during the Civil War. The North and Midwest constructed networks that linked every city by 1860. In the heavily settled Midwestern Corn Belt, over 80 percent of farms were within 10 miles of a railway, facilitating the shipment of grain, hogs and cattle to national and international markets. A large number of short lines were built, but thanks to a fast developing financial system based on Wall Street and oriented to railway bonds, the majority were consolidated into 20 trunk lines by 1890. State and local governments often subsidized lines, but rarely owned them.


title: History of rail transport

text: The system was largely built by 1910, but then trucks arrived to eat away the freight traffic and automobiles (and later airplanes) to devour the passenger traffic. The use of diesel electric locomotives (after 1940) made for much more efficient operations that needed fewer workers on the road and in repair shops.


title: History of rail transport

text: In 1830, there were about of railroad track, in short lines linked to coal and granite mines.). After this, railroad lines grew rapidly. Ten years later, in 1840, the railways had grown to . By 1860, on the eve of civil war, the length had reached , mostly in the North. The South had much less trackage and it was geared to moving cotton short distances to river or ocean ports. The Southern railroads were destroyed during the war but were soon rebuilt. By 1890, the national system was virtually complete with .


title: History of rail transport

text: In 1869, the symbolically important transcontinental railroad was completed in the United States with the driving of a golden spike (near the city of Ogden).


title: History of rail transport

text: In Latin America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries railways were critical elements in the early stages of modernization of the Latin American economy, especially in linking agricultural regions to export-oriented seaports. After 1870 Latin American governments encouraged further rail development through generous concessions that included government subsidies for construction. Railway construction is the subject of considerable scholarship, examining the economic, political, and social impacts of railroads. Railways transformed many regions of Latin America beginning in the late nineteenth century. "Increasing exports of primary commodities, rising imports of capital goods, the expansion of activities drawing directly and indirectly on overseas investment, the rising share of manufacturing in output, and a generalized increase in the pace and scope of economic activity were all tied closely to the timing and character of the region's infrastructural development.


title: History of rail transport

text: Rates of railway line construction were not uniform, but by 1870 railway line construction was underway, with Cuba leading with the largest railway track in service (1,295 km), followed by Chile (797 km), Brazil (744 km), Argentina (732 km), Peru (669 km), and Mexico (417 km). By 1900, Argentina (16,563 km), Brazil (15,316 km) and Mexico (13,615 km) were the leaders in length of track in service, and Peru, which had been an early leader in railway construction, had stagnated (1,790 km). In Mexico, growing nationalistic fervor led the government to bring the bulk of the nation's railroads under national control in 1909, with a new government corporation, Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México (FNM), that exercised control of the main trunk rail lines through a majority of share ownership.


title: History of rail transport

text: The first proposals for railways in India were made in Madras in 1832. The first train in India ran from Red Hills to Chintadripet bridge in Madras in 1837. It was called "Red Hill Railway". It was hauled by a rotary steam engine locomotive manufactured by William Avery. It was built by Sir Arthur Cotton. It was primarily used for transporting granite stones for road building work in Madras. In 1845, a railway was built at Dowleswaram in Rajahmundry. It was called "Godavari Dam Construction Railway". It was also built by Arthur Cotton. It was used to supply stones for construction of a dam over Godavari.


title: History of rail transport

text: On 8 May 1845, Madras Railway was incorporated. In the same year, the East India Railway company was incorporated. On 1 August 1849, Great Indian Peninsular Railway (GIPR) was incorporated. In 1851, a railway was built in Roorkee. It was called "Solani Aqueduct Railway". It was hauled by steam locomotive Thomason, named after a British officer-in-charge. It was used for transporting construction materials for building of aqueduct over Solani river. In 1852, the "Madras Guaranteed Railway Company" was incorporated.


title: History of rail transport

text: The first passenger train in India ran between Bombay (Bori Bunder) and Thane on 16 April 1853. The 14-carriage train was hauled by three steam locomotives: Sahib, Sindh and Sultan. It ran for about 34 kilometers between these two cities carrying 400 people. The line was built and operated by GIPR. This railway line was built in broad gauge, which became the standard for the railways in the country. The first passenger railway train in eastern India ran from Howrah, near Calcutta to Hoogly, for distance of 24 miles, on 15 August 1854. The line was built and operated by EIR. The first passenger train in South India ran from Royapuram / Veyasarapady (Madras) to Wallajah Road (Arcot) on 1 July 1856, for a distance of 60 miles. It was built and operated by Madras Railway. On 24 February 1873, the first tramway (a horse-drawn tramway) opened in Calcutta between Sealdah and Armenian Ghat Street, a distance of 3.8 km.


title: History of rail transport

text: Iranian railway history goes back to 1887 when an approximately 20-km long railway between Tehran and Ray was established. After this time many short railways were constructed but the main railway, Trans-Iranian Railway, was started in 1927 and operated in 1938 by connecting the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea.


title: History of rail transport

text: In 1867, in Japan, Edo period (Tokugawa shogunate) and its feudal system was ended, then Meiji period was entered and the government strived to acquire western culture and technology. In 1872, the first railway in Japan was inaugurated by Japanese Government Railways (JGR), connecting Shimbashi in Tokyo and Yokohama. The first 10 steam locomotives were ordered to Avonside, Dübs, Sharp Stewart, Vulcan and Yorkshire companies in United Kingdom. Subsequently, so many locomotives and railroad cars were ordered to United Kingdom, United States and Germany, before they could be manufactured in Japan. At that time, JGR adopted narrow gauge (1,067 mm) rather than standard gauge (1,435 mm), considering its cost of construction, so still now, narrow gauge has been mostly adopted and called "standard in Japan". In 1874, the second railway connected between Osaka and Kobe by JGR. Following them, railways were spread around Japan, Hokkaido, Tōhoku, Kantō, Chūbu, Kansai, Chūgoku, Shikoku and Kyushu regions by JGR and many private companies. In 1895, the first electric railway, also the first electric street railway was inaugurated by Kyoto Electric Railway in Kyoto, and the first trams seems to be ordered to J. G. Brill in United States. In 1923, the first diesel locomotive was ordered to Deutz AG in Germany by Horinouchi Railway Company in Shizuoka prefecture. In 1927, the first subway was inaugurated by Tokyo Metro, and connected between Ueno and Asakusa in Tokyo, and the electric railroad cars were ordered to Nippon Sharyo as Class 1000. Then, in 1928, the first diesel railroad car, equipped with diesel engine of MAN AG, was ordered and manufactured by Amemiya Manufacturing, for Nagaoka Railway in Niigata prefecture.


title: History of rail transport

text: Viewing the development of locomotive and railroad car technology in Japan, in 1893, the first steam locomotive was manufactured by Kobe works of JGR as JGR Class 860. Then in 1904, the first electric railroad car seems to be manufactured by Iidabashi works of Kōbu railway (now Chūō Main Line of JR East) as Class 950. In 1926, the first electric locomotive was manufactured by Hitachi as JGR Class ED15. In 1927, the first diesel locomotive, equipped with diesel engine of Niigata Engineering, was manufactured by Amemiya Manufacturing. By World War II, Japan also suffered catastrophic damage, however they accomplished reconstruction. In 1964, the first electric high-speed rail in the world, Tōkaidō Shinkansen (standard gauge) was inaugurated by Japanese National Railways (JNR), and connected between Tokyo and Osaka. The first high-speed trains were manufactured by Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Nippon Sharyo, Hitachi, Kinki Sharyo and Tokyu Car Corporation (now J-TREC), as Shinkansen 0 Series. Today, Electric, battery electric, electric hybrid, electric-diesel, diesel locomotives, railroad cars, high-speed trains, and AGTs are manufacrured by Hitachi, Kawasaki, Nippon Sharyo, Kinki Sharyo, J-TREC and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and they are running around the world.


title: History of rail transport

text: It was in 1847 when the first railway was imagined but it was not until 1861 when it came into existence in the form of the railway built from Karachi to Kotri. Since then rail transport is a popular mode of non-independent transport in Pakistan.


title: History of rail transport

text: The railway was built from the Kenyan port of Mombasa to Kampala, Uganda, and construction was hampered by the presence of man-eating lions.


title: History of rail transport

text: In 1833, Muhammad Ali Pasha considered building a railway between Suez and Cairo to improve transit between Europe and India. Muhammad Ali had proceeded to buy the rail when the project was abandoned due to pressure by the French who had an interest in building a canal instead.


title: History of rail transport

text: Proposed railway from Cairo to the Sea of Suez by C.F. Cheffins, 1840s; state carriage by Wason Manufacturing built for Sa'id Pasha for state functions, included with 161 less ornate railcars sent by the company in 1860


title: History of rail transport

text: Muhammad Ali died in 1848, and in 1851 his successor Abbas I contracted Robert Stephenson to build Egypt's first standard gauge railway. The first section, between Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast and Kafr el-Zayyat on the Rosetta branch of the Nile was opened in 1854. This was the first railway in the Ottoman Empire as well as Africa and the Middle East. In the same year Abbas died and was succeeded by Sa'id Pasha, in whose reign the section between Kafr el-Zayyat and Cairo was completed in 1856 followed by an extension from Cairo to Suez in 1858. This completed the first modern transport link between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, as Ferdinand de Lesseps did not complete the Suez Canal until 1869.


title: History of rail transport

text: The first railway in the German colony of South West Africa was the -long line running North-East from Walvis Bay to connect with the existing road between Swakopmund and Windhoek. It was built to gauge and was opened in 1898.


title: History of rail transport

text: The Moroccan rail transport was first developed around 1906 and later during the French and Spanish protectorate. It functioned initially as a means to transport natural resources from in-land mines to the harbors. It was also used to move colonial troops.


title: Inverse function

text: In mathematics, the inverse function of a function (also called the inverse of ) is a function that undoes the operation of . The inverse of exists if and only if is bijective, and if it exists, is denoted by formula_1


title: Inverse function

text: For a function formula_2, its inverse formula_3 admits an explicit description: it sends each element formula_4 to the unique element formula_5 such that .


title: Inverse function

text: As an example, consider the real-valued function of a real variable given by . One can think of as the function which multiplies its input by 5 then subtracts 7 from the result. To undo this, one adds 7 to the input, then divides the result by 5. Therefore, the inverse of is the function formula_6 defined by formula_7


title: Inverse function

text: Let be a function whose domain is the set , and whose codomain is the set . Then is "invertible" if there exists a function from to such that formula_8 for all formula_5 and formula_10 for all formula_4.


title: Inverse function

text: If is invertible, then there is exactly one function satisfying this property. The function is called the inverse of , and is usually denoted as , a notation introduced by John Frederick William Herschel in 1813.


title: Inverse function

text: The function is invertible if and only if it is bijective. This is because the condition formula_8 for all formula_5 implies that is injective, and the condition formula_10 for all formula_4 implies that is surjective.


title: Inverse function

text: Using the composition of functions, this statement can be rewritten to the following equations between functions:


title: Inverse function

text: where is the identity function on the set ; that is, the function that leaves its argument unchanged. In category theory, this statement is used as the definition of an inverse morphism.


title: Inverse function

text: Considering function composition helps to understand the notation . Repeatedly composing a function with itself is called iteration. If is applied times, starting with the value , then this is written as ; so , etc. Since , composing and yields , "undoing" the effect of one application of .


title: Inverse function

text: While the notation might be misunderstood, certainly denotes the multiplicative inverse of and has nothing to do with the inverse function of . The notation formula_23 might be used for the inverse function to avoid ambiguity with the multiplicative inverse.


title: Inverse function

text: In keeping with the general notation, some English authors use expressions like to denote the inverse of the sine function applied to (actually a partial inverse; see below). Other authors feel that this may be confused with the notation for the multiplicative inverse of , which can be denoted as . To avoid any confusion, an inverse trigonometric function is often indicated by the prefix "arc" (for Latin ). For instance, the inverse of the sine function is typically called the arcsine function, written as . Similarly, the inverse of a hyperbolic function is indicated by the prefix "ar" (for Latin ). For instance, the inverse of the hyperbolic sine function is typically written as . Note that the expressions like can still be useful to distinguish the multivalued inverse from the partial inverse: formula_24. Other inverse special functions are sometimes prefixed with the prefix "inv", if the ambiguity of the notation should be avoided.


title: Inverse function

text: The function given by is not injective because formula_25 for all formula_26. Therefore, is not invertible.


title: Inverse function

text: If the domain of the function is restricted to the nonnegative reals, that is, we take the function formula_27 with the same "rule" as before, then the function is bijective and so, invertible. The inverse function here is called the "(positive) square root function" and is denoted by formula_28.


title: Inverse function

text: Many functions given by algebraic formulas possess a formula for their inverse. This is because the inverse formula_29 of an invertible function formula_30 has an explicit description as


title: Inverse function

text: This allows one to easily determine inverses of many functions that are given by algebraic formulas. For example, if is the function


title: Inverse function

text: then to determine formula_33 for a real number , one must find the unique real number such that . This equation can be solved:


title: Inverse function

text: Sometimes, the inverse of a function cannot be expressed by a closed-form formula. For example, if is the function


title: Inverse function

text: then is a bijection, and therefore possesses an inverse function . The formula for this inverse has an expression as an infinite sum:


title: Inverse function

text: Since a function is a special type of binary relation, many of the properties of an inverse function correspond to properties of converse relations.


title: Inverse function

text: If an inverse function exists for a given function , then it is unique. This follows since the inverse function must be the converse relation, which is completely determined by .


title: Inverse function

text: There is a symmetry between a function and its inverse. Specifically, if is an invertible function with domain and codomain , then its inverse has domain and image , and the inverse of is the original function . In symbols, for functions and ,


title: Inverse function

text: This statement is a consequence of the implication that for to be invertible it must be bijective. The involutory nature of the inverse can be concisely expressed by


title: Inverse function

text: Notice that the order of and have been reversed; to undo followed by , we must first undo , and then undo .


title: Inverse function

text: For example, let and let . Then the composition is the function that first multiplies by three and then adds five,


title: Inverse function

text: More generally, a function is equal to its own inverse, if and only if the composition is equal to . Such a function is called an involution.


title: Inverse function

text: This is identical to the equation that defines the graph of , except that the roles of and have been reversed. Thus the graph of can be obtained from the graph of by switching the positions of the and axes. This is equivalent to reflecting the graph across the line


title: Inverse function

text: The inverse function theorem states that a continuous function is invertible on its range (image) if and only if it is either strictly increasing or decreasing (with no local maxima or minima). For example, the function


title: Inverse function

text: If the function is differentiable on an interval and for each , then the inverse is differentiable on . If , the derivative of the inverse is given by the inverse function theorem,


title: Inverse function

text: The inverse function theorem can be generalized to functions of several variables. Specifically, a differentiable multivariable function is invertible in a neighborhood of a point as long as the Jacobian matrix of at is invertible. In this case, the Jacobian of at is the matrix inverse of the Jacobian of at .


title: Inverse function

text: Even if a function is not one-to-one, it may be possible to define a partial inverse of by restricting the domain. For example, the function


title: Inverse function

text: is not one-to-one, since . However, the function becomes one-to-one if we restrict to the domain , in which case


title: Inverse function

text: (If we instead restrict to the domain , then the inverse is the negative of the square root of .) Alternatively, there is no need to restrict the domain if we are content with the inverse being a multivalued function:


title: Inverse function

text: Sometimes, this multivalued inverse is called the full inverse of , and the portions (such as and −) are called "branches". The most important branch of a multivalued function (e.g. the positive square root) is called the "principal branch", and its value at is called the "principal value" of .


title: Inverse function

text: For a continuous function on the real line, one branch is required between each pair of local extrema. For example, the inverse of a cubic function with a local maximum and a local minimum has three branches (see the adjacent picture).


title: Inverse function

text: These considerations are particularly important for defining the inverses of trigonometric functions. For example, the sine function is not one-to-one, since


title: Inverse function

text: for every real (and more generally for every integer ). However, the sine is one-to-one on the interval


title: Inverse function

text: , and the corresponding partial inverse is called the arcsine. This is considered the principal branch of the inverse sine, so the principal value of the inverse sine is always between − and . The following table describes the principal branch of each inverse trigonometric function:


title: Inverse function

text: imply different properties of . For example, let denote the squaring map, such that for all in , and let denote the square root map, such that for all . Then for all in ; that is, is a right inverse to . However, is not a left inverse to , since, e.g., .


title: Inverse function

text: If , a left inverse for (or "retraction" of ) is a function such that composing with from the left gives the identity function formula_58 That is, the function satisfies the rule


title: Inverse function

text: The function must equal the inverse of on the image of , but may take any values for elements of not in the image.


title: Inverse function

text: A function with nonempty domain is injective if and only if it has a left inverse. An elementary proof runs as follows:


title: Inverse function

text: In classical mathematics, every injective function with a nonempty domain necessarily has a left inverse; however, this may fail in constructive mathematics. For instance, a left inverse of the inclusion of the two-element set in the reals violates indecomposability by giving a retraction of the real line to the set .


title: Inverse function

text: A function has a right inverse if and only if it is surjective (though constructing such an inverse in general requires the axiom of choice).


title: Inverse function

text: An inverse that is both a left and right inverse (a two-sided inverse), if it exists, must be unique. In fact, if a function has a left inverse and a right inverse, they are both the same two-sided inverse, so it can be called the inverse.


title: Inverse function

text: If is any function (not necessarily invertible), the preimage (or inverse image) of an element is defined to be the set of all elements of that map to :


title: Inverse function

text: The preimage of can be thought of as the image of under the (multivalued) full inverse of the function .


title: Inverse function

text: Similarly, if is any subset of , the preimage of , denoted formula_75, is the set of all elements of that map to :


title: Inverse function

text: For example, take the function . This function is not invertible as it is not bijective, but preimages may be defined for subsets of the codomain, e.g.


title: Inverse function

text: The preimage of a single element – a singleton set – is sometimes called the "fiber" of . When is the set of real numbers, it is common to refer to as a "level set".


title: Port Vale F.C.

text: Port Vale Football Club are a professional football club based in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, England, which compete in . Vale are the only English Football League club not to be named after a place; their name being a reference to the valley of ports on the Trent and Mersey Canal. They have never played top-flight football, and hold the record for the most seasons in the English Football League (111) and in the second tier (41) without reaching the first tier. After playing at the Athletic Ground in Cobridge and The Old Recreation Ground in Hanley, the club returned to Burslem when Vale Park was opened in 1950. Outside the ground is a statue to Roy Sproson, who played 842 competitive games for the club. The club's traditional rivals are Stoke City, and games between the two are known as the Potteries derby.


title: Port Vale F.C.

text: After becoming one of the more prominent football clubs in Staffordshire, Burslem Port Vale were invited to become founder members of the Football League Second Division in 1892. They spent 13 non-consecutive seasons in the division, punctuated by two seasons in the Midland League, before they resigned due to financial difficulties and entered liquidation in 1907. The name of Port Vale continued in the North Staffordshire Federation League, and this new club were successful enough to be reinstated into the Football League in 1919. They spent 16 non-consecutive seasons in the Second Division, punctuated by winning the Third Division North title in 1929–30, before dropping back into the third tier for a much longer stay at the end of the 1935–36 campaign. The 1953–54 season saw manager Freddie Steele's "Iron Curtain" defence win both a Third Division North title and a semi-final place in the FA Cup. They failed to build on this success however, although they went on to finish as champions of the first Fourth Division season under Norman Low's stewardship in 1958–59.


title: Port Vale F.C.

text: The club had little success throughout the 1960s and 1970s, despite being briefly managed by Stanley Matthews, and were forced to apply for re-election after breaking FA rules on illegal payments in 1968. Gordon Lee guided the club to promotion back to the Third Division the following season, where they would remain until relegation at the end of the 1977–78 campaign. John McGrath steered the club to promotion in 1982–83, though he departed after relegation became inevitable the following season. His assistant, John Rudge, stepped up to become the club's longest-serving and most successful manager, leading the club from 1983 to 1999. Under his leadership Port Vale won promotions in 1985–86, 1988–89 and 1993–94, lifted the Football League Trophy in 1993 and reached a post-war record finish of eighth in the second tier in the 1996–97 season.


title: Port Vale F.C.

text: After Rudge's reign ended the club entered a decline, slipping into the fourth tier whilst twice entering administration in 2003 and 2012. The decline was arrested when manager Micky Adams achieved automatic promotion from League Two in the 2012–13 season, though they were relegated back into League Two at the end of the 2016–17 season after a failed experiment with a continental staff and playing style. Carol Shanahan bought the club in 2019 and manager Darrell Clarke secured promotion out of the League Two play-offs at the end of the 2021–22 season.


title: Port Vale F.C.

text: The official story reported on the club website is that Port Vale F.C. was formed in 1876, following a meeting at Port Vale House, from where the club was supposed to have taken its name. However, documented evidence of football from that era is extremely scarce and research by historian Jeff Kent indicated that it was probably formed in 1879 as an offshoot of Porthill Victoria F.C. and took its name from the valley of canal ports where the team played. In the club's early days the team played their football at Limekiln Lane, Longport and from 1880 at Westport. The club moved to Moorland Road in Burslem in 1884, changing its name to Burslem Port Vale in the process, though stayed in Burslem for just one year before both turning professional and moving to Cobridge to play at the Athletic Ground. In 1892, the club were invited to become founder members of the Football League Second Division after proving themselves a strong club in the Midland League. They spent 13 seasons in the Second Division either side of a two-season return to the Midland League (1896–97 and 1897–98).


title: Port Vale F.C.

text: The club were forced to resign from the league at the end of the 1906–07 season and were subsequently liquidated. However, the name of Port Vale was continued after ambitious minor league side Cobridge Church opted to change their name. The new club subsequently moved into their new home of the Old Recreation Ground in Hanley in 1912, and returned to the Football League in October 1919, taking over the fixture list of Leeds City in the Second Division, who were forced to disband because of financial irregularities. Wilf Kirkham made his Vale debut in October 1923, and over the next ten years would score a club record 164 league and cup goals, including a club record 41 goals in the 1926–27 campaign.


title: Port Vale F.C.

text: The club were relegated for the first time at the end of the 1928–29 season, going from the Second Division to the Third Division North. They came up as champions the following season and in the 1930–31 season were placed fifth in the second tier of English football, their highest ever league finish. Vale went to beat Chesterfield by a club record 9–1 margin on 24 September 1932. However, after these achievements the club were once again relegated in the 1935–36 season and remained in the third tier until World War II.


title: Port Vale F.C.

text: Port Vale moved into their new home of Vale Park in 1950, and a year later Freddie Steele was appointed club manager. Steele quickly established himself at the club, masterminding the celebrated 'Iron Curtain' defence. The 1953–54 season saw Vale winning the Third Division North title as well as reaching the semi-finals of the FA Cup, losing out to eventual winners West Bromwich Albion in controversial fashion, in which an Albert Leake goal was disallowed for offside. Three years later, the club were again relegated, and once again became founder members of a division – this time the Football League Fourth Division. Manager Norman Low instilled an attacking philosophy and in the 1958–59 season guided the team to the Fourth Division title with a club record 110 goals scored.


title: Port Vale F.C.

text: Vale ended a six-season stay in the Third Division with relegation at the end of the 1964–65 campaign. In 1967, former Ballon d'Or winner Stanley Matthews succeeded Jackie Mudie as manager, though he resigned a year later after Vale were expelled from the Football League for allegedly making illegal payments to players in contravention of FA rules – this punishment was reduced on appeal to a re-election vote, which the club won. Gordon Lee took the helm following this punishment, and steered the club to promotion at the end of the 1969–70 campaign. However, the 1970s did not prove a successful period for the Valiants, as the club languished in the bottom half of the Third Division for much of the decade. Lee left in 1974, and a succession of managers failed to prevent relegation in 1977–1978. The 1979–80 season saw Port Vale finish 20th in the Fourth Division (88th overall), the club's worst ever finish. Despite this poor finish in John McGrath's first season, they eventually achieved their first success for thirteen years in 1982–83 by winning promotion out of the Fourth Division in third place.


title: Port Vale F.C.

text: Following McGrath's dismissal, his assistant John Rudge was appointed as manager in December 1983. Though he was unable to halt Vale's immediate return to the bottom tier of the Football League, he succeeded in steadying the ship. Helped by the goals of prolific Welshman Andy Jones, Vale were promoted back to the third tier in 1985–86 after losing just once at Vale Park in the league all season. A major cup upset came on 30 January 1988, when Vale defeated First Division side Tottenham Hotspur 2–1, thanks to a superb strike from Ray Walker. After three seasons in the third tier, Rudge's Vale achieved another promotion in 1988–89 after Robbie Earle scored the winning goal at Vale Park to complete a 2–1 aggregate play-off final victory over Bristol Rovers; this marked the club's return to the Second Division after a 33-year absence.


title: Port Vale F.C.

text: Vale suffered relegation on the final day of the 1991–92 league campaign, and though they bounced back well by staying in the promotion picture for most of the 1992–93 season, they narrowly missed out as runners-up to local rivals Stoke City after being overtaken by Bolton Wanderers on the final day. Instead Vale would visit Wembley twice in just over a week. They firstly ran out as 2–1 winners against Stockport County in the final of the Football League Trophy. However, they then lost 3–0 in the play-off final to West Bromwich Albion. Vale recovered from this setback and went on to confirm promotion as runners-up on the final day of the 1993–94 season. During the 1995–96 season Vale recorded one of their greatest FA Cup giant-killings when they defeated holders Everton 2–1. The team also had some success in the Anglo-Italian Cup, as they qualified for the final at Wembley, where they lost 5–2 to then Italian Serie B side Genoa. Vale made a slow start to the 1996–97 campaign, with protests forming against chairman Bill Bell, and the sale of Steve Guppy to Leicester City for £800,000. Despite this Rudge masterminded an eighth-place finish – their highest in the pyramid since 1931.


title: Port Vale F.C.

text: In 1997–98, relegation was avoided on the final day of the season with a 4–0 win over Huddersfield Town, at the expense of Manchester City and Stoke City. The next season was another struggle, and John Rudge was controversially sacked in January 1999. He was replaced by former player Brian Horton, who spent big to secure the club's second consecutive final-day escape from relegation. There was no avoiding relegation in 1999–2000, though, as they were some thirteen points short of safety. Horton led the club to Football League Trophy success in 2001, as Marc Bridge-Wilkinson and Steve Brooker scored the goals to secure a 2–1 victory over Brentford in the final at the Millennium Stadium. In December 2002, Bill Bell called in the administrators, with the club around £1.5 million in debt.


title: Port Vale F.C.

text: The club came out of administration in 2003–04 under a fan-ownership consortium headed by Bill Bratt's Valiant 2001 consortium. However, Horton left in February 2004, unwilling to accept the financial cutbacks imposed by the new board, and was replaced by former player Martin Foyle. Foyle was dismissed in November 2007, and his successor, Lee Sinnott, proved unable to prevent the club from being relegated into League Two after a 23rd-place finish and also oversaw a defeat to Southern League Division One Midlands club Chasetown in the FA Cup. Sinnott was sacked in September 2008 and following an unsuccessful tenure from Dean Glover, Micky Adams was appointed as the club's new manager in June 2009. Adams left the club in December 2010 with Vale second in the table and Jim Gannon was selected to finish the promotion job. However, Gannon's turbulent reign ended after 74 days. Adams returned as manager at the end of the 2010–11 campaign, but this was not enough to placate fans who demanded a change in the boardroom after a series of promised investments failed to come to fruition.


title: Port Vale F.C.

text: Genuine hopes of promotion in 2011–12 were brought to an end after the club was issued with a winding up petition by HM Revenue and Customs on 29 February 2012; the club were by this time unable to pay tax bills, creditors, or staff wages. The club entered administration on 9 March. The club finally exited administration on 20 November 2012, and Tom Pope scored 33 goals to fire Vale to promotion back to League One with a third-place finish. They stabilised in the division under new boss Rob Page, before chairman Norman Smurthwaite orchestrated the departure of Page and his squad in favour of the club's first foreign manager, Bruno Ribeiro, in June 2016. The result was relegation back into League Two at the end of the 2016–17 season, after which Smurthwaite resigned as chairman. He returned to the role the following season and threatened to put the club into administration if a buyer was not found by May 2019, a fate which was avoided when Carol and Kevin Shanahan completed their takeover. Manager Darrell Clarke returned from a close family bereavement to lead Vale through the League Two play-off semi-finals at the end of the 2021–22 season. Promotion was secured with a 3–0 victory over Mansfield Town in the final.


title: Port Vale F.C.

text: Around November 1920, club chairman Frank Huntbach came up with the nickname of "the Valiants". The next year the club adopted their familiar white and black strip after having experimented with numerous colours, including plain red, gold and black stripes, claret and blue, and even during 1898–1902 playing in the red and white stripes now used by rivals Stoke City for over a century. However, the kit soon changed to plain red shirts with white shorts in 1923, a style which lasted until 1934, when the white shirt, black shorts and socks kit was re-adopted. Between 1958 and 1963 the club adopted various gold and black designs, before once again returning to the black and white theme.


title: Port Vale F.C.

text: The initial club crest was modelled on the coat of arms of the Borough of Burslem. From 1952 to 1956 the club used a Staffordshire knot with the letters "PVFC" inside it. Four years later a more complex badge emerged, again based on the Burslem coat of arms but this time also featuring the scythe of the Tunstall arms, the fretted cross of Audley, and two Josiah Wedgwood pots. The crest was removed in 1964, and replaced by a 'P.V.F.C.' monogramme, which in turn was abandoned in 1978. For the next four years the club switched to a design of a knight on a horse with the text "Port Vale" at the top. From 1982 the club introduced a design based on that of a schoolchild who won a competition, which featured a bottle oven and the Stafford knot, associated with the city of Stoke-on-Trent's pottery industry and the history of the local area. The current crest was introduced in February 2013, which was a modern rehash of the crest the club introduced in 1956; it included local historical references: the Portland Vases representing Josiah Wedgwood, the Scythe coming from the house crest of the Sneyd family and the silver cross appearing from the house crest of the Audley family, as well as the Stafford knot above the crest.


title: Port Vale F.C.

text: When they joined the English Football League in 1892, Port Vale were playing at their fourth home ground. They began at the Meadows in Limekiln Lane, Longport, now Scott Lidgett Road, and then moved on to Westport Meadows in 1881, where they played for three years. An area prone to flooding, today Westport Lake now lies where the ground once stood. In 1884, the club moved to the Burslem Football and Athletic ground, where they would stay for just two years. Located close to Burslem railway station, the club took the area's name. The first match was a 6–0 win over Everton in a friendly and the ground also hosted FA Cup matches for the first time. It proved to be inadequate however, and Port Vale moved on to the Athletic Ground. Located opposite the church on Waterloo Road, directly on the Hanley and Burslem tram line, it played host to the club for 27 years, including twelve Football League seasons. It was so named as it also hosted athletics.


title: Port Vale F.C.

text: The Old Recreation Ground was Vale's home from 1913 to 1950, and was located in Hanley, standing on what is now the multi-storey car park for the Potteries Shopping Centre. The club endured hard financial times during World War II, and sold the ground to the council, who were reluctant to allow the club to rent it back. The club received £13,500 for the ground, which they needed to pay off a £3,000 debt.


title: Port Vale F.C.

text: Vale Park has been Port Vale's home ground since 1950; it is located on Hamil Road, opposite Burslem Park. Originally planned to be as massive as an 80,000 capacity stadium, the development was known as the "Wembley of the North". However the £50,000 project opened at a capacity of 40,000 (360 seated); still highly ambitious. The capacity was increased to a sell-out 49,768 for an FA Cup tie with Aston Villa in 1960. The stadium underwent numerous upgrades after Bill Bell was elected as chairman in 1987, who aimed to make it "fit for the Premiership". Outside the ground is a statue to Roy Sproson, who played 842 competitive games for the club.


title: Port Vale F.C.

text: The club has a fierce rivalry with Stoke City, as City are based in the town of Stoke-upon-Trent, but only a small percentage of residents in the town are Vale fans. Stoke City also enjoy a higher support base in the city as a whole, especially in recent times when they have achieved promotion to the country's top division. With 215,206 supporters turning out in 46 League Two games during the 2009–10 season, Vale attracted an average league attendance of 4,678. Stoke and Vale first met on 2 December 1882, and played out a total of 44 Football League games up until 10 February 2002, when the two clubs last met in the Second Division; Stoke won the first match 1–0, whilst Vale were 1–0 victors in the latest encounter. Stoke have been the more successful team over the years, as Vale have finished higher in the league on only seven occasions.


title: Port Vale F.C.

text: Port Vale also maintain a fiery rivalry with Crewe Alexandra, which has taken on greater significance since Stoke were promoted to a higher league than Vale at the end of the 2001–02 season. One study in 2019 ranked the Port Vale-Stoke City rivalry as the joint-28th biggest rivalry in English professional football, with the Port Vale-Crewe Alexandra game being the 14th biggest rivalry. Vale also maintain rivalries with Shrewsbury Town and Walsall, as well as less significant rivalries with Burton Albion, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Macclesfield Town.


title: Port Vale F.C.

text: The club's official matchday programme is highly rated, and was voted the best in League Two in 2010–11. Supporters also produced three unofficial fanzines. The oldest are "The Memoirs of Seth Bottomley" printed in the 1990s and the "Vale Park Beano", which has been printed since 1997. "Derek I'm Gutted!" is also a long-running fanzine, and has been printed since August 2000; the name was inspired by a remark by then-manager Brian Horton to local journalist Derek Davis following a defeat to Tranmere Rovers. The "OneValeFan" fansite is the largest independent Port Vale website and has been running since 1996; it was originally titled "There's only one Vale fan in Bristol?" in reference to founder Rob Fielding's location.


title: Port Vale F.C.

text: The club's most famous supporter is singer Robbie Williams, who was raised in Stoke-on-Trent. Before administration in 2012, he was a major shareholder, having bought £240,000 worth of available shares in the club in February 2006. For this investment, a restaurant at Vale Park is named after him. For the football game "FIFA 2000", he provided an original theme song with "It's Only Us", on the condition that Port Vale should be included in the game, which they were, located in the Rest of World section. This song was also featured on the only FIFA Soundtrack CD release by EMI. In 2005 Williams founded Los Angeles Vale F.C., a Super Metro League team in the United States, named after Port Vale and based at his L.A. home. His best friend, TV presenter Jonathan Wilkes, is also a Vale fan. Another famous fan is darts legend Phil Taylor; Burslem born, "The Power" is a 16 time world champion of the sport. The singer Simon Webbe was signed up to the club's youth side as a teenager until a torn ligament at age seventeen put an end to any sporting ambitions. The children's illustrator and author Bob Wilson, is also a fan. His "Stanley Bagshaw" series of books is set in an area based on Stoke, and the protagonist supports a thinly disguised version of the Vale; even basing a book on their 1954 Cup run – albeit with a successful conclusion.


title: Port Vale F.C.

text: Port Vale's highest Football League finish was fifth place in the Second Division (second tier) in 1930–31, whilst their best ever FA Cup finish saw them reach the semi-finals in 1953–54. Port Vale's largest Football League victory was a 9–1 win over Chesterfield in the Second Division in 1932, while the heaviest loss was 10–0 to Sheffield United in 1892 in the same division. Other club record scorelines include a 16–0 victory over Middlewich in a friendly in 1884 and a 12–0 defeat to Aston Villa in the Staffordshire Senior Cup in 1891.


title: Port Vale F.C.

text: The record for the most appearances for Port Vale is held by Roy Sproson, who played 842 matches in all competitions. Sproson also holds the record for the most league appearances for the club, with 760. His nephew, Phil Sproson, made 500 appearances in all competitions. Wilf Kirkham is the club's top goalscorer with 164 goals in all competitions, which includes 153 in the league and 11 in the FA Cup. Kirkham's tally of 41 goals in the 1926–27 season is also a club record. Tom Pope and Martin Foyle have also scored more than 100 goals for the club. The first player to be capped at international level while playing for Vale was Teddy Peers, when he made his debut for Wales. The most capped player is Chris Birchall, who earned 27 caps for Trinidad and Tobago while at the club. The first Vale player to score in an international match was Sammy Morgan, who scored for Northern Ireland against Spain on 16 February 1972.


title: Port Vale F.C.

text: The club's highest attendance at Vale Park is 49,768 against Aston Villa in the FA Cup on 20 February 1960, whilst the lowest is 554 against Middlesbrough U21 in the EFL Trophy on 16 October 2018. The highest transfer fee received for a Vale player is £2,000,000 from Wimbledon for Gareth Ainsworth on 29 October 1998, while Ainsworth was also the most expensive player bought, costing £500,000 from Lincoln City on 11 September 1997. The youngest player to play for the club is Nelson Agho, who was aged 15 years and 262 days on his debut against Walsall in the EFL Trophy on 13 November 2018. The oldest player is Tom Holford, who played his last match aged 46 years and 68 days against Derby County in the Second Division on 5 April 1924. Port Vale are the only club in the top four divisions of English football to have beaten the other 91 clubs of the Football League and Premier League in a competitive league fixture.


title: Port Vale F.C.

text: Port Vale Ladies was formed in 2017 and won the Staffordshire County League in their maiden season, before they entered the West Midlands Regional Women's League at the start of the 2018–19 season. The name was changed to Port Vale F.C. Women at the end of the 2020–21 season. The women's section also runs girls teams at under-9, under-11, under-12, under-13, under-14 and under-16 level.


title: Port Vale F.C.

text: Tom Morgan was the first Port Vale manager to win a league title with the club, taking them to the top of the Third Division North at the end of the 1929–30 season. Freddie Steele repeated the feat during the 1953–54 campaign, also taking the club to the semi-finals of the FA Cup. He was followed by Norman Low, who led Vale to the Fourth Division title in 1958–59. Gordon Lee (1969–70), John McGrath (1982–83) and Micky Adams (2012–13) also secured promotions. John Rudge led the club to three promotions – 1985–86, 1988–89 and 1993–94 – as well as a Football League Trophy title in 1993. His successor, Brian Horton also secured a Football League Trophy final victory in 2001.


title: Quadroon

text: In the colonial societies of the Americas and Australia, a quadroon or quarteron was a person with one quarter African/Aboriginal and three quarters European ancestry.


title: Quadroon

text: Similar classifications were octoroon for one-eighth black (Latin root "octo-", means "eight") and quintroon for one-sixteenth black.


title: Quadroon

text: Governments of the time sometimes incorporated the terms in law, defining rights and restrictions. The use of such terminology is a characteristic of hypodescent, which is the practice within a society of assigning children of mixed unions to the ethnic group which the dominant group perceives as being subordinate. The racial designations refer specifically to the number of full-blooded African ancestors or equivalent, emphasizing the quantitative least, with quadroon signifying that a person has one-quarter black ancestry.


title: Quadroon

text: The word "quadroon" was borrowed from the French "quarteron" and the Spanish "cuarterón", both of which have their root in the Latin "quartus", meaning "a quarter".


title: Quadroon

text: Similarly, the Spanish cognate "cuarterón" is used to describe "cuarterón de mulato" or "morisco" (someone whose racial origin is three-quarters white and one-quarter black) and "cuarterón de mestizo" or "castizo", (someone whose racial origin is three-quarters white and one-quarter Amerindian), especially in Caribbean South America.


title: Quadroon

text: Quadroon was used to designate a person of one-quarter African/Aboriginal ancestry, that is equivalent to one biracial parent (African/Aboriginal and Caucasian) and one white or European parent; in other words, the equivalent of one African/Aboriginal grandparent and three White or European grandparents. In Latin America, which had a variety of terms for racial groups, some terms for quadroons were "morisco" or "chino", see "casta". "Terceroon" was a term synonymous with quadroon, derived from being three generations of descent from an African ancestor, counting the ancestor as the first generation.


title: Quadroon

text: The term "mulatto" was used to designate a person who was biracial, with one fully black parent and one fully white parent, or a person whose parents are both mulatto. In some cases, it was used as a general term, for instance on US census classifications, to refer to all persons of mixed race, without regard for proportion of ancestries.


title: Quadroon

text: The term octoroon referred to a person with one-eighth African/Aboriginal ancestry; that is, someone with family heritage equivalent to one biracial grandparent; in other words, one African great-grandparent and seven European great-grandparents. An example was Russian poet Alexander Pushkin. As with the use of quadroon, this word was applied to a limited extent in Australia for those of one-eighth Aboriginal ancestry, as the government implemented assimilation policies on the Stolen generations. The term mustee was also used to refer to a person with one-eighth African ancestry.


title: Quadroon

text: The term "sacatra" was used to refer to one who was seven-eighths black or African and one-eighth white or European (i.e. an individual with one black and one griffe parent, or one white great-grandparent).


title: Quadroon

text: The term "mustefino" refers to a person with one-sixteenth African ancestry. The terms quintroon or "hexadecaroon" were also used.


title: Quadroon

text: In Latin America, the terms griffe or sambo were sometimes used for an individual of three-quarters black parentage, i.e. the child of a mulatto parent and a fully black parent.


title: Quadroon

text: In the pre-war period, mixed-race slaves with predominantly white features were depicted in photos and other media to show whites that some slaves were visually indistinguishable from themselves, thus preventing them from seeing slaves as an ethnic "other" in order to further the abolition movement.


title: Colin Salmon

text: Colin Salmon (born ) is a British actor. He is known for playing Charles Robinson in three James Bond films and James "One" Shade in the "Resident Evil" film series. He has had roles on many television series such as "Tales from the Crypt", "", "Arrow", "Limitless" and "Master of None". He also played General Zod on the Syfy series "Krypton" and provided his voice and likeness as Agent Carson in the PlayStation VR video game "Blood & Truth".


title: Colin Salmon

text: Salmon was born in Bethnal Green, London, England, the son of Sylvia Ivy Brudenell Salmon, a nurse. He is of Jamaican descent. He grew up in Luton and attended Ramridge Primary School and Ashcroft High School.


title: Colin Salmon

text: On leaving school, Salmon became the drummer in the punk rock band the Friction, which he formed along with three friends from Ashcroft High School. The band released a 7-inch EP, a live cassette, a cassette-EP and performed regularly around Luton in 1979 and 1980. Salmon briefly worked with another band, the Tee Vees, and was also a singer and trumpeter in Luton-based band Catch in the mid-1980s. He plays trumpet and has his own jazz quartet, playing at venues such as the Dorchester Grill Room and at events such as the Cheltenham Jazz Festival.


title: Colin Salmon

text: Speaking about his quartet to noted British jazz/soul writer Pete Lewis of the award-winning magazine "Blues & Soul", in a rare music-themed interview prior to their performance at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival in May 2008, Salmon stated:


title: Colin Salmon

text: Salmon is known for his role as Charles Robinson, a character in the James Bond films "Tomorrow Never Dies", "The World Is Not Enough" and "Die Another Day". He made his feature debut in 1992 as Sgt. Robert Oswald in the British mini-series "Prime Suspect 2". Salmon also played Note Makoti in the "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" and David Tyrel in the Sky One UK television series "Hex". He appears as himself in the sixth episode of the BBC Three comedy, "Little Miss Jocelyn".


title: Colin Salmon

text: In 2006 he appeared in the eighth series of ITV drama "Bad Girls" as Senior Medical Officer Dr. Rowan Dunlop. He played Dr. Moon in two episodes ("Silence in the Library" and "Forest of the Dead") of the fourth series of the long running science fiction television series "Doctor Who". (Subsequently, there were rumours that he would take on the coveted lead role of The Doctor in 2008 after David Tennant, but the role went to Matt Smith.) In 2020, writer Steven Moffat stated he envisioned Salmon's character as a future incarnation of the Doctor.


title: Colin Salmon

text: Salmon has worked twice with director Paul W. S. Anderson; appearing in the films "Resident Evil" and "Alien vs. Predator", in both of which Salmon's character meets a grisly end (in fact, a very similar end in both; both characters are sliced into small, criss-crossed chunks). He reprised his role as a clone version of One in the 2012 film "", alongside Michelle Rodriguez and Oded Fehr.


title: Colin Salmon

text: Salmon also played Oonu, squad leader of the Skybax in the 2002 mini-series "Dinotopia". His other film credits include "Captives" (1994), "Frantz Fanon: Black Skin White Mask" (a documentary directed by Isaac Julien in which Salmon plays the French psychiatrist, philosopher and revolutionary, Frantz Fanon) (1996), "The Wisdom of Crocodiles" (1998), "Fanny and Elvis" (1999) and "My Kingdom" (2001).


title: Colin Salmon

text: In 2007, Salmon appeared in the season finale of the ITV2 series "Secret Diary of a Call Girl", playing a client of the protagonist, a call girl named Hannah Baxter. In the 2008 film "Clubbed", a film about nightclub bouncers in Coventry in the 1980s, Salmon plays one of the main characters, Louis. In the same year he appeared in "The Bank Job" as Hakim Jamal.


title: Colin Salmon

text: In 2009, Salmon appeared in the of the popular American drama "Law & Order", as barrister Doug Greer in the episodes "Buried" and "Community Service". In 2012, Salmon appeared in "Death in Paradise", as killer/businessman Leon Hamilton/Vincent Carter


title: Colin Salmon

text: Salmon was one of the celebrity contestants on the tenth series of BBC One's "Strictly Come Dancing", partnered with professional dancer Kristina Rihanoff. He was eliminated as a result of the "dance-off" in Week 5, in which he competed against Richard Arnold.


title: Colin Salmon

text: In 2015, he played a fictional version of himself in the Netflix series "Master of None", alongside Aziz Ansari's main character. On 9 May 2015, Salmon gave a reading at in Horse Guards Parade, London. In 2018, he portrayed the role of Chudleigh Pomeroy in "Mortal Engines".


title: Colin Salmon

text: Salmon is a patron of the African-Caribbean Leukaemia Trust and the Richard House Children's Hospice and an ambassador for The Prince's Trust. He is also the chairman of governors at St Anne's Nursery. He is involved in the Notting Hill Carnival and is the dance captain of the Fox Carnival Band.


title: Colin Salmon

text: Salmon married visual artist Fiona Hawthorne in 1988 and the couple have four children: Sasha, Rudi, Eden and Ben.


title: Colin Salmon

text: In September 2010, Salmon was invited by his friend Samuel L. Jackson to Switzerland for "Shooting Stars Benefits 2010 Golf Tournaments". The golf competition raised money for the Samuel L. Jackson Foundation and the Swiss Red Cross to go towards a new hospital in Takéo Province, one of Cambodia's poorest provinces. In 2009 he became a co-founder of Cage Cricket with Trevor McArdle.


title: Colin Salmon

text: In an August 2021 interview, Salmon spoke out about how becoming ill with COVID-19 had affected him and his family, praising doctors for having saved his life.


title: An Inspector Calls

text: An Inspector Calls is a play written by English dramatist J. B. Priestley, first performed in the Soviet Union in 1945 and at the New Theatre in London the following year. It is one of Priestley's best-known works for the stage and is considered to be one of the classics of mid-20th century English theatre. The play's success and reputation were boosted by a successful revival by English director Stephen Daldry for the National Theatre in 1992 and a tour of the UK in 2011–2012.


title: An Inspector Calls

text: The play is a three-act drama which takes place on a single night on 5 April 1912. The play focusses on the prosperous upper middle-class Birling family, who live in a comfortable home in the fictional town of Brumley, "an industrial city in the north Midlands." The family is visited by a man calling himself Inspector Goole, who questions the family about the suicide of a young working-class woman in her mid-twenties. Long considered part of the repertory of classic drawing-room theatre, the play has also been hailed as a scathing criticism of the hypocrisies of Victorian and Edwardian English society and as an expression of Priestley's socialist political principles. The play is studied in many British schools as one of the prescribed texts for the English Literature GCSE.


title: An Inspector Calls

text: At the Birlings' home in the industrial town of Brumley, Arthur Birling who is a wealthy factory owner and local politician, celebrates his daughter Sheila's engagement to a rival magnate's son, Gerald Croft. Also in attendance are Arthur's wife Sybil and their alcoholic son Eric (whose drinking problem the family discreetly ignores). Following dinner, Arthur lectures them on the importance of self-reliance and looking after one's own, and talks of the bright future that awaits them (which, he believes, will include a place for himself on the next honours list).


title: An Inspector Calls

text: The evening is interrupted by the arrival of a man calling himself Inspector Goole, who is investigating the suicide of a young woman named Eva Smith. Her diary, the Inspector explains, refers to members of the Birling family. Goole produces a photograph of Eva and shows it to Arthur, who acknowledges that she worked in one of his mills. He admits that he dismissed her from Birling and Co. some two years ago for her involvement in an abortive workers' strike, but denies responsibility for her death.


title: An Inspector Calls

text: After prompting from Goole, Sheila admits to recognising Eva too; she had contrived to have her fired from her job in a local department store over an imagined slight. Her real motivation, Sheila ashamedly confesses, was the jealousy that she felt towards the younger, prettier woman.


title: An Inspector Calls

text: At the mention of Eva's alias "Daisy Renton", Gerald is noticeably startled, and admits to having met a woman by that name in the Palace Bar (a notorious haunt of local prostitutes). Seeing that "Daisy" was penniless and hungry, he gave her money and arranged for her to move temporarily into a vacant flat belonging to one of Gerald's friends. Goole forces Gerald to reveal that Eva later became his mistress. To Eva, he was "the most important person in her life", but they parted after a few months. Arthur and Sybil are horrified, and Sheila returns her engagement ring to Gerald, while sincerely appreciating his honesty. Gerald leaves for a walk.


title: An Inspector Calls

text: Goole turns to Sybil next, whom he identifies as the head of a women's charity, where the pregnant and destitute Eva later turned to for help. Sybil, however, convinced the committee to deny her application for financial aid. Despite vigorous cross-examination from Goole, she denies any wrongdoing. Goole then plays his final card, making Sybil lay the blame at the feet of the "drunken young man" who got Eva pregnant. Eric then enters, and after brief questioning from Goole, breaks down and admits responsibility for the pregnancy, having forced himself on Eva after a drinking spree at the Palace Bar. He took funds from his father's business in order to support her and the child, but she refused the stolen money. Eric is stricken with remorse for his actions. Arthur and Sybil are outraged by Eric's behaviour, and the evening dissolves into angry recriminations.


title: An Inspector Calls

text: Goole's questioning has revealed that each person present that evening had contributed in some way to Eva's eventual despondency and suicide. He reminds the Birlings that actions have consequences and that all people are intertwined in one society. As Goole leaves he warns the family that "If men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish" – an allusion to the impending war.


title: An Inspector Calls

text: Gerald returns, and tells the family of his growing suspicion that there may in fact be no "Inspector Goole" on the police force. Arthur makes a call to the chief constable, who confirms this. Learning from a second call by Arthur to the infirmary that no recent cases of suicide have been reported, the family surmise that the Inspector was a fraud and that they have been the victims of a hoax. Gerald and the elder Birlings celebrate in relief, but Eric and Sheila still feel guilty over their past conduct, and resolve to change their ways.


title: An Inspector Calls

text: A twist in the plot is revealed, with Mr Birling receiving a phone call, from which he learns that a young woman has just died at the infirmary in a suspected suicide, and that the police are on their way to question the family.


title: An Inspector Calls

text: Goole's true identity is left unexplained, but it is clear that the family's confessions over the course of the evening have all been true, and that public disgrace will soon befall them.


title: An Inspector Calls

text: The mysterious "Inspector Goole" claims to have seen Eva Smith's dead body earlier that day, and to have been given "a duty" to investigate her death and the Birlings' involvement in it. He seems to be familiar with every detail of the case already, interrogating the family solely to reveal their guilt rather than to discover unknown information. Both during and after Goole's visit, the Birlings question his credentials, and a phone call to the local police station reveals there is no one by his name on the force. Many critics and audiences have interpreted Goole's role as that of an "avenging angel" because of his supernatural omniscience and all-knowing final warning, and even because of his name, which is a homophone for the word "". It is suggested in the final scene that a quite real investigation will follow Goole's, and his purpose has been to warn the family in advance and encourage them to accept responsibility for their wrongdoing. The Inspector's name also alludes towards the fishing town of Goole, indicating his goal to 'fish' for clues.


title: An Inspector Calls

text: Arthur Birling is described as "a heavy-looking, rather portentous man in his middle fifties". He represents the capitalist ruling class, repeatedly describing himself with pride as a "hard-headed businessman", and is arguably the main subject of Priestley's social critique. Dominant, arrogant, self-centred, and morally blind, his stubbornness is shown when refusing responsibility for Eva's death; he fired her in order to quell dissent among his workforce and keep labour costs low, which he says is standard business practice. He remains unaffected by the details of the suicide, and his own concerns appear to be avoiding scandal, insisting that Eric account for the company money he stole, and convincing Sheila to reconsider her break with Gerald (so as to secure a promised Croft-Birling merger).


title: An Inspector Calls

text: He is the embodiment of the self-centred upper classes. Arthur Birling is an arrogant and dismissive character used by Priestley as a dramatic vehicle to criticise capitalism, the arrogance of the upper classes, and the ignorance of the elder generations.


title: An Inspector Calls

text: Sybil Birling, "a rather cold woman" of about fifty, is Arthur's wife. As the leader of a charitable organisation, she assumes a social and moral superiority over Inspector Goole, whose questioning style she frequently refers to as "impertinent" and "offensive". Like her husband, she refuses to accept responsibility for the death of Eva Smith, and seems more concerned with maintaining the family's reputation, even going so far as to lie and deny that she recognizes the girl's picture. She derides women like Eva as immoral, dishonest, and greedy.


title: An Inspector Calls

text: Sheila begins as a naive and self-centred young woman, but becomes the most sympathetic member of the Birling family over the course of the play, showing remorse for her part in Eva's downfall and encouraging her family to do the same. By the play's end her social conscience has been awakened and she has a new awareness of her responsibilities to others. She represents the younger generation's break from the selfish behaviour and capitalist views of its forebears.


title: An Inspector Calls

text: Eric is presented as a "Jack the Lad" character with a drinking habit, which led to him raping Eva and getting her pregnant. He is distanced from the rest of the family and feels he cannot talk to them about his problems. With his sister, he repents of, and accepts responsibility for, the way he treated Eva.


title: An Inspector Calls

text: The son of Sir George and Lady Croft of Crofts Limited, a competitor of Birling and Company, he is at the Birling residence to celebrate his recent engagement to Sheila. Gerald's revealed affair with Eva puts an end to the relationship, though Sheila commends him for his truthfulness and for his initial compassion towards the girl. Gerald believes that Goole is not a police inspector, that the family may not all be referring to the same woman, and that there may not be a body. Initially, he appears to be correct and does not think the Birlings have anything to feel ashamed of or worry about. He seems excited at the prospect of unmasking the "false" Inspector and seems almost desperate for others to believe him.


title: An Inspector Calls

text: When the inspector visits the Birling's house she says "an Inspector's called." She is asked to stay up late during the play by Mrs Birling to make tea for the Birling family.


title: An Inspector Calls

text: Highly successful after its first and subsequent London productions, the play is now considered one of Priestley's greatest works, and has been subject to a variety of critical interpretations.


title: An Inspector Calls

text: After the new wave of social realist theatre in the 1950s and 1960s, the play fell out of fashion, and was dismissed as an example of outdated bourgeois "drawing room" dramas, but became a staple of regional repertory theatre. Following several successful revivals (including Stephen Daldry's 1992 production for the National Theatre), the play was "rediscovered" and hailed as a damning social criticism of capitalism and middle-class hypocrisy in the manner of the social realist dramas of Shaw and Ibsen. It has been read as a parable about the destruction of Victorian social values and the disintegration of pre-World War I English society, and Goole's final speech has been interpreted variously as a quasi-Christian vision of hell and judgement, and as a socialist manifesto.