Rail

Rail or rails may refer to:

Rail transport

Science, technology, biology, and medicine

RAIL (magazine)

RAIL is a UK magazine on the subject of current rail transport in Great Britain. It is published every two weeks by Bauer Consumer Media and is available in the transport sections of many British newsagents. It is targeted primarily at the enthusiast market (those whose hobby is railways, rather than their occupation), but also covers business issues, often in depth.

RAIL is more than three decades old, and was known as Rail Enthusiast from its launch in 1981 until 1988. It is one of only two railway magazines that increased its circulation in 2012 (the other being The Railway Magazine, published monthly, which RAIL outperforms overall). It has had roughly the same cover design for at least a decade, with a capitalised italic red RAIL along the top of the front cover.

Editorial policy

RAIL is customarily critical of railway institutions, including the Rail Delivery Group, the Office of Rail Regulation, as well as, since it assumed greater railway powers, the Department for Transport. RAIL's continuing campaigns include one against advertising and media images showing celebrities and others walking between the rails (an unsafe practice) and another against weeds on railways.

Track (rail transport)

The track on a railway or railroad, also known as the permanent way, is the structure consisting of the rails, fasteners, railroad ties (sleepers, British English) and ballast (or slab track), plus the underlying subgrade. It enables trains to move by providing a dependable surface for their wheels to roll. For clarity it is often referred to as railway track (British English and UIC terminology) or railroad track (predominantly in the United States). Tracks where electric trains or electric trams run are equipped with an electrification system such as an overhead electrical power line or an additional electrified rail.

The term permanent way also refers to the track in addition to lineside structures such as fences etc.

Structure

Traditional track structure

Notwithstanding modern technical developments, the overwhelmingly dominant track form worldwide consists of flat-bottom steel rails supported on timber or pre-stressed concrete sleepers, which are themselves laid on crushed stone ballast.

Times New Roman

Times New Roman is a serif typeface commissioned by the British newspaper The Times in 1931 and created by Victor Lardent in collaboration with the British branch of the printing equipment company Monotype. Although no longer used by The Times, Times New Roman is still very common in book and general printing. Through distribution with Microsoft products and as a standard computer font, it has become one of the most widely used typefaces in history.

Times New Roman's creation took place through the influence of Stanley Morison of Monotype. Morison was an artistic director at Monotype, historian of printing and informal adviser to the Times, who recommended that they change typeface from the spindly and somewhat dated nineteenth-century Didone typeface previously used to a more robust, solid design, returning to traditions of printing from the eighteenth century and before. This matched a common trend in printing of the period.

Morison proposed an older Monotype typeface named Plantin as a basis for the design, but revisions were made to increase legibility and economy of space. The new font was drawn by Victor Lardent, an artist from the advertising department of The Times, with Morison consulting, before refinement by the experienced Monotype drawing office team.The new design made its debut in the 3 October 1932 issue of The Times. After one year, the design was released for commercial sale. The Times stayed with Times New Roman for 40 years, but new production techniques and the format change from broadsheet to tabloid in 2004 have caused the newspaper to switch typeface five times since 1972. However, all the new fonts have been variants of the original New Roman typeface.

Multiplication sign

The multiplication sign or times sign is the symbol ×. The symbol is similar to the lowercase letter x but is a more symmetric saltire, and has different uses. It is also known as St. Andrew's Cross and dimension sign.

Uses

In mathematics, the symbol × (read as times or multiplied by) is primarily used to denote the

In biology, the multiplication sign is used in a botanical hybrid name, where it is read as "cross".

The multiplication sign is also used by historians for an event between two dates. When employed between two dates, for example 1225 and 1232, 1225×1232 means "no earlier than 1225 and no later than 1232". It can also be used in a date range: 1225×1232–1278.

History

The × symbol for multiplication was introduced by William Oughtred in 1631. It was chosen for religious reasons to represent the cross.

Terrace Martin

Terrace Martin is an American music producer from Los Angeles, California. He is perhaps best known for producing records for several prominent artists, such as Snoop Dogg, Busta Rhymes, Stevie Wonder, Charlie Wilson, Raphael Saadiq and Kendrick Lamar, among others. Martin is a multi-instrumentalist, who samples everything from funk and jazz to classical and soul, in his hip hop production. Martin works as an artist under his company, Terrace Martin Music, which is managed by Executive Director Monesia Hobbs.

Early life

Martin's father is a jazz drummer and his mother is a singer. He grew up listening to a broad range of music, including John Coltrane and Parliament and began playing the piano at age six. At 13, producing his first tracks on his Casio CZ101 Keyboard and an E-mu SP-1200, Martin was encouraged to take up the saxophone and learned to play it by himself before enrolling into Santa Monica High School, to sharpen his musical skills. He transferred to Locke High School, to study under Reggie Andrews, where he became first chair of the All-State Jazz Band. As a child prodigy, Martin gained the interest of talk show host Jay Leno, who presented him with a scholarship and later purchased his first professional horn. After high school, Martin attended CalArts but decided school wasn't for him, and began touring with Puff Daddy and the gospel choir God's Property.