Impact
Garratt's design for an articulated steam locomotive saw substantial usage in many in regions throughout Africa, South America, Asia, and the South Pacific where difficult terrain impeded railroad travel. In particular, the locomotive's articulated nature allowed it to navigate rail lines with sharp and frequent curves more easily than designs which lacked articulation. The ability to transverse previously impassable regions of land via railroad allowed for increased traffic of human activity and settlements, drastically reducing the isolated nature of previously remote areas of the world.
Additionally, the Garratt saw significant usage in economically developing countries due to extensive reliance on narrow gauge rail in these locales. The Garratt boasted high efficiency within its class and rail gauge, making its usage economically attractive in counties which would otherwise have to run larger numbers of locomotives per train or convert their existing rail lines to a larger gauge. This acted in part as an incentive for further rail expansion, and by extension, societal and economic expansion.
Read more about this topic: Herbert William Garratt
Famous quotes containing the word impact:
“Too many existing classrooms for young children have this overriding goal: To get the children ready for first grade. This goal is unworthy. It is hurtful. This goal has had the most distorting impact on five-year-olds. It causes kindergartens to be merely the handmaidens of first grade.... Kindergarten teachers cannot look at their own children and plan for their present needs as five-year-olds.”
—James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)
“As in political revolutions, so in paradigm choice—there is no standard higher than the assent of the relevant community. To discover how scientific revolutions are effected, we shall therefore have to examine not only the impact of nature and of logic, but also the techniques of persuasive argumentation effective within the quite special groups that constitute the community of scientists.”
—Thomas S. Kuhn (b. 1922)
“One can describe a landscape in many different words and sentences, but one would not normally cut up a picture of a landscape and rearrange it in different patterns in order to describe it in different ways. Because a photograph is not composed of discrete units strung out in a linear row of meaningful pieces, we do not understand it by looking at one element after another in a set sequence. The photograph is understood in one act of seeing; it is perceived in a gestalt.”
—Joshua Meyrowitz, U.S. educator, media critic. “The Blurring of Public and Private Behaviors,” No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior, Oxford University Press (1985)