Word Finder - sleepers

definition

Someone who sleeps.

example

I'm a light sleeper: I get woken up by the smallest of sounds.

definition

That which lies dormant, as a law.

definition

A spy, saboteur, or terrorist who lives unobtrusively in a community until activated by a prearranged signal; may be part of a sleeper cell.

definition

A small starter earring, worn to prevent a piercing from closing.

definition

A railway sleeping car.

example

We spent a night on an uncomfortable sleeper between Athens and Vienna.

definition

A sleeper hold.

definition

Something that achieves unexpected success after an interval of time.

example

A box-office bomb when it first came out, the film was a sleeper, becoming much more popular decades after being released.

synonyms

• sleeper hit

definition

A goby-like bottom-feeding freshwater fish of the family Odontobutidae.

definition

A nurse shark (family Ginglymostomatidae).

definition

A type of pajama for a person, especially a child, that covers the whole body, including the feet.

example

Aaron, Devin, and Laura looked so comfy in their sleepers.

definition

An automobile which has been internally modified to excess, while retaining a mostly stock appearance in order to fool opponents in a drag race, or to avoid the attention of the police.

definition

A sedative.

definition

A railroad tie.

synonyms

• tie

definition

A structural beam in a floor running perpendicular to both the joists beneath and floorboards above.

definition

A heavy floor timber in a ship's bottom.

definition

The lowest, or bottom, tier of casks.

Thus it may fairly be said that the railway system of the United States was reconstructed between 1896 and 1905, so far as concerns rails, sleepers, ballast and the general capacity of a given group of lines to perform work.

There was no time for Cynthia to talk to her husband, who was busy serving breakfast to the late sleepers while she showed Maria, by hand communication, the upstairs chores of Bird Song.

The planks were of wood, often beech, a few inches wide, and were fastened down, end to end, on logs of wood, or " sleepers," placed crosswise at intervals of two or three feet.

From the falling of rails, sleepers, &c., when at work on the line .

In subsequent modifications the fishes were, as they continue to be, bolted to and through the rails, the sleepers being placed rather further apart and the joint being generally suspended between them.

The ballast consists of such materials as broken stone, furnace slag, gravel, cinders or earth, the lower layers commonly consisting of coarser materials than the top ones, and its purpose is to provide a firm, well-drained foundation in which the sleepers or crossties may be embedded and held in place, and by which the weight of the track and the trains may be distributed over the road-bed.

The intervals between the sleepers are filled in level with ballast, 12'2' FIG.

Stone blocks were tried as sleepers in the early days of railways, but they proved too rigid, and besides, it was found difficult to keep the line true with them.

Steel sleepers were used experimentally on the London & 'Forth-Western, but were abandoned owing to the shortness of their life.

Numerous forms of ferro-concrete sleepers have also been devised.

In Great Britain, Germany and France, at least 90% of the wooden sleepers are " treated " before they are laid, to ii.crease their resistance to decay, and the same practice is followed to some extent in other European countries.

There are two main ways of attaching the rails to the sleepers, corresponding to two main types of rails - the bull-headed rail A B FIG.

The chairs on the British system weigh about 45 or 50 lb each on important lines, though they may be less where the traffic is light, and are fixed to the sleepers each by two, three or four fastenings, either screw spikes, or round drift bolts entered in holes previously bored, or fang bolts or wooden trenails.

Here the crane-post is extended into a long mast and is furnished with pivots at the top and bottom; the mast is supported by two " back ties," and these are connected to the socket of the bottom pivot by the " sleepers."

Gangaw (Messua ferrea) the Assam iron-wood, is suitable for sleepers; and didu (Bombax insigne) is used for tea-boxes and packing-cases.

Sleepers, called ties or cross-ties in America, are the blocks or slabs on which the rails are carried.

Some railway companies, however, having a long mileage in timberless regions, do " treat " their sleepers.

The rails, which for heavy main line traffic may weigh as much as too lb per yard, or even more, are rolled in lengths of from 30 to 60 ft., and sleepers are placed under them at intervals of between 2 and 3 ft.

On the London & North-Western railway there are 24 sleepers to each 60 ft.

Occasionally the joints thus formed are " supported " on a sleeper, as was the practice in the early days of railway construction, but they are generally " suspended " between two sleepers, which are set rather more closely together than at other points in the rail.

Preferably, they are so arranged that those in both lines of rails come opposite each other and are placed between the same pair of sleepers.

Flat-bottomed rails are fastened to the sleepers by hookheaded spikes, the heads of which project over the flanges.

In the United States the spikes are simply driven in with a maul, and the rails stand upright, little care being taken to prepare seats for them on the sleepers, on which they soon seat themselves.

The simplicity is great; they can be quickly mounted and dismounted; the correct gauge can be perfectly maintained; the sections of rails and sleepers (which are of iron) are very portable, and skilled labour is not required to lay or to take them up; the making of a " turn-out " is easy, by taking out a 15 ft.

In addition to teak, which provides the bulk of the revenue, the most valuable woods are sha or cutch, india rubber, pyingado, or ironwood for railway sleepers, and padauk.

The rails used are of flat bottomed or bridge section varying in weight from 15 to 25 lb to the yd.; they are laid upon cross sleepers in a temporary manner, so that they can be easily shifted along the working faces, but are carefully secured along main roads intended to carry traffic continuously for some time.

They are applied on one side of the cage only, forming a complete vertical railway, carried by iron cross sleepers, with proper seats for the rails instead of wooden buntons; the cage is guided by curved shoes of a proper section to cover the heads of the rails.

For railway bridges it commonly consists of cross girders, attached to or resting on the main girders, and longitudinal rail girders or stringers carried by the cross girders and directly supporting the sleepers and rails.

In railway bridges the weight of sleepers, rails, &c., is 0.2 to 0.25 tons per ft.

The thinnings of the larch woods in the Highlands are in demand for railway sleepers, scaffold poles, and mining timber, and are applied to a variety of agricultural purposes.

The same is true of xviii., which at first sight seems to fall into several pieces; the history of the seven sleepers, the grotesque narrative about Moses, and that about Alexander " the Horned," are all connected together, and the same rhyme through the whole sura.

Under Greek influence he was identified with Pan, and just as there was supposed to be a number of Panisci, so the existence of many Fauni was assumed - misshapen and mischievous goblins of the forest, with pointed ears, tails and goat's feet, who loved to torment sleepers with hideous nightmares.

Musa into Asia Minor to find out all about the Seven Sleepers which he discovered in the neighbourhood of Arabissus,' and Sallam the Interpreter to explore the situation of the famous wall of Gog and Magog, which he reached at the north-west frontier of China.

Gregory also left a life of St Andrew, translated from the Greek, and a history of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, translated from Syriac.

The seven sleepers are a favourite subject in early medieval art.

In England the cluster-pine has been largely planted on sandy districts near the sea, and has become naturalized in Purbeck and other wild tracts in the southern counties, but the summer heat is too small to permit of its resinous products acquiring any value; the soft coarse wood, though perishable in the natural state, has been used for railway sleepers after saturation with creosote or preservative solutions.

They are remarkably heavy sleepers, and are readily captured by the inhabitants ascending the trees on which they roost, and noosing them before they awaken.

Children who are very heavy sleepers may need an alarm clock that uses a vibrating pad and a flashing light to wake them.

The day that followed the wreck was well advanced before the sleepers awakened.

The garden was designed with further recycled resources in mind using old chimney pots, railroad sleepers and cockle shells from the local beach.

Showing a woodland clearing with what appears to be a row of railroad sleepers in the foreground.

Single sleepers had as an inn a lone humpback whale fruit peddlers florists.

Across the entrance is a gate made of sleepers and telegraph poles to stop the debris.

Would you believe that they are now going to ban railroad sleepers (railroad ties )?

The condition of the remaining track varies from quite good, some relatively new on concrete sleepers to worn out on rotted wooden sleepers.

The job involves laying sleepers out on the ground, placing chairs on top of the sleepers, followed by screwing in bolts.

The shelter door opened to rough sleepers at 8.00pm to 8.00am for the first time on 15th March.

For details see Caledonian sleepers or call National Rail Enquiries on 08457 484950.

This keeps this section in tip top condition with no rotten sleepers.

The new concrete sleepers can be seen laid out to the left of the photo.