Design and development.

Concept.

The Bearcat concept began during a meeting between Battle of Midway veteran F4F Wildcat pilots and Grumman Vice President Jake Swirbul at Pearl Harbor on 23 June 1942. At the meeting, Lieutenant Commander Jimmie Thach emphasized one of the most important requirements in a good fighter plane was "climb rate".  Climb performance is strongly related to the power-to-weight ratio, and is maximized by wrapping the smallest and lightest possible airframe around the most powerful available engine. Another goal was that the G-58 (Grumman's design designation for the aircraft) should be able to operate from escort carriers, which were then limited to the obsolescent F4F Wildcat as the Grumman F6F Hellcat was too large and heavy. A small, lightweight aircraft would make this possible. After intensively analyzing carrier warfare in the Pacific Theater of Operations for a year and a half, Grumman began development of the G-58 Bearcat in late 1943.  There is considerable debate among sources as to whether or not the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 influenced the design of the G-58. It is known that test pilots from Grumman examined and flew a captured Fw 190 in England in early 1943, and the G-58 has a number of design notes in common with the Fw 190 that the Hellcat did not, especially in the cowling and landing gear arrangements. However, no definitive evidence has been presented that these tests had a direct input to the G-58 design.

Design.

In 1943, Grumman was in the process of introducing the F6F Hellcat, powered by the Pratt & Whitney R-2800 engine which provided. The R-2800 was the most powerful American engine available at that time, so it would be retained for the G-58. This meant that improved performance would have to come from a lighter airframe.  To meet this goal, the Bearcat's fuselage was about shorter than the Hellcat, and was cut down vertically behind the cockpit area. This allowed the use of a bubble canopy, the first to be fitted to a US Navy fighter. The vertical stabilizer was the same height as the Hellcat's, but increased aspect ratio, giving it a thinner look. The wingspan was 7 feet less than the Hellcat's. Structurally the fuselage used flush riveting as well as spot welding, with a heavy gauge 302W aluminum alloy skin suitable for carrier landings. Armor protection was provided for the pilot, engine and oil cooler.  The Hellcat used a 13 ft 1 in three-bladed Hamilton Standard propeller. A slight reduction in size was made by moving to a 12 ft 7 in Aeroproducts four-bladed propeller. Keeping the prop clear of the deck required long landing gear, which, combined with the shortened fuselage, gave the Bearcat a significant "nose-up" profile on land. The hydraulically operated undercarriage used an articulated trunnion which extended the length of the oleo legs when lowered; as the undercarriage retracted the legs were shortened, enabling them to fit into a wheel well which was entirely in the wing. An additional benefit of the inward retracting units was a wide track, which helped counter propeller torque on takeoff and gave the F8F good ground and carrier deck handling.  The design team had set the goal that the G-58 should weigh 8,750 lb/3,969 kg fully loaded. As development continued it became clear this was impossible to achieve as the structure of the new fighter had to be made strong enough for aircraft carrier landings. Ultimately much of the weight-saving measures included restricting the internal fuel capacity to 160 gal (606 l) (later 183) and limiting the fixed armament to four.50 cal Browning M2/AN machine guns, two in each wing. The limited range due to the reduced fuel load would mean it would be useful in the interception role, but meant that the Hellcat would still be needed for longer range patrols. A later role was defending the fleet against airborne "kamikaze" attacks. Compared to the Hellcat, the Bearcat was 20% lighter, had a 30% better rate of climb and was 50 mph (80 km/h) faster.  Another weight-saving concept the designers came up with was detachable wingtips. The wings were designed to fold at a point about out along the span, reducing the space taken up on the carrier. Normally the hinge system would have to be built very strong in order to transmit loads from the outer portions of the wing to the main spar in the inner section, which adds considerable weight. Instead of building the entire wing to be able to withstand high-g loads, only the inner portion of the wing was able to do this. The outer portions were more lightly constructed, and designed to snap off at the hinge line if the g-force exceeded 7.5 g. In this case the aircraft would still be flyable and could be repaired after returning to the carrier. This saved of weight.

Prototypes.

The design was completed in November 1943 and an order for two prototypes was placed on 27 November 1943 under the BuAir designation XF8F-1. The first prototype flew on 21 August 1944, only nine months after the design effort started. The initial flight test demonstrated a per minute climb rate and a top speed of. Compared to the Vought F4U Corsair, the Bearcat was marginally slower but more maneuverable and climbed more quickly.  Testing demonstrated a number of problems, notably a lack of horizontal stability, an underpowered trim system, landing gear that could be extended only at slow speeds, an unreliable airspeed indicator, and a cramped cockpit. The test pilots also requested that six guns be installed. The stability problem was addressed on the second prototype by adding a triangular fillet to the front of the vertical stabilizer. The extra guns could not be incorporated due to weight and balance considerations.

Production.

The Navy placed a production contract for 2,023 aircraft based on the second prototype on 6 October 1944. On 5 February 1945 they awarded another contract for 1,876 slightly modified aircraft from General Motors, given the designation F3M-1. These differed primarily in having the R-2800-34W engine and a small increase in fuel capacity.  Deliveries from Grumman began on 21 May 1945. The end of the war led to the Grumman order being reduced to 770 examples, and the GM contract being cancelled outright. An additional order was placed for 126 F8F-1B's replacing the.50 cal machine guns with the 20 mm M2 cannon, the US version of the widely used Hispano-Suiza HS.404. Fifteen of these were later modified as F8F-1N night fighters with an APS-19 radar mounted under the starboard wing.  An unmodified production F8F-1 set a 1946 time-to-climb record (after a run of 115 ft/35 m) of 10,000 ft (3,048 m) in 94 seconds (6,383 fpm). The Bearcat held this record for 10 years until it was broken by a jet fighter (which still could not match the Bearcat's short takeoff distance).  In 1948 Grumman introduced a number of improvements to produce the F8F-2. Among the changes were a modified cowling design, taller vertical fin, and the slightly more powerful R-2800-30W engine producing. A total of 293 F8F-2s were produced, along with 12 F8F-2N night fighters and 60 F8F-2P reconnaissance versions.  Production ended in 1949, and the first units began to convert off the type that year. The last Bearcats were withdrawn in 1952.

Operational history.

The F8F prototypes were ordered in November 1943 and first flew on 21 August 1944, a mere nine months later. The first production aircraft was delivered in February 1945 and the first squadron, Fighter Squadron 19 (VF-19), was operational by 21 May 1945, but World War II was over before the aircraft saw combat service.  One problem that became evident in service was the snap-off wingtips not working as expected. While they worked well under carefully controlled conditions in flight and on the ground, in the field, where aircraft were repetitively stressed by landing on carriers and since the wings were slightly less carefully made in the factories, there was a possibility that only one wingtip would break away with the possibility of the aircraft crashing. This was replaced with an explosives system to blow the wingtips off together, which also worked well, but this ended when a ground technician died due to an accidental triggering. In the end, the wings were reinforced and the aircraft limited to 7.5 g.  Postwar, the F8F became a major U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps fighter, equipping 24 fighter squadrons in the Navy and a smaller number in the Marines. Often mentioned as one of the best-handling piston-engine fighters ever built, its performance was sufficient to outperform many early jets. Its capability for aerobatic performance is illustrated by its selection as the second demonstration aircraft for the navy's elite Blue Angels flight demonstration squadron in 1946, replacing the Grumman F6F Hellcat. The Blue Angels flew the Bearcat until the team was temporarily disbanded in 1950 during the Korean War and pressed into operational combat service. The F9F Panther and McDonnell F2H Banshee largely replaced the Bearcat as their performance and other advantages eclipsed piston-engine fighters.

First combat.

The first combat for the F8F Bearcat was during the French Indochina War (1946–1954) when nearly 200 Bearcats were delivered to the French forces in 1951. When the war ended in 1954, 28 surviving Bearcats were supplied to the Republic of Vietnam Air Force and entered service in 1956. The Vietnamese Bearcats were retired in 1960, replaced with Douglas A-1 Skyraiders and North American T-28 Trojans as the Vietnam War (1957–1975) continued. F8Fs were also supplied to Thailand during the same time period.

Air racing.

Bearcats have long been popular in air racing. A stock Bearcat flown by Mira Slovak and sponsored by Bill Stead won the first Reno Air Race in 1964. "Rare Bear", a highly modified F8F owned by Lyle Shelton, went on to dominate the event for decades, often competing with Daryl Greenamyer, another famous racer with victories in his own Bearcat ("Conquest I", now at the Smithsonian's NASM) and holder of a piston-engined aircraft world speed record in it. "Rare Bear" also set many performance records, including the 3 km World Speed Record for piston-driven aircraft (528.33 mph/850.26 km/h), set in 1989, and a new time-to-climb record (3,000 m in 91.9 seconds (6,425.9 fpm), set in 1972, breaking the 1946 record cited above).

The Grumman F8F Bearcat is an American single-engine carrier-based fighter aircraft introduced in late World War II. It served during the mid-20th century in the United States Navy, the United States Marine Corps, and the air forces of other nations. It was Grumman Aircraft's last piston engined fighter aircraft. Modified versions have broken speed records for piston-engined aircraft, and are popular among warbird owners and air racers.

Die Grumman F8F "Bearcat" war ein von Grumman gebauter kolbenmotorgetriebener trägergestützter Jagdeinsitzer in Ganzmetallbauweise. Die Produktion dieser Serie begann erst gegen Ende des Zweiten Weltkrieges, weshalb es zu keinem Kriegseinsatz mehr kam.


Expedition route.

The party of three explorers departed Diamond City, Montana on September 6, 1869 and traveled up the Missouri River to Three Forks, Montana. They then began the easterly march up the Gallatin Valley, stopping in Bozeman, Montana for supplies on September 8, 1869. From Bozeman, they moved to the shadows of Bozeman Pass, camping four miles east of Fort Ellis. On September 10, 1869 they struck out over the pass and down Trail Creek to reach the Yellowstone River near Emigrant Gulch. They followed the river south until they entered the park region on September 13, 1869, at the confluence of the Gardner and Yellowstone rivers near present-day Gardiner, Montana. After crossing the mouth of the Gardner River, they traveled along the benches above the western side of the Yellowstone until they reached Tower Fall. At Tower Fall they forded the Yellowstone and explored the East Fork (Lamar River) and Lamar Valley probably as far as the confluence with Calfee Creek. From there, the party returned to the Yellowstone in a due West route which brought them to the area of Yellowstone Falls and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. The party continued south along the course of the Yellowstone River crossing the river twice until they reached the north shore of Yellowstone Lake near the mouth of Pelican Creek. From Pelican Creek, Cook-Folsom-Peterson followed the western shoreline of Yellowstone lake closely until they reached the West Thumb area. From West Thumb, the party stuck out due West over the Continental Divide and emerged on the northernmost point of Shoshone Lake. Turning northwest, they again crossed the divide and began traveling down the Firehole River into the geyser basins. They followed the Firehole River then Madison River out of the region, exiting the current park boundary near what is now the town of West Yellowstone, Montana on October 3, 1869. They followed the Madison down through Madison Canyon, emerging into familiar territory of the lower Madison River and mountains to the west around Virginia City, Montana. On the evening of October 11, 1869, Cook, Folsom and Peterson, after 36 days of travel returned to Diamond City, Montana.

Accounts of the expedition.

Shortly after his return from Yellowstone, Folsom was employed as field surveyor by Henry Washburn, the Surveyor General of the Montana Territory. While in that office, Cook and Folsom shared their experiences and diaries with Washburn and W. W. deLacy, the territorial map maker. From these discussions, deLacy published an updated map of the Yellowstone region.  When the Washburn party traveled into Yellowstone in August 1870, Henry Washburn was carrying copies of the Cook and Folsom diaries and the deLacy map.  Once Folsom was back in Helena, Montana as a surveyor, his friends Nathaniel P. Langford and Samuel Thomas Hauser asked him to give a talk on the expedition to a group of prominent Helena citizens. Folsom refused to relate the experiences publicly because he thought nobody would believe him. However, those who knew Folsom well, believed him and credited him with the inspiration needed to organize the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition in 1870.  Both Cook and Folsom kept journals during the trip. Peterson did not. After the expedition, Cook combined the two journals into a single version. This version was submitted to both the New York Tribune and Scribners for publication. Both declined citing the unreliability and improbability of the information. It was finally published in a significantly edited version in the "Western Monthly Magazine". In 1904, a version of the account was published in the "Contributions to the Historical Society of Montana". Sometime around 1900, William Peterson wrote "A Reminiscence of William Peterson" which was later published in the "Yellowstone Interpreter" in 1964. Charles Cook lived to participate in the 50th Anniversary celebration of Yellowstone's creation in 1922. That year he authored the "Reconstructed Diary of the Cook-Folsom Diary", published in the "Haynes Bulletin" in 1922-23. The most accurate and comprehensive account of the expedition was produced by Aubrey L. Haines, the Yellowstone National Park historian in 1965 when he produced "The Valley of the Upper Yellowstone" which was masterfully reconstructed from all the previous fragmented accounts.

Names given to park features.

The Cook–Folsom–Peterson Expedition did not name any park features discovered during the expedition that have persisted to the present day. In their journals they did refer to many features incorrectly (based on incomplete or inaccurate maps made from previous accounts), thus causing some confusion that had to be sorted out by later explorations and surveys. One name that took a few years to sort out was "Madison Lake", the small pond that is the headwater of the Firehole River. In some accounts, Shoshone Lake was actually referred to as "Madison Lake" because many believed Shoshone Lake was at the headwater of the Madison River drainage

The Cook–Folsom–Peterson Expedition of 1869 was the first organized expedition to explore the region that became Yellowstone National Park. The privately financed expedition was carried out by David E. Folsom, Charles W. Cook and William Peterson of Diamond City, Montana, a gold camp in the Confederate Gulch area of the Big Belt Mountains east of Helena, Montana. The journals kept by Cook and Folsom, as well as their personal accounts to friends were of significant inspirational value to spur the organization of the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition which visited Yellowstone in 1870.

Die Folsom-Expedition von 1869 war die erste geglückte Expedition ins Gebiet des heutigen Yellowstone-Nationalparkes. Sie wurde von David E. Folsom, Charles W. Cook und William Peterson durchgeführt.


Career before politics.

Neelie Kroes was born on 19 July 1941 in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Her father owned the transport company Zwatra.  Kroes attended a Protestant grammar school in Rotterdam. She continued to a Protestant high school. In 1958 she went to study economics at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. In 1961, Kroes was praeses of the R.V.S.V. (the largest Rotterdam sorority). She was also elected as a member of the University Council. After obtaining a Bachelor of Economics and later a Master of Economics degree in 1965, she became a research fellow at the economic faculty at that university. During this period Kroes was involved in the women's organisation within the VVD. In this period she also was member of the board of heavy transporting company "ZwaTra", the company of her father.

Local and national politics.

Neelie Kroes was first elected member of the Rotterdam city council for the VVD in 1970.  In 1971 she was elected to the House of Representatives, forcing her to stop her fellowship. In parliament, she became spokesperson for education. She remained a member of parliament until 1977, when she became State Secretary for Transport, Public Works and Water Management in the First Van Agt Cabinet, responsible for Postal and Telephone Services and Transport. In 1981 she briefly returned to the House of Representatives, while her party, VVD, was in the opposition. In 1982 she returned to office in the First and Second Lubbers Cabinets, now as the Minister of Transport, Public Works and Water Management, a post that she held until 1989. As a minister she was responsible for the privatisation of the Postgiro (Postbank, initially a part of the PTT), the Post and Telephone Services, the Harbour Pilotage services, as well as the commissioning of the Betuwe Railway.  Kroes refused to become Minister of Defence in 1988.  During her tenure as minister, she was involved in the so-called TCR affair, about the illegal sale of warships. She had also a business relationship with a tank cleaning company (TCR), which illegally received governmental subsidies.

After national politics.

After her ministerial career, Kroes spent two years working on two projects as an advisor to Karel van Miert, at that time European Commissioner for Transport. She also became a member of the Rotterdam Chamber of Commerce, furthermore she served as a board member for Ballast Nedam (shipping), ABP-PGGM Capital Holdings N.V. (a joint subsidiary of the pension funds ABP and PGGM), NIB (an investment bank), McDonald's Netherlands, Nedlloyd, and Nederlandse Spoorwegen (the Dutch railroad company).  In 1991 Kroes became chairperson of Nyenrode University, a private business school. During this period Kroes also was a member of the Advisory Board of the Prof.Mr. B.M. Teldersstichting, the scientific bureau of VVD.  According to her husband, Bram Peper, from 1993 to 2001 Kroes relied on astrologers and clairvoyants for personal and business advice. Until 2004 Kroes maintained an office in the castle of Jan-Dirk Paarlberg, a real estate mogul who was convicted to four and a half years in prison for money-laundering and extortion. One of the astrologers advising Kroes during that time was Lenie Drent, who had been providing business advice to Paarlberg for decades.  Kroes has held and still holds many side offices, mainly in cultural and social organisations. She is chairperson of "Poets of all Nations", the "Delta Psychiatric Hospital" and of the board of the Rembrandt House Museum. Also, she was a member of several boards of commissioners, for instance at Nedlloyd (a shipping company) and Lucent Technologies (an information and communication technologies company).

European Commission.

Commissioner for Competition.

In 2004 Kroes was appointed the European Commissioner for Competition. At the time, her nomination was heavily criticised because of her ties to big business and alleged involvement in shady arms deals. Kroes has tried to uphold her integrity; whenever she has to deal with issues concerning competition in branches of industry in which she used to be active as a board member, Commissioner McCreevy takes over her responsibilities.  As chairperson of Nyenrode Business University, Kroes awarded an honorary doctorate to Microsoft founder Bill Gates in 1996. As a European Commissioner for Competition one of her first tasks in 2004 was to oversee the sanctions against Microsoft by the European Commission, known as the European Union Microsoft competition case. This case resulted in the requirement to release documents to aid commercial interoperability and included a €497 million fine for Microsoft.  Kroes attended conferences organized by the Bilderberg Group every year between 2005 and 2012.  In 2009 she was transferred to another European Commissioner post, namely ICT and Telecom. She was also appointed as one of the vice-presidents of the European Commission.

Commissioner for Digital Agenda.

In 2010 she became European Commissioner for Digital Agenda in the second Barroso Commission. The Digital Agenda for Europe was proposed by the European Commission on 19 May 2010. The Digital Agenda for Europe is supported by the EU Digital Competitiveness Report launched also on 19 May 2010. She is a proponent of Free and Open Source Software.  Since 2010 she has served as a Commissioner for the Broadband Commission for Digital Development which leverages broadband technologies as a key enabler for social and economic development.  In 2010 it was suggested that she would become prime-minister in the Netherlands, when Mark Rutte would stay in parliament due to difficulties in the formations in the new Cabinet. However, eventually Rutte became prime-minister.  In December 2011 Kroes invited Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg - who had resigned as German Minister of Defence in March 2011 due to plagiarism charges - as advisor to the European Commission as part of its "No Disconnect Strategy" designed to promote Internet freedom.  In November 2012 Kroes made international news when she said her advisers at the Internet Governance Forum in Baku, Azerbaijan had been the victims of computer hacking.

Later career.

Kroes is currently leading "StartupDelta", a public-private initiative to help promote the Netherlands as a destination for startup companies. For the 2019 European elections, she was brought into the European election campaign by Guy Verhofstadt's Open Flemish Liberals and Democrats (Open VLD) in Belgium.  In addition, Kroes has been holding a variety of paid and unpaid positions.

Personal life.

Kroes was married to social democratic minister and mayor Bram Peper. She is a confidant of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, known for her criticism of Islam and having a fatwa issued, and persuaded her to switch allegiance from the social democratic PvdA to the VVD.

Controversy.

In 2016, leaks to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (who also oversaw the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers leaks) revealed that from 2001 to 2009 Kroes was the director of Mint Holdings, a company registered in the Bahamas. As part of the EU rules, a commissioner is obliged to declare previous and current economic interests, but she did not declare her directorship of the Bahamas company. Further, EU commissioners are not allowed to hold outside directorships while in office (Kroes was in office 2004–2014). According to her lawyer, Kroes acknowledged the situation, calling it an "oversight", and declared that she would take full responsibility.

Recognition.

Awards.

Kroes was International Road Federation Man of the Year of 1993.  Kroes made the Forbes' The World's 100 Most Powerful Women list multiple times: as number 53 in 2009, 47 in 2008, 59 in 2007.

Neelie Kroes (; born 19 July 1941) is a retired Dutch politician of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and businesswoman.

Neelie Kroes (* 19. Juli 1941 in Rotterdam) ist eine niederländische Politikerin der liberalen Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie (VVD). Von 2010 bis 2014 war sie EU-Kommissarin für die Digitale Agenda. Zuvor war sie ab November 2004 EU-Wettbewerbskommissarin. Sie gehörte mehreren Aufsichtsräten namhafter Unternehmen an und war unter anderem niederländische Verkehrsministerin.


Signs and symptoms.

Signs and symptoms of Eisenmenger syndrome include the following:

Causes.

A number of congenital heart defects can cause Eisenmenger syndrome, including atrial septal defects, ventricular septal defects, patent ductus arteriosus, and more complex types of acyanotic heart disease.

Pathogenesis.

The reason Eisenmenger's syndrome often presents later in life can be explained by alterations of the normal physiology of the heart and the maladaptive responses that occur over time. The larger and more muscular left side of the heart must generate the high pressure required to supply blood to the extensive, high-resistance systemic circulation. In contrast, the smaller, right side of the heart must generate a much lower pressure in order to pass blood through the low-resistance, high compliance circulation of the lungs. The lungs are able to accomplish this low-resistance circulation largely due to the fact that the length of the pulmonary circulation is smaller, and because much of the circuitry is in parallel rather than in series. If a significant anatomic defect (i.e. a hole or breach) exists between the two sides of the heart, a shunt will occur, causing blood to flow down the normal pressure gradient from the left side to the right side. The amount of blood shunted is proportional to the size of the defect, and the beat-to-beat volume of blood pumped through a left-to-right breach is a percentage of anticipated cardiac output (CO) of the left ventricle. Clinically a low index or percentage of CO ejected through a shunt is harmless; a high index or percentage of CO ejected through a left-to-right shunt heralds Eisenmenger's physiology.  The left-to-right shunting of blood results in abnormally high blood flow and pressure directed to the right heart circulation, gradually leading to maladaptive changes that ultimately result in pulmonary hypertension. Increased right-sided blood volume and pressure causes a cascade of pathologic damage to the delicate pulmonary capillaries, causing them to be incrementally replaced with scar tissue. Scar (dead lung tissue) does not contribute to oxygen transfer, therefore decreasing the useful volume of the pulmonary vasculature. The scar tissue also provides less flexibility and compliance than normal lung tissue, causing further increases in pulmonary blood pressure, and the weakened heart must pump harder to continue supplying the lungs, leading to damage of more capillaries. It is because of this maladaptive response that at the onset of Eisenmenger's syndrome, the damage is considered irreversible, even if the underlying heart defect is corrected after the fact.  Eventually, due to increased resistance and decreased compliance of the pulmonary vessels, elevated pulmonary pressures cause the myocardium of the right heart to hypertrophy (RVH). The onset of Eisenmenger's syndrome begins when right ventricular hypertrophy causes right heart pressures to exceed that of the left heart, leading to reversal of blood flow through the shunt (i.e., blood moves from the right side of the heart to the left side). As a consequence, deoxygenated blood returning from the body bypasses the lungs through the reversed shunt and proceeds directly to systemic circulation, leading to cyanosis and resultant organ damage.  The defect, now a right-to-left shunt, causes reduced oxygen saturation in the arterial blood due to mixing of oxygenated blood returning from the lungs with the deoxygenated blood returning from systemic circulation. This decreased saturation is sensed by the kidneys, resulting in a compensatory increase in erythropoietin production and an increased production of red blood cells in an attempt to increase oxygen delivery. As the bone marrow increases erythropoiesis, the systemic reticulocyte count and the risk for hyperviscosity syndrome increases. Reticulocytes are less efficient at carrying oxygen as mature red cells, and they are less deformable, causing impaired transit through capillary beds. This contributes to the death of pulmonary capillary beds.  A person with Eisenmenger's syndrome is paradoxically subject to the possibility of both uncontrolled bleeding due to damaged capillaries and high pressure, as well as spontaneous clots due to hyperviscosity and stasis of blood.

Diagnosis.

By echo study that shows right to left shunt. Catheterization for assessment of the pulmonary artery pressure if its two thirds of systemic pressure this will preclude repair of the defects.

Treatment.

If the inciting defect in the heart is identified "before" it causes significant pulmonary hypertension, it can normally be repaired through surgery, preventing the disease. After pulmonary hypertension is sufficient to reverse the blood flow through the defect, however, the maladaptation is considered irreversible, and a heart–lung transplant or a lung transplant with repair of the heart is the only curative option. Transplantation is the final therapeutic option and only for patients with poor prognosis and quality of life. Timing and appropriateness of transplantation remain difficult decisions. 5-year and 10-year survival ranges between 70% and 80%, 50% and 70%, 30% and 50%, respectively. Since the average life expectancy of patients after lung transplantation is as low as 30% at 5 years, patients with "reasonable functional status" related to Eisenmenger syndrome have "improved survival with conservative medical care" compared with transplantation.  Various medicines and therapies for pulmonary hypertension are under investigation for treatment of the symptoms. Air filters for intravenous lines are recommended for persons with Eisenmenger's syndrome who have been hospitalized to reduce the risk of accidental introduction of air into the veins due to the increased risk for paradoxical air embolism. If air is introduced into the veins and travels through the ventricular septal defect into the arterial circulation, a stroke may occur.

Etymology.

Eisenmenger syndrome was named by Dr. Paul Wood after Dr. Victor Eisenmenger, who first described the condition in 1897.

Eisenmenger's syndrome is defined as the process in which a long-standing left-to-right cardiac shunt caused by a congenital heart defect (typically by a ventricular septal defect, atrial septal defect, or less commonly, patent ductus arteriosus) causes pulmonary hypertension and eventual reversal of the shunt into a cyanotic right-to-left shunt. Because of the advent of fetal screening with echocardiography early in life, the incidence of heart defects progressing to Eisenmenger's has decreased.

Die Eisenmenger-Reaktion ist eine Reaktion der Lunge auf einen erhöhten Druck in ihren Blutgefäßen. Er entsteht durch einen angeborenen Herzfehler, bei dem ein sogenannter Shunt eine unphysiologische Verbindung zwischen rechtem und linkem Herz schafft. Wenn ein so ausgeprägter primärer Links-rechts-Shunt vorliegt, dass sich eine pulmonale Widerstandserhöhung mit konsekutiver Shuntumkehr und deutlicher Zyanose entwickelt bzw. entwickeln kann, spricht man vom Eisenmenger-Syndrom.


Names and etymologies.

Richard Nelson Frye suggested an Urartian origin for the name while T. Burrow connected the origin of the name Urmia to Indo-Iranian urmi- "wave" and urmya- "undulating, wavy". A more likely etymology would be from Neo-Aramaic Assyrian-Chaldean spoken by the shrinking number of the ancient Christian population of the nearby city of Urmia, consisting of "ur" meaning city, and "mia" meaning water. Together, the "water city", what Urmia city is: a city on the waters of the eponymous lake.  Locally, the lake is referred to in Persian as "Daryāche-ye Orūmiye" (دریاچه ارومیه), in Azerbaijani as "Urmu gölü", and in Kurdish as "Zerivar-i Wermi". The traditional Armenian name is "Kaputan tsov" (Կապուտան ծով), literally "blue sea". Residents of Shahi Island refer to the lake in Azerbaijani as "Daryā" meaning Sea.  Its Old Persian name was "Chichast", meaning "glittering", a reference to the glittering mineral particles suspended in the water of the lake and found along its shores. In medieval times it came to be known as Lake Spauta or Lake Kabuda (Kabodan) in Armenian geography, from the word for "azure" in Persian, or "kapuyt" ('կապույտ') in Armenian. Its Latin name was "Lacus Matianus", thus it is referred to in some texts as Lake Matianus or Lake Matiene, after the ancient Mitanni people who lived in the area

Archaeology and history.

The Lake Urmia region has a wealth of archaeological sites going back to the Neolithic period. Archaeological excavations of the settlements in the area have found artifacts that date from about 7,000 BCE and later.  Excavations at Teppe Hasanlu archeological site southwest of Lake Urmia also revealed habitations going back to the 6th millennium BC.  A related site is Yanik Tepe, on the east shore of Lake Urmia, that has been excavated in the 1950s and 60s by C. A. Burney.  Another important site in the area, from about the same era, is Hajji Firuz Tepe, where some of the oldest archaeological evidence of grape-based wine was discovered.  Kul Tepe Jolfa is a site in the Jolfa County about 10 km south from the Araxes River. It dates to Chalcolithic period (5000–4500 BC).  Se Girdan kurgans are located on the south shore of Lake Urmia. Some of them were excavated in 1968 and 1970 by O. Muscarella. They have now been redated to the second half of the 4th millennium, although originally they were thought to be much younger.  One of the early mentions of Lake Urmia is from Assyrian records of the 9th century BCE. There, in the records from the reign of Shalmaneser III (858–824 BCE), two names are mentioned in the area of Lake Urmia: "Parsuwaš" (i.e. the Persians) and "Matai" (i.e. the Mitanni). It is not completely clear whether these referred to places or tribes, or what their relationship was to the subsequent list of personal names and "kings". But the Matai were Medes and linguistically the name "Parsuwaš" matches the Old Persian word "pārsa", an Achaemenid ethnolinguistic designation.  The lake was the center of the Mannaean Kingdom. A potential Mannaean settlement, represented by the ruin mound of Hasanlu, was on the south side of the lake. Mannae was overrun by the Matiani or Matieni, an Iranian people variously identified as Scythian, Saka, Sarmatian, or Cimmerian. It is not clear whether the lake took its name from the people or the people from the lake, but the country came to be called Matiene or Matiane, and gave the lake its Latin name.  The Battle of Urmia was fought near the lake in 1604, during the Ottoman–Safavid War of 1603–1618.  In the last five hundred years the area around Lake Urmia has been home to Azerbaijanis, Iranians, Assyrians, and Armenians.

Chemistry.

The main cations in the lake water include Na, K, Ca, Li and Mg, while Cl, SO, HCO are the main anions. The Na and Cl concentration is roughly four times the concentration of natural seawater. Sodium ions are at slightly higher concentration in the south compared to the north of the lake, which could result from the shallower depth in the south, and a higher net evaporation rate.  The lake is divided into north and south, separated by the Urmia Lake Bridge and its associated causeway, which was completed in 2008. The bridge provides only a gap in the embankment, allowing little exchange of water between the two sections. Due to drought and increased demands for agricultural water in the lake's basin, the salinity of the lake has risen to more than 300 g/l during recent years, and large areas of the lake bed have been desiccated.

Ecology.

Palaeoecology.

A palynological investigation on long cores from Urmia Lake has revealed a nearly 200 kyr record of vegetation and lake level changes. The vegetation has changed from the "Artemisia"/grass steppes during the glacial/stadial periods, to oak-juniper steppe-forests during the interglacial/interstadial periods. The lake has had a complex hydrological history and its water levels have fluctuated greatly in geological history. Very high lake levels have been suggested for some time intervals during the two last glacial periods, as well as during both the Last Interglacial as well as the Holocene. The lowest lake levels have occurred during the last glacial periods.

Modern ecology.

Based on the latest checklists of biodiversity at Lake Urmia in 2014 and 2016, it is home of 62 species of archaebacteria and bacteria, 42 species of microfungi, 20 species of phytoplankton, 311 species of plants, five species of mollusca, 226 species of birds, 27 species of amphibians and reptiles and 24 species of mammals (47 fossils have been recorded in the area).  Lake Urmia is an internationally registered protected area as both a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and a Ramsar site. The Iranian Dept. of Environment has designated most of the lake as a National Park.  The lake is marked by more than a hundred small, rocky islands, which serve as stopover points during the migrations of a number of bird species, including flamingos, pelicans, spoonbills, ibises, storks, shelducks, avocets, stilts, and gulls. A recent drought has significantly decreased the annual amount of water the lake receives. This in turn has increased the salinity of the lake's water, reducing its viability as home to thousands of migratory birds, including a large flamingo populations. The salinity has particularly increased in the half of the lake north of the Urmia Lake Bridge.  By virtue of its high salinity, the lake no longer sustains any fish species. Nonetheless, Urmia Lake is considered a significant natural habitat of Artemia, which serve as food source for the migratory birds such as flamingos. In early 2013, the then-head of the Iranian Artemia Research Center was quoted that "Artemia urmiana" had gone extinct due to the drastic increases in salinity. However this assessment has been contradicted, and another population of this species has recently been discovered in the Koyashskoye Salt Lake at the Crimean Peninsula.

Falling level and increasing salinity.

The lake is a major barrier between Urmia and Tabriz, two of the most important cities in the provinces of West Azerbaijan and East Azerbaijan. A project to build a highway across the lake was initiated in the 1970s but was abandoned after the Iranian Revolution of 1979, leaving a causeway with an unbridged gap. The project was revived in the early 2000s, and was completed in November 2008 with the opening of the Urmia Lake Bridge across the remaining gap. The highly saline environment is already heavily rusting the steel on the bridge despite anti-corrosion treatment. Experts have warned that the construction of the causeway and bridge, together with a series of ecological factors, will eventually lead to the drying up of the lake, turning it into a salt marsh, which will adversely affect the climate of the region. Lake Urmia has been shrinking for a long time, with an annual evaporation rate of. Although measures are now being taken to reverse the trend the lake has shrunk by 60% and could disappear entirely. Only 5% of the lake's water remains.  On 2 August 2012, Muhammad-Javad Muhammadizadeh, the head of Iran's Environment Protection Organization, announced that Armenia had agreed to transfer water from Armenia to counter the critical fall in Lake Urmia's water level, remarking that "hot weather and a lack of precipitation have brought the lake to its lowest water levels ever recorded". He added that recovery plans for the lake included the transfer of water from Eastern Azerbaijan Province. Previously, Iranian authorities had announced a plan to transfer water from the Aras River, which borders Iran and Azerbaijan, but the 950-billion-toman plan was abandoned due to Azerbaijan's objections.  In July 2014, Iran President Hassan Rouhani approved plans for a 14 trillion rial program (over $500 million) in the first year of a recovery plan. The money is supposed to be used for water management, reducing farmers' water use, and environmental restoration. Several months earlier, in March 2014, Iran's Department of Environment and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) issued a plan to save the lake and the nearby wetland, which called for spending $225 million in the first year and $1.3 billion overall for restoration.  Starting in 2016, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and Urmia Lake Restoration Program (ULRP) signed up to a project funded by the Government of Japan entitled "An Integrated Programme for Sustainable Water Resources Management in the Lake Urmia Basin" to support ULRP in its goal to restore Lake Urmia. The project set out a multi-disciplinary framework covering several key interrelated areas and aims to have five outputs: 1. An advanced water accounting (WA) system for the entire Lake Urmia basin; 2. A drought management system based on risk/vulnerability assessment and preparedness response for the basin; 3. A socio-economic livelihood programme with viable and sustainable alternatives to current agricultural activities upstream of the lake to reduce water consumption significantly while maintaining the income and livelihood of affected communities; 4. An integrated watershed management (WM) programme; A capacity development programme to strengthen stakeholders at different levels.  The Silveh Dam in Piranshahr County should be complete in 2015. Through a tunnel and canals it will transfer up to of water annually from the Lavin River in the Little Zab basin to Lake Urmia basin.  In 2015, president Hassan Rouhani's cabinet approved $660 million for improving irrigation systems, and steps to combat desertification.  In September 2018, A working group tasked with reviving Lake Urmia has started to grow two types of plants to save the region from salt particles. The two plants are “Nitraria” or Karadagh and “Tamarix” or Shoorgaz, which are planted on the land of Jabal Kandi village in Urmia County, to slow down the wind that brings with itself the salt particles.

Environmental protests.

The prospect that Lake Urmia might dry up entirely has drawn protests in Iran and abroad, directed at both the regional and national governments. Protests flared in late August 2011 after the Iranian parliament voted not to provide funds to channel water from the Aras River to raise the lake level. Apparently, parliament proposed instead to relocate people living around Urmia Lake.  More than 30 activists were detained on 24 August 2011 during an iftar meal. In the absence of a right to protest publicly in Iran, protesters have incorporated their messages into chants at football matches. On 25 August, several soccer fans were detained before and after the Tabriz derby match between Tractor Sazi F.C. and Shahrdari Tabriz F.C.. for shouting slogans in favor of protecting the lake, including "Urmia Lake is dying, the Majlis [parliament] orders its execution".  Further demonstrations took place in the streets of Tabriz and Urmia on 27 August and 3 September 2011. Amateur video from these events showed riot police on motorcycles attacking apparently peaceful protesters. According to the governor of West Azerbaijan, at least 60 supporters of the lake were arrested in Urmia, and dozens in Tabriz, because they had not applied for a permit to organize a demonstration.  The effect of climate change on the lake, has been extensively covered by an Iranian photojournalist Solmaz Daryani.

Islands.

Lake Urmia had approximately 102 islands. Shahi Island was historically the lake's largest. However, it became a peninsula connected to the eastern shore when the lake level dropped.  Shahi Island is the burial place of both Hulagu Khan (one of Genghis Khan's grandsons) and of Hulagu's son Abaqa. Both khans were buried in a castle above cliffs along the shore of the island.  In 1967, the Iranian Department of Environment sent a team of scientists to study the ecology of Shahi Island. Various results of the study, which included the breeding habits of brine shrimp, were published by Javad Hashemi in the scientific journal, "Iranian Scientific Sokhan". A herd of Iranian antelope and gazelle were introduced into the islands, some of which survive to the present day. The Persian leopards that were also introduced to check the number of these antelopes survived for years, going extinct sometime in the early 1980s.

Basin rivers.

Lake Urmia is fed by 13 permanent rivers and many small springs, as well as rainfall directly into the lake. Nearly half the inflow comes from the Zarrineh River and Simineh River. There is no outflow from the lake so water is only lost through evaporation.

In popular culture.

Lake Urmia was the setting of the Iranian film "The White Meadows" (2009), which featured fantastic-looking lands adjacent to a salt sea. There are many popular songs about Lake Urmia in Azeri Turkish, such as "Urmu Golu Lay Lay".

Lake Urmia (, "Daryâche-ye Orumiye") is an endorheic salt lake in Iran. The lake is located between the provinces of East Azerbaijan and West Azerbaijan in Iran, and west of the southern portion of the Caspian Sea. At its greatest extent, it was the largest lake in the Middle East and the sixth-largest saltwater lake on Earth, with a surface area of approximately, a length of, a width of, and a maximum depth of. By late 2017, the lake had shrunk to 10% of its former size (and 1/60 of water volume in 1998) due to persistent general drought in Iran, but also the damming of the local rivers that flow into it, and the pumping of groundwater from the surrounding area. This dry spell was broken in 2019 and the lake is now filling up once again. The recovery of the lake has continued in 2020 due to above average precipitation and the actions of the Lake Urmia Restoration Program.

Der Urmiasee (; mittelpersisch "Čēčast"; aserbaidschanisch: Urmiye Gölü; kurdisch: Gola Urmiyê), zur Zeit der Pahlavi-Dynastie "Rezaiye-See" nach Reza Schah, ist der größte Binnensee des Iran. An dem See liegt die Stadt Urmia. Deren Name leitet sich von den syrisch-aramäischen Wörtern "ur" für „Stadt“ und "mia" für „Wasser“ ab und bedeutet „Stadt am Wasser“.


Applications.

Foods.

Sodium citrate is chiefly used as a food additive, usually for flavor or as a preservative. Its E number is E331. Sodium citrate is employed as a flavoring agent in certain varieties of club soda. It is common as an ingredient in bratwurst, and is also used in commercial ready-to-drink beverages and drink mixes, contributing a tart flavor. It is found in gelatin mix, ice cream, yogurt, jams, sweets, milk powder, processed cheeses, carbonated beverages, and wine, amongst others.  Sodium citrate can be used as an emulsifying stabilizer when making cheese. It allows the cheese to melt without becoming greasy by stopping the fats from separating.

Buffer.

As a conjugate base of a weak acid, citrate can perform as a buffering agent or acidity regulator, resisting changes in pH. It is used to control acidity in some substances, such as gelatin desserts. It can be found in the milk minicontainers used with coffee machines. The compound is the product of antacids, such as Alka-Seltzer, when they are dissolved in water. The pH of a solution of 5 g/100 ml water at 25 °C is 7.5 – 9.0. It is added to many commercially packaged dairy products to control the PH impact of the gastrointestinal system of humans, mainly in processed products such as cheese and yogurt.

Medical uses.

In 1914, the Belgian doctor Albert Hustin and the Argentine physician and researcher Luis Agote successfully used sodium citrate as an anticoagulant in blood transfusions, with Richard Lewisohn determining its correct concentration in 1915. It continues to be used today in blood-collection tubes and for the preservation of blood in blood banks. The citrate ion chelates calcium ions in the blood by forming calcium citrate complexes, disrupting the blood clotting mechanism. Recently, trisodium citrate has also been used as a locking agent in vascath and haemodialysis lines instead of heparin due to its lower risk of systemic anticoagulation.  In 2003, Ööpik et al. showed the use of sodium citrate (0.5 g/kg body weight) improved running performance over 5 km by 30 seconds.  Sodium citrate is used to relieve discomfort in urinary-tract infections, such as cystitis, to reduce the acidosis seen in distal renal tubular acidosis, and can also be used as an osmotic laxative. It is a major component of the WHO oral rehydration solution.  It is used as an antacid, especially prior to anaesthesia, for caesarian section procedures to reduce the risks associated with the aspiration of gastric contents.

Boiler descaling.

Sodium citrate is a particularly effective agent for removal of carbonate scale from boilers without removing them from operation and for cleaning automobile radiators.

Trisodium citrate has the chemical formula of NaCHO. It is sometimes referred to simply as "sodium citrate", though sodium citrate can refer to any of the three sodium salts of citric acid. It possesses a saline, mildly tart flavor. It is mildly basic and can be used along with citric acid to make biologically compatible buffers.

Natriumcitrat oder Natriumzitrat ist das Natriumsalz der Citronensäure. Es besteht aus drei Natriumionen (Na) und dem Citration (CHO). Es besitzt einen seifigen Geschmack.


Route.

Based on today's kilometre markers the line is long between its termini. It is double-tracked and electrified. Its maximum speed limit is, but this is only achievable in places on the southern part of the line. The Main–Weser Railway is one of the most important conventionally operated German railways.

History.

The idea of building the Main–Weser Railway began in 1838 as a link between Kassel and the Rhine-Main area running exclusively through the territory of Hesse-Kassel (Kurhessen) and connecting the major cities of the electorate from Kassel to Hanau via Fulda. At that time it proved impracticable to build such a line (the route of the Frederick William Northern Railway and the Frankfurt–Bebra railway) because of its mountainous route, particularly at the watershed between the Fulda and Kinzig valleys at Distelrasen, where a tunnel was only completed in 1914.  So instead from 1841 negotiations commenced with some other states and was interrupted several times. On 5 April 1845, a treaty was signed between the Free City of Frankfurt, the Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt and the Electorate of Hesse-Kassel, establishing a joint state railway company, known as a "condominium railway" ("Kondominalbahn"). This established the legal basis for the line via Marburg, Gießen and Friedberg through easier terrain to the originally preferred route, but which crossed national boundaries several times. In the southern sector the route ran after its exit from the Main-Weser station in Frankfurt approximately parallel with the street of Taunusstraße (at that time, only partly built), along the current streets of Friedrich-Ebert-Anlage and Hamburger Allee to the then Kurhessen town of Bockenheim, now the site of Frankfurt (Main) West station. It then ran again through the territory of Frankfurt in Hausen, through Kurhessen in Eschersheim, and through Frankfurt territory in Bonames. The line then went through the Grand Duchy of Hesse town of Boden bis Friedberg, then a piece of Frankfurt-owned territory in Dortelweil. Bad Nauheim was a Kurhessen enclave within the Grand Duchy of Hesse exclave of Oberhessen through which the line ran to Gießen. Under the treaty, each of the participating governments were responsible for the purchase of land on their territory. Financing the construction of the line proved to be more difficult. Construction occurred during the turmoil of the revolutions of 1848 and a financial crisis in the Grand Duchy of Hesse.  Work began on 6 August 1846 in Kurhessen territory. Here the Belgian engineer Frans Splingard and his colleague Edward Hacault were in charge. In Frankfurt construction was directed by Remigius Eyssen. The building of station on almost all sections of the line in Kurhessen was directed by Julius Eugen Ruhl, the first Director General of the Kurhessen railways.  The first section between Kassel and Wabern was opened on 29 December 1849. The first continuous rail service from Kassel to Frankfurt ran on 15 May 1852, after the opening of the line between Gießen and Langgöns, connecting the northern and the southern sections of the line.  The second track was added in 1865—following twelve years of negotiations. The cooperation of the participating countries had not improved despite rapidly developing rail services. The second track significantly eased the transport of Prussian troops in the War of 1866, a war which led to the annexation by Prussia of two of the states involved in Main–Weser Railway, Hesse-Kassel and the Free City of Frankfurt. Their shares were subsequently transferred to Prussia. In 1880, Prussia also acquired the Grand Duchy of Hesse's shares in the company.  Until the completion of the Frankfurt–Bebra line in 1866, all express trains between Frankfurt and Berlin ran on the Main–Weser Railway. These trains ran on to the Frederick William Northern Railway at Guntershausen to connect with the Thuringian Railway. Express trains continued to run from Frankfurt to Berlin via Kassel until the end of World War II. In the following years of the American occupation trains also ran on this route.  In 1878/79 the Treysa–Lollar section of the line was incorporated into the strategic railway known as the "Kanonenbahn" ("Cannons Railway") built between Berlin and Metz.  During the 1960s, the first section of the line was electrified between Frankfurt and Giessen; electrification of the line was completed on 20 March 1967.  The line was moved in the Kassel area in the second half of the 1980s in preparation for the construction of the Hanover–Würzburg high-speed railway. Construction began in July 1985. 420,000 m3 of soil was excavated over a length of 5.7 kilometres and relocated at a cost of DM 24.0 million. Operations on two tracks was maintained throughout.  Operation Steel Box also took place on the line in September 1990.

Long-distance services.

Services of Intercity line 26 run on the Main–Weser Railway from Stralsund or Hamburg-Altona via Kassel and Frankfurt am Main to Karlsruhe at two-hour intervals. Services on EuroCity line 62 also ran on the Gießen – Frankfurt section from December 2009 to December 2011. Until 2014 there were services that ran over the line to Konstanz, but these were cancelled at the timetable change at the end of 2014. There was also a direct connection to Berlin-Südkreuz until the end of 2015, which was the first Intercity service on the line from Monday to Saturday. Since then, this IC service runs to Hamburg like the others.  Even earlier there were direct long-distance services from Frankfurt via Gießen and Siegen to Hagen and beyond to Münster and the North Sea. One train even went to Copenhagen.

Regional services.

Regional-Express services run between Frankfurt and Kassel ("Main-Weser-Express") and between Frankfurt and Siegen (Main-Sieg-Express). The latter leave the line in Gießen, where they have to reverse to continue towards Siegen.  The Main-Weser-Express runs hourly and is operated alternatively by DB Regio as line 30 and by the Hessische Landesbahn (HLB) as line 98, but the latter service does not always go through to Kassel and has more intermediate stops. The Main-Sieg-Express is exclusively operated by the Hessischen Landesbahn as line 99 operated and runs on the Frankfurt-Gießen section at two-hour intervals, mostly in coupled-sets, together with line 98, with trains dividing in Gießen. It is also served by Regionalbahn services operated by DB Regio between Marburg and Gießen as well as between Gießen and Hanau via Friedberg. Since December 2006, Mittelhessen-Express services are formed in Gießen from two coupled Regionalbahn trains coming from Treysa and Dillenburg and then together run to Frankfurt at higher speed. In the opposite direction, uncoupling of the sets also takes place in Gießen, with both trains then continuing as Regionalbahn trains to Treysa or Dillenburg. There is also an S-Bahn service between Friedberg and Frankfurt South station via the City-Tunnel.  The Treysa–Kassel section was operated until December 2015 as part of Kassel RegioTram and was designated as line "RT 9". The weekend "RegioTram" services were, however, replaced by Regionalbahn services on at the end of May 2007 and services on working days were also later replaced as well. Since 14 December 2014, two of three services have been operated on weekdays by "Kurhessenbahn" (a Deutsche Bahn brand) using class 628 diesel multiple unit sets. FLIRT multiple units operated by Hessische Landesbahn replaced the RegioTrams on line RT 9 at the 2015/2016 timetable change on 13 December 2015.  Numerous trains that branch off on branch lines at Bad Vilbel, Friedberg, Gießen, Cölbe and Wabern also run for a while on the main line.  Many freight trains also run on the line, including numerous container trains or trains carrying new agricultural machinery (such as tractors and combine harvesters). Military trains also regularly use the line.

Rolling stock used.

Main line.

Talent 2 electric multiple units are used for the hourly Mittelhessen-Express between Frankfurt and Treysa, which are operated by DB Regio Mitte. Talent-2 sets have run since March 2013 on the through Gießen–Friedberg–Hanau Regionalbahn service, which has operated since December 2012. These sets replaced Silberling carriages hauled by class 143 locomotives or GTW 2/6 sets operated by Hessische Landesbahn. Class 143 locomotives occasionally haul modernised Silberling carriages between Gießen and Marburg, Kirchhain and Treysa in the peak hours.  The DB Regional-Express services between Frankfurt and Kassel are almost exclusively operated as double-deck push-pull trains, hauled by Bombardier TRAXX (class 146) locomotives. At the 2010/2011 timetable change, Hessische Landesbahn (HLB) took over the operation of some services between Frankfurt am Main, Marburg and Siegen, branded as the Main-Sieg-Express, on behalf of the Rhein-Main-Verkehrsverbund (Rhine-Main Transport Association) and the "Zweckverband Nahverkehr Westphalen-Lippe" (municipal association for local transport of Westphalia-Lippe). Newly procured three and five-part Stadler Flirt railcars are used. These partly replaced Deutsche Bahn's double-deck push-pull trains and rebuilt Silberling carriages. The trains are usually uncoupled in Gießen with portions continuing to Marburg and Siegen.  The RegioTram service that ran between Kassel and Treysa until December 2015 consisted of a low-floor RegioCitadis (class 452). The S6 S-Bahn section south of Friedberg is operated by class 423 S-Bahn sets.  The ICE line 26 trains consist of ICE T sets. Occasionally, during construction or breakdowns on the Hanover–Würzburg high-speed railway, Intercity-Express services are also diverted between Frankfurt (Main) Hauptbahnhof and Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe, which as a result do not stop in Fulda and Hanau. Freight traffic is also operated in the form of end-to-end trains by various railway companies.

Feeder services.

The trains that connect Glauburg-Stockheim and Nidderau with Frankfurt over the Nidda Valley Railway, as well as Nidda to Frankfurt via Friedberg, are hauled by TRAXX (class 245) diesel locomotives in the peak hour, otherwise Desiro (class 642) railcars are used. Class 628 diesel railcars are found between Cölbe and Marburg, sometimes also running to Gießen, which serve the Kreuztal–Cölbe railway to Erndtebrück and the Warburg–Sarnau railway to Frankenberg (Eder). Most trains on the Edersee Railway ("Ederseebahn", Bad Wildungen–Wabern) continue over the Main–Weser Railway to Kassel Hbf.

Planned development.

New halt in Marburg.

It is planned in the medium term to build a new Regionalbahn halt called "Marburg Mitte" in the vicinity of the University of Marburg's multi-storey buildings. This has been planned for decades and was considered in the timetable concept for the Mittelhessen-Express. A start of construction has not yet been announced. A halt at "Gießen-Nord" to the north of Oswaldsgarten station is also considered as part of the Mittelhessen S-Bahn concept.

Quadruplication between Frankfurt and Friedberg.

Between Frankfurt West and Friedberg, S-Bahn, Regional, and long-distance services and freight traffic share the two tracks of the Main-Weser railway. To separate operations, the track in this area are to be rebuilt as four tracks during the next few years in two stages, after which two separate tracks will be available for the S-Bahn. The line speed will be raised to 140 km/h on both the S-Bahn and the long-distance tracks.  The two tracks for the S-Bahn are arranged east or south of the tracks of route 3900 and will be given the new route number of 3684. While the chainage (kilometre markings) on route 3900 ("Main-Weser-Bahn") is measured from Kassel in the north-south direction, the chainage on the new line for the S-Bahn will be measured from Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof in the south-north direction.  The planning approval process for the development of the first section from Frankfurt West to Bad Vilbel (with a planned construction period of four years) was completed on 13 May 2004, but not implemented. It was later amended by a planning change under section 76 subsection 1 of the Administrative Procedure Act ("Verwaltungsverfahrensgesetz"). This was publicly announced in July 2009. As a result, the track would be largely equipped with two to six metre-high noise barriers, as a compensatory measure, and an old arm of the Nidda would be restored to a more natural condition.  The citizens' initiative "2statt4" was formed by some residents of Eschersheim and Ginnheim to oppose the whole upgrade through the courts. However, the works approval was already in effect in the Bad Vilbel area, so that the municipality of Bad Vilbel was able to proceed with a planned new underpass under the platforms.  In November 2011, the Hessian Administrative Court ("Hessische Verwaltungsgerichtshof", VGH) dismissed complaints from residents and the citizens' initiative "2statt4" against the planning approval decision and an appeal was not permitted. Previously, Deutsche Bahn had promised improvements.  The citizens' initiative "Bahnane" and a private claimant subsequently appealed against the VGH judgment. In various judgments, the Federal Administrative Court dismissed the appeals at the end of January 2013, with the final construction rights now being granted for the first phase of construction. The citizens' initiatives "2statt4" and "Bahnane" keep trying to prevent the construction of the second stage between Bad Vilbel and Friedberg and to have funding withdrawn for the first stage of construction.  In May 2015, Deutsche Bahn announced that construction would start in the second half of 2017. In addition to the construction of 12.6 kilometres of new tracks, 5 stations would be rebuilt and a station would be built. The cost of the project was stated to be €323 million. The development is scheduled to be completed in December 2022.

Neubau Station Frankfurt-Ginnheim.

During the construction of the S-Bahn line along the Main-Weser railway a new Frankfurt-Ginnheim station is to be built between Frankfurt West and Frankfurt-Eschersheim for the S-Bahn, which would allow a change to U-Bahn line U1 and U9. It does not yet have planning approval.  This was the location of the operating point of Ginnheim, consisting of an overtaking loop towards Kassel from km 194.0 to 193.2, which was abandoned for the construction of the tracks for the S-Bahn. It was the location of a temporary stop for visitors to the Federal Garden Show in 1989, which became the site of Nidda Park.

The Main–Weser Railway (German: "Main-Weser-Bahn") is a railway line in central Germany that runs from Frankfurt am Main via Gießen to Kassel. it is named after the railway company that built the line and also operated it until 1880. It was opened between 1849 and 1852 and was one of the first railways in Germany.

Die Main-Weser-Bahn ist eine Eisenbahnhauptstrecke von Kassel über Wabern, Treysa, Marburg, Gießen und Friedberg nach Frankfurt am Main, die nach dem Eisenbahnunternehmen benannt wurde, das die Strecke gebaut und bis 1880 auch betrieben hat.


Plot.

First Volume.

In Chavanon and Paris.

Jerome Barberin lives with his wife in a little French town, Chavanon (on the edge of the Central Massif, near the origins of the river Loire). He usually works in Paris as a mason. One day he finds a baby boy in Paris. The boy wears very fine clothes, so apparently his parents are rich. Barberin offers to take care of the child, hoping to get a good reward. He gives the boy to his wife, and calls him Rémi.  Barberin gets injured in an accident. He blames his employer and hopes to receive financial compensation in a trial. The trial costs a lot of money, and Barberin tells his wife to sell her cow (her main source of wealth) and to get rid of Rémi. She does the former.  The story proper starts when Rémi is eight years old. Barberin comes home unexpectedly, bitter and penniless, having lost his trial. He sees that Rémi is still there and decides to get rid of him when he meets a travelling artist, Signor Vitalis, in the local pub, who travels with three dogs - Capi, Zerbino and Dolce - and a monkey, Joli-Cœur. Vitalis offers to take Rémi on as an apprentice for money.

Travelling with Vitalis.

Rémi leaves his childhood home, without even a chance to say goodbye to his foster mother (who would have done anything to prevent the transaction) and starts a journey on the roads of France. Vitalis is a kind man, certainly better company than Barberin, and teaches Rémi to play the harp and to read. Often both go hungry and without a roof over their heads, but in the animals, especially Capi, Rémi gains dear friends, and in Vitalis the father he lacks. Together they earn a living by giving musical and stage performances in villages, towns and cities.  They travel West, via Murat (where Vitalis tells him of the prince of Naples, brother in law of Napoleon, who came from there). Next stop is Ussel where Rémi is outfitted for his new life, including shoes, which he has never owned before. The first big city going south is Bordeaux, after which they cut right through the morass of les Landes towards Pau.

Meeting the Milligans.

When they are in Toulouse, Vitalis is put in jail after an incident with a policeman who is rough with Rémi. It is not easy for a ten-year-old to feed himself and four animals under his care, and they nearly starve, when they meet the "Swan" - a little river ship owned by Mrs. Milligan and her ill son Arthur. Rémi is taken in to entertain the sick boy, and he becomes almost part of the family. They travel towards Montpellier and the Mediterranean on the Canal du Sud. Rémi learns the story about her dead husband and brother-in-law, who under the English law, was to inherit all of his brother's fortune if he died childless. An earlier child had disappeared and was never found (under the charge of this James Milligan) however soon after the husband's death, Arthur was born.  Two months later Vitalis is released from jail, Mrs. Milligan pays for him to take the train to Cette. Rémi and the Milligans would like to stay together, but Vitalis thinks it is better for Rémi to be free, and so they say goodbye. However, Mrs. Milligan judges that Vitalis is a very kind and honest man.

Three animals of Vitalis die.

They travel via Tarascon, Montelimar, Valence, Tournon, Vienne, Lyon, Dyon, and Chalon on the way to Paris, but winter catches up to them 30 miles from Troyes, and in a snowstorm Zerbino and Dolce are attacked by wolves in the woods, and Joli-Cœur catches pneumonia.  In an attempt to raise money for the doctor, Rémi and Vitalis give a performance and Vitalis sings. Rémi has never before heard Vitalis sing, and is not the only one who is bewildered: a young and apparently rich lady tells Vitalis that she is amazed to hear his wonderful voice. Vitalis reacts angrily. He explains his skill to the lady by telling her that he used to be a singer's servant. He shows no appreciation when the lady gives a gold coin to Capi. They return to Joli-Cœur with the money, but it's too late, Joli-Cœur is dead.

Garofoli.

They now continue their journey to Paris. Vitalis decides to leave Rémi with another "padrone" for the winter, while he trains new animals with the proceeds. This "padrone" is a man who keeps a group of boys, sold by their poverty-stricken parents, working for him (also see the English story “Oliver Twist” by Charles Dickens). Garofoli isn't home, and Vitalis tells Rémi to wait there, and that he will be back soon. Rémi passes two horrible hours in the Rue Lourcine house - waiting for Garofoli and talking to an ill-looking boy, Mattia, who keeps house because Garofoli believes him too stupid and incapable of working outside. He also keeps the soup pot locked so that Mattia could not eat from it.  When the other boys and Garofoli return, Rémi witnesses how terribly Garofoli abuses those who do not bring home the amount of money required: he beats and starves them. When Vitalis comes back and sees how the boys are being flogged, he tells Garofoli that he could go to the police, but Garofoli threatens back to tell "some people just one name which will make Vitalis red from shame". Vitalis takes the wondering and grateful Rémi away. This act of love costs Vitalis his life. That night, unable to find a place to stay, Vitalis and Rémi collapse in the snowstorm under a fence after fruitlessly searching for access to a stone quarry shelter.

With the Acquins.

Rémi wakes up in a bed, with people standing around him: a man, the gardener Pierre Acquin, two boys Alexis and Benjamin, and two girls Étienette (Martha) and little mute Lise, who is about 5–6 years old, and watches Rémi with “speaking eyes”. Rémi learns the terrible truth: Vitalis is dead. In an attempt to discover his identity, the police officers take Rémi to Garofoli, who reveals the truth: Vitalis used to be the famous Italian singer Carlo Balzani. When he aged, he lost his voice and was too proud to sing in lesser venues. He decided to disappear, changing his identity to Vitalis.  The family take Rémi and Capi in. Rémi especially adores Lise. He teaches her to read and plays the harp for her. Lise loves a Neapolitan song in particular. Rémi becomes a gardener, and two years of hard work and merry Sundays follow. Then a terrible hailstorm ruins the glass in the greenhouse, and Acquin is in debt to the man he borrowed from to buy his business. He cannot pay and has to enter a debtor's jail. The children are to go to uncles and aunts, in several French towns. Although the children insist that Rémi also belongs to the family, none of the uncles and aunts are willing or able to take care of Rémi. Broken-hearted, vowing to his siblings to visit and bring their father news from them, Rémi takes his harp and Capi and takes to the road.

Second Volume.

Mattia.

Rémi decides to head south towards Fontainebleau but hasn't gone long when he meets a companion, Mattia, the boy from Garofoli, starving near a church on the streets of Paris. Garofoli is in prison for beating another boy to death. Mattia pleads with Rémi to take him into his troupe. Rémi is scared: with him, Mattia might die of hunger as much as alone. But Mattia convinces him that two will never die of hunger because one helps the other. Thus, "Rémi troupe" consists now of two twelve-year-old musicians and a dog.  Mattia turns out to be a gifted violinist, he plays other instruments too, and he learned some tricks while working for some time in a circus. The boys do well in the spring at weddings and festivals, their talents are appreciated and Rémi takes up the plan to buy a cow and visit Mother Barberin.

Mining.

Since a cow costs a lot of money Rémi plans a route via Corbeil, Montgaris, Gien, Bourges, St. Amand and MontluÇon where they make a lot of money on their way to visit Alexis, who now lives with his Uncle Gaspard (Father Acquin's brother) in the mining town Varses, and works in the mine with his uncle. When Alexis is wounded and unable to work for a while, Rémi volunteers to replace him. One of the miners is nicknamed magister; he is an old and wise man. He becomes a good friend and he explains the history of coal.  One day the mine is flooded by the river Divonne, which flows overhead. Seven miners, including Uncle Gaspard, the magister and Rémi, find shelter, but are trapped. They are waiting to be rescued, but have no idea of the amount of time passing in hunger and fear. One of the men confesses a crime, blames himself for the disaster and commits suicide. They end up spending a fortnight underground - and at last are saved. Capi is mad with happiness; Mattia is in tears. He says he never believed that Rémi could be dead, and Rémi is proud of his friend's strong belief in him. This incident shows the terrible state of child labour in 19th Century France.  Rémi wants Mattia to learn music and they visit a barber/musician. Mr. Espinassous is amazed by Mattia's great talent and tries to convince him to stay and learn, but Mattia does not want to leave Rémi.

A cow for Mother Barberin.

The boys now head towards their visit to Rémi's foster mother. First they decide to visit Clermont Ferrand, and south westerly, the mineral bath towns Saint Nectaire, Mont-Dore, Royat and Bourboule where they can make good money, towards the cow for mother Barberin. When they pass through Ussel, not far from Chavanon, they make sure that they will not buy a bad cow, and ask a vet for help. The vet is very friendly and the boys buy a wonderful cow.  In the next town the boys are accused of stealing the cow. Why would two street musicians have a cow, after all? They explain their story to the mayor. The mayor knows Mother Barberin, he heard about the accident in the mine, and he is willing to believe that the boys are honest. To make sure, the vet is called to testify, and the boys can continue their journey.  Rémi and Mother Barberin finally meet again. Mother Barberin tells Rémi that Jerome is in Paris in search of Rémi, because his real parents appear to be in search of him. However, Mother Barberin knows very little, because Jerome never told her any details. Rémi is eager to know his real parents. Rémi and Mattia decide to return to Paris and find Barberin. On the way to Paris, they pass through Dreuzy, where they pay a visit to Lise Acquin. Rémi and Lise are very fond of each other.

The Driscolls.

When the boys arrive in Paris, they learn that Jerome has died. Rémi writes a letter to Mother Barberin. Mother Barberin replies and she encloses a letter that was sent by Jerome before he died. It mentions the address of the lawyer's office in London, in charge of the search for Rémi. The boys take a boat to London, where they are led straight to Rémi's parents. Their name is Driscoll.  Rémi is terribly disappointed: the Driscolls are cold to him; his father keeps the boys locked up. They turn out to be a band of thieves and use Capi to help them in their work.  The Driscolls receive a visitor, a man who seems interested in Rémi, but Rémi does not understand English well enough. The visitor does not meet Mattia, but Mattia overhears their conversation. James Milligan appears to be Arthur's uncle. He hopes that Arthur will die, so that he will inherit the fortune of his late brother. The boys agree that Mrs. Milligan must be warned, but they have no idea where to find her. Mattia meets Bob, a clown/musician from the circus. Bob turns out to be a fine friend.

Searching for the Milligans.

When Rémi is accused of a robbery committed by his parents, Bob and Mattia help him escape from prison. With the help of Bob's brother, a sailor, they return to France to search for Mrs. Milligan, in order to warn her about her brother-in-law. They start by going up the Seine, since the "Swan" is a remarkable boat; they soon hear that people have seen her. They follow the trail along rivers and canals.  On their way they pass through Dreuzy where they hope to meet Lise again. However, they hear that Lise's uncle has died, and that a kind English lady, who journeyed on a boat, has offered to take care of Lise. Rémi and Mattia trace the "Swan" across France to near the Swiss border. They find the boat deserted, finding out that it was unable to journey further up the river, and the family continued their journey by coach, probably to Vevey. When they get to the town where "the English woman with the ill boy and the mute girl" are supposed to be, they start singing near every fence. It takes several days.  One day, Rémi sings his Neapolitan song, and hears a scream and a weak voice that continues the song. They run to the voice and find Lise, whose voice has returned to her when she heard her long-lost Rémi. The boys now find that James Milligan is there too, and Rémi is afraid to meet him, but James does not know Mattia so he is able to tell Mrs. Milligan their story. Mrs. Milligan guesses that Rémi might be her lost eldest son, but tells Mattia to keep it secret until she is sure. She arranges for the boys to stay in a hotel, where they can have plenty of food, comfortable beds, and are visited by a barber and a tailor.

Home.

After a few days Mrs. Milligan invites the boys to her villa where they meet Mother Barberin, whom Mrs. Milligan sent for. Mother Barberin shows Rémi's baby clothes which Mrs. Milligan recognises as the clothes her boy wore when he was stolen. Mrs. Milligan happily declares that Rémi is her son, to join his "mother, brother and those who loved you in your misery (Lise and Mattia)". It is clear that Mr. Driscoll had stolen the boy as a job for James Milligan.  The story has a happy ending: Rémi finds his family, and discovers he is the heir to a fortune. Mattia's dear little sister Cristina is sent for from Italy and they all grow up together. Arthur gets well and becomes a gentleman athlete, Mattia a famous violinist. Rémi marries Lise and they have a son named Mattia, and Mother Barberin becomes his nanny.  The book ends with the score of the Neapolitan song.

Media adaptations.

Film and television.

Several movies were made after the novel:

Comics.

Between 1958 and 1959 Dutch comics artist Piet Wijn adapted the story into a comic strip, which was prepublished in the Rotterdamsch Nieuwsblad. In 1979 he made another adaptation of the same novel, which was prepublished in the Dutch Disney weekly Donald Duck.

Sans Famille (Translation: "Without Family" English title: "Nobody's Boy") is an 1878 French novel by Hector Malot. The most recent English translation is Alone in the World by Adrian de Bruyn, 2007. The novel was reportedly inspired by the Italian street musicians of the 19th century, in particular the harpists from Viggiano, Basilicata.

Sans famille – Heimatlos (als Film Das Findelkind) ist der Titel eines Romans von Hector Malot aus dem Jahr 1878, der in verschiedenen Filmen verarbeitet wurde. Die Geschichte ist ein Äquivalent zu "Oliver Twist".


Origins.

The first cars built by the Coopers were single-seat 500-cc Formula Three racing cars driven by John Cooper and Eric Brandon, and powered by a JAP motorcycle engine. Since materials were in short supply immediately after World War II, the prototypes were constructed by joining two old Fiat Topolino front-ends together. According to John Cooper, the stroke of genius that would make the Coopers an automotive legend—the location of the engine behind the driver—was merely a practical matter at the time. As the car was powered by a motorcycle engine, they believed it was more convenient to have the engine in the back, driving a chain. In fact there was nothing new about'mid' engined racing cars but there is no doubt Coopers led the way in popularising what was to become the dominant arrangement for racing cars.  Called the Cooper 500, this car's success in hillclimbs and on track, including Eric winning the 500 race at one of the first postwar meetings at Gransden Lodge Airfield, quickly created demand from other drivers (including, over the years, Stirling Moss, Peter Collins, Jim Russell, Ivor Bueb, Ken Tyrrell, and Bernie Ecclestone) and led to the establishment of the Cooper Car Company to build more. The business grew by providing an inexpensive entry to motorsport for seemingly every aspiring young British driver, and the company became the world's first and largest postwar, specialist manufacturer of racing cars for sale to privateers.  Cooper built up to 300 single-and twin-cylinder cars during the 1940s and 1950s, and dominated the F3 category, winning 64 of 78 major races between 1951 and 1954. This volume of construction was unique and enabled the company to grow into the senior categories; With a modified Cooper 500 chassis, a T12 model, Cooper had its first taste of top-tier racing when Harry Schell qualified for the 1950 Monaco Grand Prix. Though Schell retired in the first lap, this marked the first appearance of a rear-engined racer at a Grand Prix event since the end of WWII.  The front-engined Formula Two Cooper Bristol model was introduced in 1952. Various iterations of this design were driven by a number of legendary drivers – among them Juan Manuel Fangio and Mike Hawthorn – and furthered the company's growing reputation by appearing in Grand Prix races, which at the time were run to F2 regulations. Until the company began building rear-engined sports cars in 1955, they really had not become aware of the benefits of having the engine behind the driver. Based on the 500-cc cars and powered by a modified Coventry Climax fire-pump engine, these cars were called "Bobtails". With the center of gravity closer to the middle of the car, they found it was less liable to spins and much more effective at putting the power down to the road, so they decided to build a single-seater version and began entering it in Formula 2 races.

Rear-engined revolution.

Jack Brabham raised some eyebrows when he took sixth place at the 1957 Monaco Grand Prix in a rear-engined Formula 1 Cooper. When Stirling Moss won the 1958 Argentine Grand Prix in Rob Walker's privately entered Cooper and Maurice Trintignant duplicated the feat in the next race at Monaco, the racing world was stunned and a rear-engined revolution had begun. The next year,, Brabham and the Cooper works team became the first to win the Formula One World Championship in a rear-engined car. Both team and driver repeated the feat in, and every World Champion since has been sitting in front of the engine.  The little-known designer behind the car was Owen Maddock, who was employed by Cooper Car Company. Maddock was known as 'The Beard' by his workmates, and 'Whiskers' to Charles Cooper. Maddock was a familiar figure in the drivers' paddock of the 1950s in open-neck shirt and woolly jumper and a prime force behind the rise of British racing cars to their dominant position in the 1960s. Describing how the revolutionary rear-engined Cooper chassis came to be, Maddock explained, "I'd done various schemes for the new car which I'd shown to Charlie Cooper. He kept saying 'Nah, Whiskers, that's not it, try again.' Finally, I got so fed up I sketched a frame in which every tube was bent, meant just as a joke. I showed it to Charlie and to my astonishment he grabbed it and said: 'That's it!' " Maddock later pioneered one of the first designs for a honeycomb monocoque stressed skin composite chassis, and helped develop Cooper's C5S racing gearbox.  Brabham took one of the championship-winning Cooper T53 "Lowlines" to Indianapolis Motor Speedway for a test in 1960, then entered the famous 500-mile race in a larger, longer, and offset car based on the 1960 F1 design, the unique Type T54. Arriving at the Speedway 5 May 1961, the "funny" little car from Europe was mocked by the other teams, but it ran as high as third and finished ninth. It took a few years, but the Indianapolis establishment gradually realized the writing was on the wall and the days of their front-engined roadsters were numbered. Beginning with Jim Clark, who drove a rear-engined Lotus in 1965, every winner of the Indianapolis 500 since has had the engine in the back. The revolution begun by the little chain-driven Cooper 500 was complete. Once every Formula car manufacturer began building rear-engined racers, the practicality and intelligent construction of Cooper's single-seaters was overtaken by more sophisticated technology from Lola, Lotus, BRM, and Ferrari. The Cooper team's decline was accelerated when John Cooper was seriously injured in a road accident in 1963 driving a twin-engined Mini, and Charles Cooper died in 1964.

Final years.

After the death of his father, John Cooper sold the Cooper Formula One team to the Chipstead Motor Group in April 1965. The same year, the Formula One team moved from Surbiton to a modern factory unit at Canada Road, Oyster Lane in Byfleet, just along the road from Brabham in New Haw and close to Alan Mann Racing. Cooper's 1965 season petered out and at the end of the year, number one driver Bruce McLaren left to build his own F1 car for the new for 1966 3-litre formula. Cooper's new owners held the Maserati concession for the UK and arrangements were made for Cooper to build a new 3-litre Cooper-Maserati car which would be available for sale as well being raced by the works team. The Maserati engine was an updated and enlarged version of the 2.5-litre V-12 which had made sporadic appearances in the works 250Fs in 1957. It was an old design, heavy and thirsty and the new Cooper T81 chassis built to take it was necessarily on the large side, in spite of which the bulky V-12 always looked as though it was spilling out of the back. Three cars were sold to private owners, one each to Rob Walker for Jo Siffert to drive, Jo Bonnier's Anglo Swiss Racing Team, and French privateer Guy Ligier. None of these cars achieved much success.  Jochen Rindt was entering the second year of his three-year contract, but with the departure of McLaren, Cooper had a seat to fill in the second car and with the team's recent lack of success, understandably, a large queue of potential drivers was not forming at Canada Road. In the circumstances, Cooper were fortunate to acquire the services of Honda's Richie Ginther, who was temporarily unemployed due to the Japanese company's late development of their new 3-litre car. After a couple of races, Ginther was recalled by Honda to commence testing of their new car and the American was no doubt more than somewhat chagrined to discover that it was even bigger and heavier than the Cooper. After making a one-off arrangement with Chris Amon (unemployed due to the McLaren team's engine problems) to drive in the French Grand Prix, Cooper had an enormous stroke of luck when John Surtees became available after falling out with Ferrari. Once conflicting fuel contract issues were resolved (Surtees was with Shell, Cooper with BP), Surtees joined the team. Cooper honoured its commitment to Amon, so three cars were run in the French GP. Subsequently, the team reverted to two entries for Surtees and Rindt and with the former Ferrari driver's development skills and a switch to Firestone tyres, the car was improved to the point that Surtees was able to win the final race of the year in Mexico.  Surtees left to join Honda for 1967 and Pedro Rodríguez joined Rindt in the team and immediately won the opening race of 1967 in South Africa in an unlikely Cooper one-two. This was a fortuitous win for Rodríguez, as he was being outpaced by Rhodesian John Love in his three-year-old ex McLaren Tasman Cooper powered by a 2.7-litre Coventry Climax FPF. Unfortunately, Love had to make a late pit stop for fuel and could only finish second. This was to be Cooper's last ever Grand Prix victory. The rest of the 1967 season had the team's fortunes steadily decline and the midseason appearance of the lighter and slimmer T86 chassis failed to improve things. Rindt, impatiently seeing out his Cooper contract, deliberately blew up his increasingly antiquated Maserati engine in the US Grand Prix and was fired before the season finale in Mexico.  For 1968, Cooper would have liked to have joined the queue for the Cosworth-Ford DFV, but felt that its connections to British Leyland with the Mini-Coopers made this inadvisable. Instead, a deal was done with BRM for the use of its 3-litre V-12, originally conceived as a sports car unit, but which BRM themselves would be using in 1968. A slightly modified version of the T86 was built for the new engine, dubbed T86B and Italian ex-Ferrari driver Ludovico Scarfiotti and young Englishman Brian Redman were employed to drive it. The cars managed three-four finishes in the Spanish and Monaco Grands Prix, largely thanks to the unreliability of the competition, but then Scarfiotti was killed driving a Porsche in the Rossfeld hill climb and Redman had a big accident in the Belgian Grand Prix which put him out of action for several months. Cooper continued the season with a motley collection of drivers, none of whom could make anything of the outclassed T86B. During the season, Cooper built a modified chassis, the T86C, intended to take an Alfa Romeo 3-litre V-8 but the project was stillborn.  The beginning of the end for the Cooper Car Company was in 1969, as it tried, and failed, to find sponsorship for a new Cosworth DFV-powered car and there were many redundancies. Frank Boyles was the last to leave, since he was in charge of building customer cars and it had been hoped that some more F2 cars would be sold. Frank went on to design and build a Formula Ford car called the Oscar and also a series of Oval Circuit cars known as Fireballs. Driving the rear-engine version of this car, Frank won more than 200 races during a period up until 1975 in a car he had designed and raced himself. This record is believed to have never been beaten.  In all, Coopers participated in 129 Formula One World Championship events in nine years, winning 16 races.  Besides Formula One cars, Cooper offered a series of Formula Junior cars. These were the T52, T56, T59, and T67 models. Ken Tyrrell ran a very successful team with John Love and Tony Maggs as his drivers. Following the demise of Formula Junior, Ken Tyrrell tested Jackie Stewart in a Formula Three car, a Cooper T72. This test at the Goodwood Circuit marked the start of partnership which dominated motorsport later on.  John Cooper retired to the Sussex coast, where in 1971, he founded the garage business at Ferring, near Worthing. The garage sold Mini Cooper engine-tuning kits and performance parts.  The Garage was to Honda in 1986 and the business was moved to East Preston converts Mini Coopers into race cars.  In October 2009, Mike Cooper, the son of John Cooper, launched Cooper Bikes, the bicycle division of the Cooper Car Company.

Mini legacy.

As the company's fortunes in Formula One declined, however, the John Cooper-conceived Mini Cooper – introduced in 1961 as a development of the Alec Issigonis-designed British Motor Corporation Mini with a more powerful engine, new brakes, and a distinctive livery – continued to dominate in saloon car and rally races throughout the 1960s, winning many championships and the 1964, 1965, and 1967 Monte Carlo rallies.  Several different Cooper-marked versions of the Mini and various Cooper conversion kits have been, and continue to be, marketed by various companies. The current BMW MINI, in production since 2001, has Cooper and Cooper S models and a number of John Cooper Works tuner packages.

Coopers Garage.

On 1 April 1968, John Cooper leased the building, 243 Ewell Road, to the Metropolitan Police and the local Traffic Division (V Victor) moved in. They would stay there for the next 25 years and 'TDV' would become one of the busier police garages. In August 1968, they were supplied with the two Mini Coopers, index numbers PYT767F and PYT768F. The centre boss of the steering wheel was replaced by a speaker and microphone and a PTT transmitter switch, was added to the steering column. The vehicles were trialled for a number of months, but no orders were placed for other garages. The police have now moved out, and the building is now a Porsche dealership.

The Cooper Car Company is a British car manufacturer founded in December 1947 by Charles Cooper and his son John Cooper. Together with John's boyhood friend, Eric Brandon, they began by building racing cars in Charles's small garage in Surbiton, Surrey, England, in 1946. Through the 1950s and early 1960s they reached motor racing's highest levels as their rear-engined, single-seat cars competed in both Formula One and the Indianapolis 500, and their dominated rally racing. The Cooper name lives on in the Cooper versions of the Mini production cars that are built in England, but is now owned and marketed by BMW.

Cooper war ein britischer Rennwagenhersteller, der in den 1950er und 1960er Jahren mit eigenen Werksteams in diversen Motorsportklassen vertreten war. Cooper trat in der Formel Junior, der Formel 3, bei den 500 Meilen von Indianapolis, bei den 24-Stunden-Rennen von Le Mans sowie in der Formel 1 an. Daneben lieferte das Unternehmen regelmäßig auch Fahrzeuge für Kundenteams. Zeitweise gehörte Cooper zu den erfolgreichsten Formel-1-Teams. Jack Brabham, Bruce McLaren und Jochen Rindt fuhren auf Coopers Werkswagen Erfolge ein. Bekannt ist das Unternehmen außerdem durch den Mini Cooper.