Portal:Trains/Did you know/July 2009

July 2009

Bishop's Stortford station in 2008

• ...that Bishop's Stortford railway station in Hertfordshire, England, was opened by the Northern and Eastern Railway as a temporary terminus on May 16, 1842, and became a through station on July 30, 1845, when the line was extended through to Norwich?

EMD/MP GP15D locomotive CEFX 1509 in Houston, Texas, in 2003

• ...that although the GP15D, built by MotivePower Industries and Electro-Motive Diesel in June 2000 with lowered long and short hoods based on MotivePower Industries' earlier MP1500D locomotives, is marketed as a switcher, it has a top speed of 70 mph (110 km/h), making it suitable for road switcher duties as well?

A French Red Cross train bearing sick and wounded soldiers to Paris after passing through a field hospital in 1917

• ...that historically hospital train usage has ranged from trains equipped to transport wounded soldiers, with basic nursing and first aid facilities on board, to fully equipped mobile medical centres, sometimes including operating theatres and nursing wards?

Modern CFS passenger train, hauled by General Electric Class U17C, north of Aleppo on the former Baghdad Railway

• ...that most tracks of the Chemins de Fer Syriens are limited to a top speed of 80 km/h (50 mph) in part due to a lack of interlocked signalling, with most of the system operating on a token based system?

The remains of Alton railway station as seen in 2006

• ...that North Staffordshire Railway's Alton Towers railway station, opened in 1849, was used by the Earl of Shrewsbury who had a luggage lift installed to hoist his baggage up to Alton Towers and the station platform was particularly long to satisfy the Earl's desire to have impressive surroundings in which to receive his guests?

TP&W 400, an RS-11 that used a V12 251 engine

• ...that ALCO's 251 engine model, first designed in 1951 and offered in inline-6, V12 and V16 configurations, proved successful enough that it is still available for purchase from Fairbanks-Morse for new applications?

SNCF 231G 558 pulling an excursion train in June 2009

• ...that unlike Whyte notation, the French classification of railway locomotives counts the number of axles rather than wheels and lists them without any punctuation between the leading, driving and trailing wheels so, for example, a 4-6-2 is listed as a 231 class locomotive?

Freight Australia G class locomotives hauling the Melbourne bound SCT train near Geelong

• ...that after gaining a few interstate freight hauling contracts, Freight Victoria in Australia was renamed to Freight Australia in 2000 then soon commenced hauling export grain in southern New South Wales, and by the end of 2000 was hauling the Specialised Container Transport train from Melbourne to Perth?

Berney Arms station in 2004

• ...that Berney Arms railway station, opened in 1844 as part of the Yarmouth and Norwich Railway in Norfolk, England, now served by National Express East Anglia, is the most remote station in Norfolk and one of the most remote in England with the nearest road being 3.5 miles (5.6 km) away?

Bristol Railroad locomotive number 1

• ...that the period of operations for the Bristol Railroad, a 6-mile (9.7 km) long railroad in Vermont, was short enough that one man, John S. Burt, rode both the grand opening train on January 5, 1892, and the final train on April 12, 1930?

Map showing the proposed rail extension to Kippa-Ring

• ...that although a railway connection to Redcliffe in Queensland, Australia, was proposed as early as 1895, during the 2009 Queensland state election, the Liberal National Party of Queensland promised to start construction of the Kippa-Ring railway line in its first term if it was elected, with the first stage of the line from Petrie to Mango Hill commissioned in 2014, and completed to Kippa-Ring by 2016?

The Festungsbahn in operation in 2008

• ...that the Festungsbahn in Salzburg, Germany, opened in 1892 as a water balance funicular, was later modernized in 1960 to use electric traction and again modernized in 1991 with new cars that allowed a higher passenger capacity and faster speed reducing the travel time for its 198-metre (650 ft) length to one minute?

Class 9F locomotive 92021 at Wellingborough shed in 1959

• ...that in 1955 British Railways built Standard Class 9F steam locomotives Nos 92020-9 with Franco-Crosti boilers, so these locomotives' standard chimney at the front was only used during lighting-up, while exhaust during operation was expelled through a chimney on the fireman's side, just forward of the firebox?

Tank cars parked on a spur of the Chemical Coast Line that passes under the Staten Island Railway in 2006

• ...that the section of railroad in Union and Middlesex counties in New Jersey that faces Staten Island, New York, across the Arthur Kill serving several chemical plants came to be known as the Chemical Coast when the line was operated by Conrail in the 1980s and 1990s?

Bulvar Dmitriya Donskogo station interior in 2007

• ...that Bulvar Dmitriya Donskogo, the southern terminus and the newest station of Moscow Metro's Serpukhovsko-Timiryazevskaya Line, is the first station of the system built outside of the MKAD beltway encircling most of the city?

Carris operated tram and bus in Lisbon

• ...that the bus, tram and funicular systems in Lisbon, Portugal, are all operated by Carris but the Lisbon Metro rapid transit system is independently operated?

A BR Mark 1 composite sleeping car in the LNWR carriage sheds at Crewe in the mid-1970s

• ...that the surviving British Railways Mark 1 sleeping cars, built between 1957 and 1964, have been decontaminated of their asbestos insulation and are kept for their value as museum exhibits, as much as for sleeping accommodation for museum and heritage railway volunteers?

Great Northern's former Skykomish station in 2008

• ...that the town of Skykomish, Washington, was founded as a division point on the Great Northern Railway and that the town's original station, built in 1894 but now known as the Great Northern Depot, has been preserved and listed on the National Register of Historic Places?

EF66 37 original build with extended roof and air conditioning in 2007

• ...that when it was first built in 1966 by Kawasaki Sharyō, Japanese National Railways Class EF66, designed for express freight on the Tōkaidō Main Line and Sanyō Main Line, was the world's most powerful narrow gauge locomotive model?

Łódź Kaliska railway station in 2005

• ...that Łódź Kaliska railway station opened by the Warsaw - Kalisz Railway in 1902 in Łódź, Poland, was rebuilt in 1994 and is still in use providing connections to all major cities of Poland?

Moniaive station facade as seen in May 2009

• ...that by the time that Moniaive railway station was opened in 1905 by the Cairn Valley Light Railway as its northern terminus, the town of Moniaive was one of the last places in Scotland to be connected to the British railway network?

Gomaco-built replica double-truck Birney cars on the River Rail Streetcar in Little Rock

• ...that Gomaco Trolley Company has supplied new replica Birney streetcars to the TECO Line Streetcar System, in Tampa, Florida, to the River Rail Streetcar, in Little Rock, Arkansas, and to the Charlotte Area Transit System, in Charlotte, North Carolina, for use on the Charlotte Trolley?

An EMD GL8 owned by América Latina Logística

• ...that General Motors Electro-Motive Division developed the GL8 model of diesel locomotive in the early 1960s using the EMD 8-567 engine to drive four traction motors in either A1A-A1A or EMD's B-B flexicoil trucks?

The facade of the Centro Cultural Estación Mapocho, Santiago, Chile, in 2006

• ...that Estación Mapocho in Santiago, Chile, serving northern Chile, Valparaiso and Argentina, was built in 1913 to celebrate the centennial of Chilean independence?

251 902-3 (formerly series V 51) arrives at Warthausen in 1988

• ...that in 1964 with financial support from the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, the German locomotive manufacturer Gmeinder built a small series of narrow gauge diesel locomotives including the 750 mm (2 ft 5+1⁄2 in) gauge series V 51 and 1,000 mm (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in) gauge V 52 for Deutsche Bundesbahn to replace outdated steam locomotives that were still in use?

JA class steam locomotive

• ...that although the 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) gauge RM class 'Vulcan' railcar continues to hold the official New Zealand rail speed record of 125.5 km/h (78.0 mph), unofficially it has been claimed that J^A class steam locomotives attained higher speeds?

MARC train at Rockville rail station as seen from the Metro platform in 2007

• ...that the Brunswick Line is the only MARC Commuter Rail line to utilize ex-Metra Pullman Gallery cars, since it's the only MARC line to use all low-level platforms on the main line between Martinsburg, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C.?