Portal:Trains/Did you know/April 2010

April 2010

 * ...that Sir Charles Fox, whose company Fox & Sons engineered the complex scheme of bridges and high-level lines at Battersea for the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway, London, Chatham and Dover Railway and London and South Western Railway and the approach to Victoria Station, London, including widening the bridge over the Thames, originally trained to follow his father's career in medicine?


 * ...that in the Finnish railway signalling system, a distant signal, which indicates the signal aspect of a distant signalling block, is located at least 1200 m before the main signal, but may be located on the same post as the main signal for the current signalling block?
 * ...that the Class D.341 diesel locomotives of FS/Trenitalia in Italy were built in the late 1950s and early 1960s by both FIAT Grandi Motori and Breda with different engines depending on the manufacturer which led to a slightly different appearance between the two series?
 * ...that since the 1987 closure of Estación Mapocho, Estación Central railway station in Santiago, Chile, designed by Gustave Eiffel in 1897, is the initial departure point for all rail traffic bound for southern Chile and the only operating train station in Santiago?


 * ...that a pedestrian level crossing accident at Elsenham railway station in 2005 led not only to the installation of a footbridge and other works that will make the crossing safer but it also led to a complete review by the Rail Accident Investigation Branch of all pedestrian level crossings at stations in the United Kingdom?


 * ...that the 1973 merger of the rival Baltimore & Ohio, Chesapeake & Ohio and Western Maryland railroads that formed Chessie System, was largely due to the work of Cyrus S. Eaton, one of the most powerful financiers in the American midwest?


 * ...that the E1 series Shinkansen trains introduced in 1994 specifically to relieve overcrowding on services used by commuters on the Tōhoku Shinkansen and Jōetsu Shinkansen in Japan were the first double-deck trains built for Shinkansen service?


 * ...that in the Netherlands there are five types of train services including NS Hispeed/International such as the Thalys services to Paris, Intercity, Sneltrein, stoptrein and Sprinter?


 * ...that in 2006 the gauge diesel locomotive Douglas Ferreira worked 9230 mi on the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway and in 2007 it traveled 8958 mi between Ravenglass and Dalegarth?
 * ...that although Diamond Creek railway station in Melbourne, Australia, is not normally staffed, when trains are scheduled to cross at the station Metro Trains staff are required to operate the Staff and Ticket safeworking system used on the line, which included the points for the crossing loop and all signals until 2008?


 * ...that William Dargan is known as the "father of Irish railways" for his work in constructing the first Irish railway in 1833, which connected Dublin to Dún Laoghaire, as well as over 800 mi of railway to important urban centres of Ireland?


 * ...that until October 2006 Dabaishu station on Shanghai Metro Line 3 was known as East Wenshui Road station which was easily confused with Wenshui Road station on Line 1?


 * ...that after the 1977 closure of Dachnoye, a temporary station on the Kirovsko-Vyborgskaya Line of the Saint Petersburg Metro, the station building was subsequently enclosed in a larger building that was later converted into local Metro headquarters?


 * ...that in 1896 William George Crush, general passenger agent of the Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad, staged a publicity stunt to demonstrate a train wreck as a spectacle at a temporary "city" named Crush, Texas?


 * ...that Kent Station in Cork, Ireland, was opened in 1893 to replace two earlier stations that served as separate termini for the Great Southern and Western Railway and the Youghal Railway?


 * ...that the class 1000 Shinkansen trains delivered in 1962 were not only used for high-speed testing ahead of the opening of the Tōkaidō Shinkansen in 1964, but were also all scrapped at Hamamatsu Works between 1975 and 1976 to test the cutting-up facilities ahead of the first batch of 360 0 series cars due for withdrawal?


 * ...that in the first half of the 20th century, the Christchurch tramway system in New Zealand was renowned for its double-decker trailers with the largest of the trailers seating 92 passengers?


 * ...that owing to its location near the Pearl River and the Chigang Pagoda as well as the Guangzhou TV & Sightseeing Tower, Chigang Pagoda Station, an interchange station on Line 3 and the Zhujiang New Town Automated People Mover Systems of the Guangzhou Metro in China, is the first station built for sightseeing purposes on the Guangzhou Metro system?


 * ...that the metre gauge Chemin de Fer de La Mure, now a tourist railway near Grenoble, France, was almost closed in the mid-1970s but was kept in operation to continue to haul coal during the oil crisis?


 * ...that Amtrak introduced the Carolinian passenger train connecting New York City and Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1984, but then discontinued it the following year after North Carolina declined to renew its financial support for the service and finally reintroducing it in 1990 again with North Carolina's support?


 * ...that many of the Córas Iompair Éireann (CIÉ) 2600 Class of diesel multiple unit cars that operated intercity and suburban services between 1951 and 1975 were later converted for push–pull operation with diesel locomotives before being withdrawn in the mid-1980s?


 * ...that Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) 4-4-0 number 374, built by CPR at the company's Montreal shops in 1886 and now preserved in Yaletown, British Columbia, pulled the first transcontinental train to arrive in Vancouver on May 23, 1887?


 * ...that although construction of Busan Subway Line 2 in South Korea began in 1991, the first section, a 22.4 km route with 21 stations between Hopo and Seomyeon, was not opened until 1999?
 * ...that although Broadmeadows railway station in Melbourne, Australia, was originally opened in 1873 as part of the North East railway to Wodonga, all day through services to Broadmeadows was not provided until 1941?


 * ...that because freight trains in the United Kingdom without a continuous train braking system in either the whole train or the rearmost section of the train were still common as late as the 1970s a train's guard would use the brake van's brakes to assist with keeping a train under control on downwards gradients and whenever he could see that the locomotive's crew was attempting to slow the train?


 * ...that the Rio Grande Zephyr, operated by Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad from 1971 to 1983, was the last privately operated intercity passenger train to operate in the United States?


 * ...that the Plan X class DE-1 diesel railcars built in the 1950s and formerly used by the Netherlands Railways on the branch lines in Friesland as well as on other non-electrified secondary routes, were known as Blue Angels due to their blue paint scheme?


 * ...that Jannowitzbrücke station, a station on the Berlin S-Bahn in Germany, first opened in 1882 and was closed in 1961 with the construction of the Berlin Wall, but became the first ghost station on the system to reopen on November 11, 1989?
 * ...that the act of a guard or conductor of a railway to apply the emergency brakes where something untoward has been noticed is sometimes called a pulled tail?


 * ...that after the failed Santa Fe–Southern Pacific merger, for which both Santa Fe Railroad and Southern Pacific Railroad began applying a combined livery to their locomotives, the SPSF acronym for the proposed merger was reinterpreted by railfans to stand for "Shouldn't Paint So Fast"?
 * ...that the stories of the Culdee Fell Railway, a fictional narrow-gauge rack and pinion railway appearing in the book Mountain Engines written by the Rev. W. Awdry, are based on incidents in the history of the Snowdon Mountain Railway?