Portal:Trains/Did you know/April 2012

April 2012

 * ...that the host station program was introduced by the Victorian Department of Transport, Australia, in the early 2000s to ensure that over 80 per cent of suburban rail passengers started their journey from a staffed (host or premium) station?


 * ...that after railroad construction began in 1868 along both sides of the Willamette River in Oregon, Ben Holladay's "Eastsiders" building what would become the Oregon and California Railroad completed 20 mi of track before the competition, using "every trick known to man" in the construction, including bribing the Oregon Legislature in October 1868?


 * ...that since the Midland Railway's Hazel Grove railway station closed in 1917, on a line intended to improve access of the MRs fast trains from London St Pancras via Derby to Manchester Central in England, only the footpath leading up from Buxton Road remains with original slatted wooden Midland Railway style fencing and gates?


 * ...that due to its proximity to Meiji-Jingumae Station on the Tokyo Metro Chiyoda Line, Harajuku Station on JR East's Yamanote Line is marked as an interchange on most route maps although there is no physical connection between the two stations?


 * ...that in the mid-20th century, Hamilton railway station, which opened in 1877 in Victoria, Australia, included a 10-track goods yard and served as a junction station for branch lines to Coleraine, Penshurst and Balmoral, but now serves only bus traffic with the last passenger train stopping at the station in 1981?


 * ...that because Andrew Smith Hallidie was the promoter of the Clay Street Hill Railroad in San Francisco, California, United States, a line that proved to be the world's first practical cable car system, Hallidie is often regarded as the inventor of the cable car and father of the present day San Francisco cable car system, although both claims are open to dispute?


 * ...that despite the fact that the broad gauge was in its very final months on the Great Western Railway in England, new broad gauge engines were still needed to maintain services, and eight of the new 3001 Class 2-2-2 engines built in 1891-2, Nos. 3021-3028, were built with the wheels outside the frames, to run on the broad gauge and then were converted to standard gauge in 1892?


 * ...that the 13 km Yokohama Municipal Subway Green Line which opened in 2008 connecting Nakayama Station on the JR East Yokohama Line and Hiyoshi Station on the Tōkyū Tōyoko Line in Japan is the first part of a proposed Yokohama Loop Railway (横浜環状鉄道)?


 * ...that until the installation of mini-CTC in April 2008 on the line Dublin to Wexford and Rosslare, Ireland, it was not normally possible for northbound trains to use the passing loop at Gorey railway station, as it was only signalled in the Rosslare direction which led to some awkward shunting arrangements when a locomotive-hauled train terminated in the station?


 * ...that Geneva Public Transport (Transports Publics Genevois, TPG), the tram, trolleybus and bus operator of Geneva Canton, Switzerland, is the successor organization to the Compagnie Genevoise des Tramways Électriques (Geneva Electric Tramway Company), which operated trams throughout the canton and parts of neighbouring France from 1900 until 1 January 1977?


 * ...that unlike most stations, the main station building for Gare de Montdidier, which opened in 1883 in the commune of Montdidier, Somme department, France, is situated perpendicular to the track it serves?


 * ...that the 1.8 km standard gauge Gala-Yuzawa Line is a short branch line that extends from Echigo-Yuzawa Station on the Jōetsu Shinkansen to Gala-Yuzawa Station in Yuzawa, Niigata, Japan, but the line is officially classified as a branch of the narrow gauge Jōetsu Line?


 * ...that the station sign at Fulong Station, which originally opened in 1924 as Okutei Station, is written in imitated Sung characters (仿宋體), a unique feature among Taiwan Railway Administration stations?


 * ...that the 850 m metre gauge Fløibanen funicular railway, which opened in 1918 connecting Bergen to the summit of Fløyen mountain, is one of Norway's most visited attractions serving more than 1 million passengers per year?


 * ...that in contrast with later fire-tube boiler designs, some flued boiler designs of the early 1800s used a single large U-shaped flue called a return flue which proved practical enough that the Canadian Samson of this pattern, built in 1838, remained in service as late as 1885?


 * ...that two Fastech 360 high-speed trains were built by East Japan Railway Company to test new Shinkansen technologies at target test speeds as high as 405 km/h, which led to incorporation of some components into the E5 series and E6 series trains, entering revenue service from 2011, eventually operating at 320 km/h?


 * ...that until 2008, the dual gauge track at Ethelton railway station on the suburban rail route between Adelaide and Outer Harbor, South Australia, were used by freight trains from Dry Creek and the Rosewater loop but the track has not been rationalized to a single gauge because of the eventual gauge conversion of broad gauge passenger trains to standard gauge?


 * ...that the new EP20 Bo'Bo'Bo' electric locomotive class being built for Russian Railways by Transmashholding's Novocherkassk Electric Locomotive Plant has a modular design that will allow the construction of several variants including a single unit dual voltage freight variant E20, and dual unit dual voltage freight variant 2ES20, as well as single voltage DC and AC machines and passenger 4 axle Bo'Bo' based machines?


 * ...that in the late 1970s train services between Germany and the Netherlands was suspended, but although the connection from Enschede railway station to Gronau and Dortmund was reopened in 2001, there is no longer a connection allowing the German trains to run any further into Holland?


 * ...that the earliest example of an elevated railway was the London and Greenwich Railway which was built on a brick viaduct of 878 arches between 1836 and 1838, but it wasn't until the Liverpool Overhead Railway was built in 1893 that any elevated railway was electrified?


 * ...that a recent study showed that the water regime of the Rajshahi Division of present Bangladesh was destabilized by the way the Eastern Bengal Railway exposed itself to the Chalan Beel in the early 20th century with the Calcutta-Siliguri Main Line on the west and the Santahar-Bogra Line on the north?


 * ...that the unusual du Bousquet locomotive design, in which a tank locomotive's boiler and superstructure were supported upon two swivelling trucks in a manner similar to a Meyer locomotive, overcame the problems the Meyer design had with poor sealing on the steam-pipe flexible joints by having the rear truck, holding the high-pressure cylinders, mounted on a bearing that permitted only rotation and not any other axes of flexibility?


 * ...that when Den-en-chōfu Station at the junction of the Tōkyū Toyoko and Meguro lines in Tokyo, Japan, was rebuilt in the 1980s a copy of the original station building was constructed on elevated ground to become an entranceway to the plaza in front of the new subway station entrance?


 * ...that due to considerable housing development in the area, Daisy Hill railway station in the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, Greater Manchester, England, a station that opened in 1888, is now a well-used commuter rail station and according to official Strategic Rail Authority figures was the most used station on the Manchester to Southport Line after Atherton?


 * ...that cow-calf style switching locomotives built in the 1930s and 1940s for American railroads, locomotives such as the EMD TR1, served as the inspiration for the unique Class 13 locomotives used in the United Kingdom by British Rail in the late 1960s?