Portal:Trains/Did you know/August 2012

August 2012

 * ...that in 1905 Hicks Locomotive and Car Works in Chicago claimed the ability to manufacture 10 new railroad coaches per month and 25 freight cars per day in addition to its steam locomotive rebuilding activities?


 * ...that the proposed Hasselt - Maastricht tramway, a fast tram service that would connect its namesake cities in Belgium and the Netherlands, is planned to use a combination of new and old (to be reactivated) railways?


 * ...that before Hanxi Changlong Station started operations on Guangzhou Metro's Line 3, the station was previously named "Hanxi Station" and "Changlong Station" successively, but local residents objected to the latter name as it favored the owners of the nearby Chime-Long Paradise and the station's current name was chosen as a compromise?


 * ...that when Hagiyama Station in Higashimurayama, Tokyo, Japan, was relocated to its present location in 1958 to allow direct trains to Seibu Yūenchi from Kodaira and central Tokyo, the realignment made it impossible to run trains from Kodaira to Kokubunji?


 * ...that when the Grenoble tramway was initially opened in 1987, a system which has since been expanded to measure 35 km long over four lines, Grenoble became the second French city to reintroduce trams, after Nantes?


 * ...that from 1893 to 1916, Karl Gölsdorf was the chief design engineer of the Imperial Royal Austrian State Railways where he developed 25 different classes of steam locomotives (in 47 variants) during his career including the Class 30 operated by the Vienna Stadtbahn, the Atlantics of classes 108 and 310, and the ten-coupled ÖBB Class 380?


 * ...that two weeks before the Garrison train crash occurred in October 1897 in Garrison, New York, another instance of train 46, which was the scheduled train in the accident, had almost derailed near the same spot when a two-ton boulder was found on the tracks, with some believing it had been deliberately placed?


 * ...that in 2007, Gangnam Station on Line 2 of the Seoul Metropolitan Subway in South Korea was the busiest subway station in the system, with approximately 123,000 daily passengers using it on average?


 * ...that unlike other lines shut down by Japanese National Railways and JR Hokkaido, a successor company was established in 1989 to operate the Chihoku Line; the new company renamed the Chihoku Line to the Furusato Ginga Line ("Hometown Galaxy Line") and introduced new cars, continuing operations until 2006?


 * ...that Dr. Richard Beeching lived at East Grinstead and while he was Chairman of British Railways regularly traveled up to London on the former Three Bridges to Tunbridge Wells Central Line, which was ultimately included in the Beeching Axe closures in 1966 and was then converted into the Forest Way rail trail in the 1970s?


 * ...that Faiveley Transport supplied the pantographs for the record-setting runs of TGV trains in 1981 (running at 380 km/h), 1990 (513.3 km/h) and 2007 (574.8 km/h)?


 * ...that EMD's G22 Series diesel-electric locomotives, which were first introduced in 1968 to replace the aging G12 model, were the first model series to have a low nose as a standard option as well as high nose?


 * ...that the E3 Series Shinkansen trains were introduced in 1997 coinciding with the opening of the new Akita Shinkansen 'mini-shinkansen' line, a regular narrow gauge line between Morioka and Akita, Japan, upgraded to  standard gauge?


 * ...that George Troup, the official architect of New Zealand Railways, earned the nickname "Gingerbread George" for his design of the ornately decorated Dunedin Railway Station, which opened in 1906?


 * ...that the ethics of digital manipulation in railway photography, which is sometimes employed in the photography of steam locomotives remove anachronistic objects from the scene in order to portray a more authentic setting, are debated amongst railway enthusiasts as the manipulation allows the creation of images that may appear to be other than their actual subjects?


 * ...that the Daiyūzan Line in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, which is now used primarily as a commuter rail line, was originally built in the 1920s to carry pilgrims from Odawara city to the Sōtō Zen Buddhist temple of Saijō-ji (最乗寺), more popularly known by its mountain name of "Daiyūzan?"


 * ...that the gauge of the Cork Electric Tramways and Lighting Company in Cork, Ireland, was selected to allow trains from the  gauge Cork and Muskerry Light Railway and the Cork, Blackrock and Passage Railway to connect using the tram lines?


 * ...that the CityRail Clearways Project in Australia is intended to be the next step in improving on-time performance after a new slower timetable was introduced in September 2005 as a response to the speed limit restrictions enforced after the 2003 Waterfall rail accident?


 * ...that metre gauge Chemin de fer du Vivarais trains in the Ardèche region of southern France depart from the SNCF station in Tournon-sur-Rhône via 2.2 km of the only three-rail dual gauge track in the country?


 * ...that there have been considerable efforts to convert the Camel Trail, a former railway right-of-way in Cornwall, United Kingdom, back into a railway, in order to allow it to carry china clay traffic again and to extend the Bodmin and Wenford Railway but they have so far been rejected citing the trail's use by the community and that many roads have been converted to one-way traffic since the trail opened?


 * ...that Diamond Jim Brady, who became the chief assistant to the general manager of the New York Central Railroad system by the age of 21 in the mid 1870s, was once described as "the best 25 customers I ever had" by New York City restaurateur George Rector?


 * ...that the minimum gauge Bickington Steam Railway in Newton Abbot, England, was extended in 2008 in the hope that Trago Mills shoppers would use the ride to return to their vehicles, a near half-mile uphill walk from the main shopping complex?


 * ...that when the Ballymena and Larne Railway began passenger train service in 1878 in County Antrim, in what is now Northern Ireland, it became the first gauge railway in Ireland to operate passenger services?


 * ...that the kanji characters for Ayashi Station in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan, are the same characters as in the name Aiko given to the daughter of the Crown Prince of Japan, which led to a high demand for tickets from the station after her birth on December 1, 2001, with about 84,000 tickets purchased between December 7 and December 28?


 * ...that the railway establishment surrounding what is now Asansol Junction in West Bengal. India, contributed substantially to the development and growth of the area by facilitating freight transportation to and from the growing industries and moving it off barges traveling the inconsistent waters of the Damodar River?


 * ...that the location of Ardeer railway station on the Melton railway line in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, was originally just a siding installed in 1903 named Australian Explosives and Chemical Coy Siding with passenger services introduced in 1929?