Portal:Trains/Did you know/January 2011

January 2011

 * ...that from 2001 to 2007, Matsue English Garden Mae Station was named Louis C. Tiffany Garden Museum Mae Station (ルイス・C.ティファニー庭園美術館前駅) making it the longest railway station name in Japan, a record that is now held by Minamiaso Mizu-no-Umareru-Sato Hakusui-Kōgen Station (南阿蘇水の生まれる里白水高原駅)?


 * ...that when construction proposals were accepted in 1875 for the Maria Pia Bridge, a railway bridge across the River Douro in Porto, Portugal, the design proposed by Gustave Eiffel which was soon accepted and built in 1877 was the least expensive of eight proposals being 31% less than the next lowest priced?


 * ...that the roster of rolling stock on the Manx Electric Railway on the Isle of Man is unique insofar as the railway still operates with all of its original tramcars and trailers, all of which are over one hundred years old, the latest dating from 1906?


 * ...that the Main Suburban railway line connecting Redfern and Parramatta in Sydney, Australia, Sydney's oldest line, opening in 1855, was expanded to four tracks in 1892 and further expanded to six tracks from Redfern to Homebush in 1927?


 * ...that the M250 series "Super Rail Cargo" freight electric multiple unit trains, introduced in 2004 for JR Freight with the objective of reducing emissions and carrying general freight for small package forwarders, is JR Freight's first container train motive power with distributed traction?


 * ...that Lyon Metro Line D, also known as MAGGALY (Métro Automatique à Grand Gabarit de l’Agglomération Lyonnaise), is the deepest metro line in Lyon, France, and at 13 km long, it is also the longest of the lines in Lyon?


 * ...that most London Underground rolling stock has a digital voice announcer installed with the Bakerloo, Victoria and Central lines voiced by Emma Clarke, while the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines all use different voice over artists?


 * ...that Buenos Aires Metro Line H, which opened in 2007 between Plaza Once and Caseros stations, is the first entirely new line built in Buenos Aires, Argentina, since the opening of Line E on 20 June 1944?


 * ...that because level junctions, particularly those of fine angles or near right angles, can create derailment risks, railway companies that operate over them often impose speed restrictions on all trains crossing them?


 * ...that with the establishment of Line M2 on the Lausanne Metro in 2008, Lausanne, Switzerland, has replaced Rennes, France, as the smallest city in the world to have a full metro system?


 * ...that the first prototype of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway's G class 2-2-2 steam locomotive, number 151 Grosvenor, was designed by William Stroudley and extensively tested for three years before the next prototype for the class, number 325 Abergavenny was built?


 * ...that the current gauge Kururi Line connecting Kisarazu to Kazusa-Kameyama via Kururi in Japan originally opened in 1928 as a  gauge line from Kisarazu to Kururi?


 * ...that in 1926, Lavr Proskuryakov, the builder of the original Krasnoluzhsky Rail Bridge, which was completed in 1907 to cross the Moskva River between Kievsky Rail Terminal and Luzhniki in Moscow, was buried at Novodevichy Cemetery, itself located right next to the bridge?


 * ...that when new class 5000 EMUs were delivered to Korail in 2005 for use on the Gyeongbu and Gyeongin lines, the shape of the driver's window and the position of the headlights earned the class the nickname "뱀눈이" which can be translated as "snake eyes"?


 * ...that with a station building reminiscent of a Lappish hut, Kolari railway station in Lapland Province, 1067.2 km north of Helsinki Central railway station, is the northernmost station in Finland?


 * ...that Czechoslovak forces in World War I captured a number of the former Imperial Royal Austrian State Railways class 429 2-6-2 steam locomotives for ČSD and the captured locomotives, reclassified as class 354, remained in service until the last example of the class was retired in 1967?


 * ...that when the Minami-Osaka Line was completed in 1923, a line now operated by Kintetsu Corporation, it was electrified at 1500 V DC, then the highest voltage of any railway in Japan, and it remains the only Kintetsu line to use gauge track?


 * ...that since Kilcoole halt in County Wicklow, Ireland, is the southern boundary of the Short Hop zone on the railway, a single ticket to Balbriggan, 69 km away, is less than a third of the price of a ticket to Gorey, which is nearer at 64 km away?


 * ...that the first Khabarovsk Railway Bridge, the longest railway bridge in Eurasia, built in 1916 to carry the Trans-Siberian Railway across the Amur River, was originally named Alekseyevsky after Tsesarevich Alexis?


 * ...that since the Kars–Gymri section of the Kars–Gyumri–Tbilisi railway has not been in operation due to the closed Turkish-Armenian border, in April 2005, an agreement was signed to build a direct connection across the Turkish-Georgian border from Kars to Georgia's Akhalkalaki, and to rehabilitate the existing railways from Akhalkalaki to Tbilisi to Baku creating the Kars–Tbilisi–Baku mainline?


 * ...that until March 13, 2004, the Kagoshima Main Line in Japan covered 393 km between its two termini, but with the opening of the Kyūshū Shinkansen, the section between Yatsushiro and Sendai was transferred to the third-sector Hisatsu Orange Railway Company?


 * ...that unlike anything previously attempted on the London Underground, the physical design of stations on the Jubilee Line Extension, which opened in 1999, is characterised by cavernous, stark interiors lined with polished metal panels and moulded concrete walls and columns?


 * ...that the larger Hejaz Railway was originally built for ideological, religious, and to a lesser extent military needs, and was initially underutilized, but in time the potential was realized and the Jezreel Valley railway line quickly became a major competitor to the French Beirut-Damascus line for transferring products from the Hauran to the Mediterranean Sea?


 * ...that Colonel Thomas Jackson carried out a number of operations against the B&O Railroad in 1861 during the American Civil War aimed at disrupting a critical railroad used by the opposing Union Army as a major supply route and capturing the maximum number of locomotives and cars?


 * ...that although the first section of the Itō Line along the east coast of Izu Peninsula in Japan was opened in 1935, which connected Atami with Ajiro, construction was halted due to World War II and not resumed until 1961, when the private-sector Tokyu Corporation acquired the rights to complete the line from Itō to Shimoda and established the Izukyū Corporation to manage construction and operations of this section?


 * ...that in 2003, TCDD began construction on the Istanbul–Ankara High Speed Rail Line to provide high-speed passenger service parallel to the existing Istanbul-Ankara Main Line because of that line's high traffic and 120 km/h top speed?


 * ...that in 1988, Israel's Knesset approved an amendment to the Ports Authority Law, merging Israel Railways into the Israel Port Authority, henceforth to be known as the Israel Ports and Railways Authority?


 * ...that according to the 1999 Constitution of Venezuela the renovation of the railways led by the Instituto de Ferrocarriles del Estado is a national priority, with new infrastructure being added, including the first new above-ground line constructed in Venezuela for more than 70 years, the Ezequiel Zamora Mass Transportation System inaugurated on October 15, 2006, by President Hugo Chávez?


 * ...that Imaida Station, a former JR West Kabe Line station located in Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan, was the setting for the 1986 Sonoko Kawai single Blue Station (青いスタスィオン)?


 * ...that Iarnród Éireann's 22000 Class diesel multiple units, which are capable of speeds up to 100 mph, are the first railcars to have been built specifically to serve on InterCity routes in Ireland?


 * ...that the Höllental Railway in Lower Austria originally opened in 1918 to serve a paper mill and was opened to passengers and general goods traffic in 1926 when it served tourist groups as a feeder for the Rax Cable Car, the first cable car in Austria which also opened in 1926?