Portal:Trains/Did you know/June 2011

June 2011

 * ...that about half of the right-of-way of the 19 km long Mashhad Light Rail system, which opened for trial operations in April 2011, is in tunnels?


 * ...that Maluri LRT station on the Sri Petaling-Ampang branch of the Ampang Line in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, was built as the line's only elevated station to provide a grade separation between the Ampang Line and a level crossing between Keretapi Tanah Melayu and road traffic?


 * ...that in 1972 the location of Maarn railway station, which was originally opened in 1845 in the Netherlands, was moved one kilometer to the east of its original location?


 * ...that the Lucknow Swarna Shatabdi Express, an express passenger train service connecting Delhi and Lucknow, was the first train in India to be upgraded with new cars of German manufacture?


 * ...that following the recreation of Poland in 1918, the Lublin railway station building, which originally opened in 1877, was reconstructed in the 1920s to give it a more Polish style, as the original building looked like a typical station of the Russian Empire?


 * ...that in order to alleviate locomotive wheelslip, which is caused when the turning force applied to the driving wheels greatly exceeds the opposing friction force effected by the surface of the rail, most locomotives are fitted with sandboxes so that sand or Sandite can be dropped on the rails to improve adhesion?


 * ...that because of wartime restrictions on new-build locomotives, the LNER Thompson Class O1 steam locomotives introduced in the 1940s were rebuilds of Class O4 "ROD" 2-8-0s built before and during World War I, although most of the locomotive was replaced during this rebuild?


 * ...that the name "Little Dancer," the brand name of a series of low-floor trams used in Japan, is derived in part from the Japanese word dansa which translates as "bump" or "step" referring to the tram's low floor?


 * ...that following the successful implementation of the Shanghai Maglev Train in China, several proposals have been put forth for high-speed maglev systems around the world based on the Transrapid system developed in Germany?


 * ...that the Pravoberezhnaya Line of the Saint Petersburg Metro, the shortest line in the system with the stations featuring a modern design, was officially designated Line 4 in 1994, but the original name is still often used in informal context?


 * ...that before its electrification in 1901, the Leeds Tramway in England used double decker horsecars and then continued with double decker electric tram models through to the system's closure in 1959?


 * ...that until its reconstruction in 2007, Laburnum railway station in a suburb of Melbourne, Australia, was known for having a sign reading "Toot Toot - drive slowly" under the railway bridge which led locals to often toot their horns in acknowledgement of the sign as a warning to oncoming traffic approaching the narrow underpass?


 * ...that the Saku Railway in Japan built the majority of what is now known as the Koumi Line as part of a plan for a railway network stretching from Kōfu in the south to Naoetsu and Nagaoka in the north, linking up with the Fuji Minobe Railway to create a coast-to-coast rail line?


 * ...that Kortrijk railway station, which initially opened in 1839, is now the fifteenth busiest train station in Belgium serving 10,000 passengers per day?


 * ...that the Tie Fork Rest Area was designed to mimic an early 1900s era train depot to honor the ghost town of Tucker, Utah, which was obliterated by re-alignments of the grades of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad and U.S. Route 6 up Soldier Summit?


 * ...that the Imperial Royal Austrian State Railways class 99 2-6-0T steam locomotives based in Karlsbad, now in the Czech Republic, were sometimes used on the inclines of the Schlackenwerth–Joachimsthal Lokalbahn with its grades of up to 50‰?


 * ...that the Kisei Main Line, which derives its name from the names of the old provinces of Kii (紀伊) and Ise (伊勢), is operated by Central Japan Railway Company (JR Central) from Kameyama, the eastern terminus, to Shingū, and by West Japan Railway Company (JR West) from Shingū to Wakayamashi, the western terminus?


 * ...that the last use of a steam locomotive on a regularly scheduled revenue service in New Zealand was on 26 October 1971, and the new Kingston Flyer heritage service began operating two months later on 21 December?


 * ...that the Kew Bridge Steam Museum in England is home to London's only operating steam railway, a gauge narrow gauge railway that runs for 400 yard around the Kew Bridge site inspired by similar facilities provided at major waterworks in the United Kingdom such as the Metropolitan Water Board Railway?


 * ...that although Kellinghusenstraße station of the Hamburg U-Bahn system in Germany was opened in 1912 with four tracks, only the two outer tracks were initially used until 1914 when the line from Kellinghusenstraße to Ohlsdorf was opened?


 * ...that the Karawanken Tunnel crossing the Austria-Slovenia border under the Rožca saddle, the fourth longest railway tunnel in Austria and the longest in Slovenia, was opened on October 1, 1906, by Archduke Franz Ferdinand and still sees more than 80 trains per day?


 * ...that before the Kyūshū Shinkansen opened in 2004, Kagoshima-Chūō Station, literally translated as Kagoshima Central Station, in Japan, was originally known as Nishi-Kagoshima Station, which translates as West Kagoshima Station?


 * ...that in 2002 all railway activities were moved out of the original Jyväskylä railway station buildings in Finland to a new travel centre adjacent to the site, while the original buildings were preserved as part of the inventory of culturally significant areas of the Finnish National Board of Antiquities?


 * ...that in the case of Johnson v. Southern Pacific Co. heard by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1904, the court ruled that the term "any car" in the 1893 Railroad Safety Appliance Act extends to both locomotives and dining cars when they are used in interstate service?


 * ...that the Jaipur Superfast Express, the second-fastest passenger train connecting Mumbai and Jaipur, India, traverses the 1159 km long route in 18 hours with a maximum speed of 110 km/h?


 * ...that on June 25, 1952, hours before the first scheduled train of the day, hundreds of protesters against the Korean War who left a meeting at the Osaka University campus thronged Ishibashi Station in Ikeda, Osaka, Japan, and forced the station master to run a train to transport them to Osaka in what has become known as the Suita Incident?


 * ...that Interail was formed in 2002 as the interstate running arm of Queensland Rail through the acquisition of the standard gauge Northern Rivers Railroad in New South Wales, Australia, but since launch of the QRNational brand in 2005, it is unknown how long the Interail brand will remain in use?


 * ...that in the early 1990s Inekon Group, the parent company of Inekon Trams, a manufacturer of trams located in the Czech Republic, tried unsuccessfully to gain control of ČKD, but some of ČKD's engineers were dissatisfied with the new owners and were subsequently hired by Inekon?


 * ...that in the early years of the 20th century before World War I, the Imperial Royal Austrian State Railways company (KkStB) had taken over thirty smaller railway companies to become a practical monopoly in rail transport, competing with only six other railway companies by the end of the Austrian Empire?