Portal:Trains/Did you know/May 2012

May 2012

 * ...that although Musashi-Sakai Station in western Tokyo, Japan, served by the JR East Chūō Line and the Seibu Tamagawa Line, is not a major transfer station seeing only local trains stop, historically it is quite important, opening as one of the original stations on the Kobu Railway in 1889?


 * ...that with only broad gauge track running through the station, Mount Barker railway station on the Victor Harbor railway line in South Australia has been disconnected from the Adelaide metropolitan network since the standardisation of the Adelaide-Melbourne line in 1995; but the station is still used by Steamranger, a non-for-profit organisation that runs heritage trains between Mount Barker and Victor Harbor?


 * ...that although the first electric monorail in Russia was built in 1895, the first monorail in Russia was built by Ivan Elmanov in Myachkovo village, near Moscow, in 1820 consisting of horse-drawn carriages atop a horizontal beam which housed the system's wheels?


 * ...that when the United States Military Railway Service was activated for World War II, all Class I railroad companies were to create a battalion for the war effort making a total of 11 Grand Divisions and 46 operating battalions, although five battalions were never activated?


 * ...that the Midōsuji Line, which originally opened in 1933 and is now operated by the Osaka Municipal Subway, is the oldest line in the Osaka subway system and the second oldest in Japan, after the Tokyo Metro Ginza Line?


 * ...that the origins of Melbourne tram route 75 in Australia lie in separate tram lines, Australia's first cable tram from Bourke Street to Hawthorn Bridge and a horse tram from Hawthorn Bridge to Auburn Road, which was converted to an electric line and extended over many years to its current terminus at Vermont South?


 * ...that in addition to designing the original station buildings for the Central London Railway, which is now London Underground's Central Line, Harry Bell Measures was also responsible for a number of English "improved" housing developments for working men and was later the Director of Barrack Construction for the British War Office?


 * ...that the track gauge of the Mariazell Railway in Austria was chosen, like all narrow gauge railway undertakings in the "Danube Monarchy," by the military administration, as rolling stock used in military service on railways in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which used the 760 mm gauge, would need to be brought in?


 * ...that Daniel McCallum, who was appointed General Superintendent of New York and Erie Railroad in 1855, founded the McCallum Bridge Company in 1858 to develop the McCallum inflexible arched truss, used in wooden railroad bridges across the U.S. and Canada in the 19th century, the Powerscourt Covered Bridge in Quebec being the only remaining example still extant?
 * ...that although during original planning and construction in the late 19th century, the Loopline Bridge, which spans the River Liffey in Dublin, Ireland, was subject to much opposition and controversy because the structure blocks the view down river to The Custom House, the bridge was deemed necessary as a rail link between north and south Dublin and to facilitate the movement of transatlantic mail?
 * ...that the reconstruction and reopening of the new Liège-Guillemins railway station in Belgium, following a design by Santiago Calatrava, was the subject of the 2010 documentary Métamorphose d'une gare directed by Thierry Michel?


 * ...that Livoberezhna station on the Kiev Metro in Ukraine was originally opened in 1965 as part of the eastward expansion of the Sviatoshynsko-Brovarska Line and is the first station to be fully on the left bank of the Dnieper River?


 * ...that William G. Lewis, who from the 1870s through the end of the 1890s served as road-master, construction engineer, chief engineer, and general superintendent for several railroad companies, was promoted to Brigadier General in the Confederate States Army Infantry during the American Civil War?


 * ...that in 1947, during the First Kashmir War, Lahore Railway Station in Pakistan served as a delivery point for a large number of bodies that were subsequently interred in mass burials by local authorities?


 * ...that although construction began on the Krasnoyarsk Metro in Russia in 1995, continued funding problems slowed construction such that by the time its proposed 2005 opening date arrived, tunneling had only been completed between two stations and the system is now not expected to open until 2014?


 * ...that Kintetsu Corporation's 2.2 km Dōmyōji Line, connecting Dōmyōji Station in Fujiidera and Kashiwara Station in Kashiwara, both in Osaka Prefecture, Japan, is the oldest line in the Kintetsu railway network having originally opened in 1898 by the Kayō Railway (河陽鉄道)?


 * ...that Schwandorf station, which originally opened in 1859 as part of Bavarian Eastern Railway Company's Nuremberg–Schwandorf–Regensburg line in what is now the Upper Palatinate province of Bavaria, Germany, now serves eleven main lines of which five are used for passenger services?


 * ...that the rails used in the building of the Midland Railway's Basford to Bennerley Junction branch line in Nottinghamshire, England, were taken up from Kimberley West railway station to Bennerley Junction in 1916 and presented to the War Department for use in the battle for the Dardanelles during the First World War?


 * ...that Karşıyaka station on İZBAN's Northern Line in İzmir, Turkey, originally opened in 1865 as a conventional station, but was rebuilt in 2006-2010 to move the tracks and platforms underground, converting the former aboveground right-of-way to a park?


 * ...that although the Kamome service in its current form commenced on 1 July 1976, coinciding with electrification of the Nagasaki Main Line, the Kamome name (written as "鷗") was first used from 1 July 1937 on limited express trains operating between Tokyo and Kōbe, Japan?
 * ...that in a 1925 train robbery that has come to be known as the Kakori conspiracy, four members of the Hindustan Republican Association stopped and robbed a passenger train traveling from Shahjahanpur to Lucknow taking only money belonging to the British Government Treasury from the guard's van and not a single Indian aboard the train?


 * ...that the 155.2 km Cheongnyangri–Jecheon section of the Jungang Line was the first line to be electrified with the 25 kV/60 Hz AC catenary system in South Korea?


 * ...that the first commercial streetcar to run on rails was built in 1832 by the John Stephenson Car Company for the New York and Harlem Railroad, and the company continued producing streetcars for a worldwide market until 1919?


 * ...that after a broadcast by CBS's 60 Minutes in 1973 revealed that the James Whitcomb Riley passenger train was limited to 10 mph in Indiana because of the poor quality of Penn Central track, Amtrak re-routed the train, along with the Floridian, off Penn Central trackage altogether?


 * ...that in Summer 2007 the Stubai Valley Railway in Austria temporarily reopened Innsbruck Stubaital station because the railway could not run trains into the city centre due to maintenance work on the points in the Innsbruck Transport Company's station?


 * ...that the 195.7 km Iida Line now operated by Central Japan Railway Company (JR Central), was originally four different private railway lines, the first of which opened in 1897, and has an unusually high number of stations, some of which have since lost their nearby communities due to depopulation?