Portal:Trains/Did you know/November 2011

November 2011

 * ...that because of the depression in the 1930s, Lahti railway station, which opened in 1935 in Finland, did not get a third floor, neither did it get a tower, as the Tampere railway station did?


 * ...that some of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Class 5 and Class 6 2-4-2T locomotives were fitted for push-pull working, being coupled to a driving trailer coach that contained a driver's cab and allowed the train to be driven in reverse, without running the locomotive around the train at the terminus?


 * ...that although Krishnarajapuram Railway station, about 15 km from Bangalore's city centre in India, is at the junction of the Bangalore-Chennai main line and a line from Dharmavaram, trains on the Dharmavaram line are quite few and are mostly freight trains and oil tankers from White field?


 * ...that the Krasnoyarsk Bridge, which carries the Krasnoyarsk Railway (part of the Trans-Siberian Railway) across the Yenisei in Siberia, was awarded the Gold Medal at the Exposition Universelle (1900) by a special committee, led by Gustave Eiffel?


 * ...that Kokura Station, the main railway station in Kitakyūshū, Japan, which is served by the JR Kyushu network and the Sanyō Shinkansen as well as the Kitakyūshū Monorail, is the second largest station in Kyūshū with 120,000 users daily?


 * ...that proposals for future service at Knutsford railway station in Cheshire, England, have included a later train from Manchester Piccadilly, reopening the line between Northwich and Sandbach, a direct link to Manchester Airport and running tram-trains directly in to Manchester?


 * ...that following an arson incident in 2008 that damaged Knox & Kane 58, a China Railways SY class 2-8-2 steam locomotive built in 1989 by the Tangshan Locomotive and Rolling Stock Works for the Knox and Kane Railroad, restoration to make the locomotive operable and to resemble a New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad locomotive is scheduled to be completed in 2011?


 * ...that consulting engineer Everard Calthrop designed an 0-6-0T with Klein-Linder articulated coupled axles to provide a flexible wheelbase for the Matheran Hill Railway in India, and four were supplied by Orenstein & Koppel?


 * ...that Kishi Station in Kinokawa, Wakayama Prefecture, Japan, is known for Tama the Station Cat, a female cat which became the mascot for the station where she held the official position of Super Station Master until January 2010 when she was promoted to be a corporate executive at the Wakayama Railway?


 * ...that steam locomotives designed by William Kirtley while he was locomotive superintendent of the London Chatham and Dover Railway have been described as "well designed, robustly constructed, easily maintained, and capable of high mileages between general repairs" by historians?


 * ...that in the early part of the 20th century, Kilkenny railway station on the suburban rail route from Adelaide to Woodville, Grange and Outer Harbor, in Australia, two signal cabins &mdash; one at the Adelaide end of the station controlling access to goods sidings, the other at the Woodville end controlling the level crossing across David Terrace?


 * ...that although feasibility studies have been conducted and construction proposals have been sought for the proposed Khunjerab Railway connecting Havelian, Pakistan, and Kashgar, China, and the section from Kashgar to Hotan opened for freight service in December 2010, completion of the line is uncertain due to criticism and financial concerns in Pakistan and political questions from India?


 * ...that when the Karelian Trains Class Sm6 trains were introduced on the Allegro service on December 12, 2010, between Helsinki, Finland, and St. Petersburg, Russia, Finnish president Tarja Halonen and Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin were both on board the inaugural service?


 * ...that Kami-noge Station in Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan, is equipped with a third track lacking a platform which allows some express trains bound for Oimachi to pass local trains at this station during the rush-hour?


 * ...that it is likely that when the Moscow Metro's second ring project begins construction, the first eastward extension would be from Kakhovskaya station to either Kaluzhskaya or Noviye Cheryomushki of the Kaluzhsko-Rizhskaya Line?


 * ...that trains on Seoul Subway's Line 1 do not stop at Jonggak Station on New Year's Day when the bell ceremony (Jeyaeui Jong Tajongsik) is held at Boshingak for which the station is named because the area is so crowded with tens of thousands of Seoulites that avoiding the stop avoids potential accidents?


 * ...that to connect with the railroads, the James River and Kanawha Canal Company in Virginia was authorized in 1876 to build the Buchanan and Clifton Forge Railway (B&CF) to connect the westernmost point of the canal with the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O), but sold the B&CF to the Richmond and Alleghany Railroad in 1878, a railroad that itself was eventually absorbed by the C&O in 1888?


 * ...that the station building at Isaida Station in Odawara, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, served as an office for the real estate company owned by the Izuhakone Railway until the real estate company was closed in 2006?


 * ...that Indian Railways' WAG classes of electric locomotives, beginning with the WAG 1 class first built in 1963 and continuing with the WAG-9 class built from 1996 onward, are the most powerful locomotives operating in India?


 * ...that since succeeding Louis Gallois as head of the SNCF in 2006, Anne-Marie Idrac was involved in the development of TGV lines at a European dimension, to the relaunch of regional transportation, and to the regeneration of the network for RFF, and to the rectification of the fret situation?


 * ...that following the Hugstetten rail disaster in which 64 people were killed and some 230 were seriously injured on the railway line between Freiburg im Breisgau and Breisach am Rhein, Germany, in 1882, many passengers refused to board trains pulled by the locomotive involved in the accident and many landowners refused to allow the locomotive to pass over their territory?


 * ...that due to the lack of a run-round facility at Howth railway station in County Dublin, Ireland, on the rare occasion that a locomotive-hauled train arrives (such as on a railtour), a second locomotive must follow the train as a light engine from Dublin to haul the train back from Howth?


 * ...that the Osong-Iksan section of the Honam High Speed Railway's first phase in South Korea is also intended for use as a high-speed test track for rolling stock development, to be fitted with special catenary and instrumented track?