Portal:Trains/Did you know/September 2013

September 2013

 * ...that Keisei Electric Railway's AE series trains introduced in 2009 for Skyliner limited express services to and from Narita International Airport in Japan are the first Keisei trains to use bolsterless bogies and the train's design and styling was overseen by Japanese fashion designer Kansai Yamamoto?


 * ...that in 1932 the section between Katamachi and Shijōnawate on the present-day Katamachi Line became the first line in the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto area to be electrified by then current operator Japanese Government Railways?


 * ...that in fiscal 1999, the Jōsō Line, which originally opened in 1913, carried an annual total of 14.16 million passengers (38,000 per day), making it the busiest non-electrified private line in Japan?


 * ...that despite its diminutive size, the Bo-Bo wheel arrangement ED60 design introduced to pull freight trains on Japanese National Railways in 1958 offered performance comparable with the much larger Class EF15 1Co+Co1 design weighing almost twice as much?


 * ...that after serving as general manager for the Dutch–Rhenish Railway in the Netherlands, James Staats Forbes was offered the position of general manager for the Great Western Railway, but instead took over the failing London, Chatham and Dover Railway in the early 1870s, where he served until 1899 when the company merged with the South Eastern Railway of Forbes's long-term rival, Sir Edward Watkin?


 * ...that Ishioka Station, on the JR East Jōban Line in Ishioka, Ibaraki, Japan, used to be the terminal for the Kashima Railway Line which connected Ishioka to Hokota until the Kashima line closed on 31 March 2007?


 * ...that although the Illinois Central Railroad built multiple train stations, engine houses, and turntables near what is now the Bloomington West Side Historic District's eastern edge in Indiana, only the freight depot remained by 1987 and as the sole railroad-related building within the district, it has been deemed one of the leading components of the district?


 * ...that Ron Huberman, an avowed "L" rider during his tenure as president at the Chicago Transit Authority, once removed an unruly and disorderly passenger from a train he was riding on after the rider verbally harassed a female passenger?


 * ...that the rolling stock of Hiroshima Electric Railway, which was established in 1910 in Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan, includes an eclectic range of trams manufactured from across Japan and Europe, earning it the nickname "The Moving Streetcar Museum"?


 * ...that upon its completion in 1989, the 13.5 km tunnel number 4 of the Hex River Tunnels in South Africa, a part of the Hexton line that helped to eliminate the Hex River rail pass bottleneck, became the longest railway tunnel in Africa?


 * ...that to facilitate construction of breakwaters at East London harbour in the Cape Colony (present day South Africa), four vertical boiler Harbour Board EL 0-4-0 locomotives, similar to the American Grasshopper type of the 1830s, were delivered in the 1870s?


 * ...that although the current Hakuchō services between Shin-Aomori and Hakodate via the undersea Seikan Tunnel in Japan were introduced in 2002, the Hakuchō name actually dates back to 1960, as the name of a service which ran from Ōsaka to Aomori until March 2001; the name was reused for the new services by popular demand?


 * ...that Groningen railway station, which originally opened in 1866 in the Netherlands and the present building completed in 1896, is now the furthest north station that Nederlandse Spoorwegen operates, with all services further north operated by Arriva?


 * ...that the gauge Glenbrook Vintage Railway, which opened in 1977 on a restored section of the Waiuku branch line between Glenbrook and Pukeoware in New Zealand, carried its one millionth passenger on January 7, 2007?


 * ...that Gare d'Abbeville, which was originally opened in northern France in 1856 and declared a historic monument in 1984, was the last wooden station built in France until the Gare de Meuse TGV opened in 2007?


 * ...that while the termini of the Fukushima Kōtsū Iizaka Line in Japan are Fukushima and Iizaka Onsen stations, all trains night at the line's rail yard located at Sakuramizu Station, which also means that all trains' initial morning departure is from Sakuramizu?


 * ...that the main line of the Ferrocarril Rosario y Puerto Belgrano in Buenos Aires and Santa Fe provinces, Argentina, connected its namesake cities in 1910 after many other east to west lines had already been laid, necessitating a large number of bridges with short, sharp gradients to cross them on an otherwise near level course?


 * ...that the partition of Ireland in 1922, which turned the boundary between counties Donegal and Fermanagh into an international frontier, imposed three border crossings on the Enniskillen and Bundoran Railway line: one each side of Pettigo and a third just west of Belleek?


 * ...that the first revenue-earning service operated on the Joetsu Shinkansen by an E5 series trainset was a special Joetsu Shinkansen 30th Anniversary (上越新幹線開業30周年号」) service from Niigata to Tokyo on 17 November 2012 using E5 series set U8, with a special ceremony at Niigata Station before departure?


 * ...that most dome lounge cars, a type of dome car that includes lounge, cafe, dining or other space on the upper level or both levels of the car, remained in service for their original owners up to the end of privately run passenger trains in North America when many were transferred to Amtrak?


 * ...that the Dalkey Atmospheric Railway, which opened in 1844 as an extension of the Dublin and Kingstown Railway using part of the Dalkey Quarry industrial tramway in Ireland, was the first atmospheric railway in the world and served as inspiration for Isambard Kingdom Brunel's South Devon Railway in England?