Portal:Trains/Did you know/September 2014

September 2014

 * ...that the center IND Eighth Avenue Line platform at the 59th Street – Columbus Circle station in New York City served the purpose of a Spanish solution, allowing passengers to exit both sides of subway cars, but has since been converted to be a crossunder between the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line side platforms?


 * ...that the 1996 Silver Spring, Maryland, train collision led to the creation of comprehensive federal rules for passenger car design, the first in the history of passenger service in the United States, as well as changes to operating rules?


 * ...that the two sets of platforms at Wuhan Metro's Zhongnan Road Station in China offers paired cross-platform interchange for passengers riding between four directions of Line 2 and Line 4?


 * ...that although proposals have been made to repair and restore the abandoned Westchester Avenue station in the Bronx in New York City, Amtrak owns the station and the land it occupies and has listed it as a trackside structure in need of demolition?


 * ...that the current Walpole station building on MBTA Commuter Rail's Franklin Line in Walpole, Massachusetts, was built by the Old Colony Railroad in 1883 and is the oldest station building still extant on MBTA's Franklin Line?


 * ...that Victorian Railways in Australia built and operated several classes of power vans, replacing axle-mounted generators, as a means to provide electrical power to passenger cars?


 * ...that the USRA 2-8-8-2 steam locomotive design drew heavily on the Norfolk and Western Railway’s Y-2 class locomotive design which used smaller cylinders and higher boiler pressure than other 2-8-8-2 locomotives of the time?


 * ...that Hong Kong MTR's Tsuen Wan Station, which was the westernmost (until the Airport Station opened in 1998) and northernmost station (until the MTR–KCR merger in 2006) in the system when it opened in 1982, is the only Tsuen Wan Line station at ground level?


 * ...that the Train Automatic Stopping Controller (TASC) system used in Japan was originally developed in the 1950s and the 1960s as a way of ensuring that trains stop properly at stations but has also been useful at preventing SPADs?


 * ...that after extensively studying New York City Subway system rule books and manuals, Keron Thomas posed as motorman "Regoberto Sabio" on May 8, 1993, and operated an A train in revenue service for over three hours, when he was sixteen years old?


 * ...that the Taralga railway line, which opened in 1926 in New South Wales, Australia, became one of only a few lines in New South Wales to be formally closed by an Act of Parliament when it closed in 1957?


 * ...that until the opening of the William Street platforms at Perth station in Western Australia, Subiaco railway station was the only underground railway station in the Transperth network?


 * ...that the railroad car ferry SS Lansdowne, which was built in 1884 and is reported to have served as late as the 1970s was the longest ship on the Great Lakes when it was built and was the last sidewheeler serving on the Great Lakes when it was retired?


 * ...that with a tractive effort of 53650 lbf at 75% boiler pressure, South African Railways ' two class 18 2-10-2 locomotives were the most powerful non-articulated steam locomotives to see service on the SAR?


 * ...that traction and electrical equipment for SNCB's class 13 locomotives was tested on a converted class 21 locomotive, while pantograph equipment for the class was tested on a class 27 locomotive?


 * ...that Shinagawa Station, one of Japan's oldest stations, opened on June 12, 1872, four months before the inauguration of "Japan's first railway" between Shimbashi and Yokohama through Shinagawa on October 14, 1872?