Portal:Trains/Did you know/June 2008

June 2008

• ...that although the London and North Eastern Railway's Class V2 2-6-2 locomotives were built for mixed traffic use, they could almost match LNER's express passenger 4-6-2 Pacifics for sustained high speed running and were timed at speeds of up to 101.5 mph (163.3 km/h)?

Skansen Bridge

• ...that the Skansen Bridge in Trondheim, Norway, was designed by Joseph Strauss, who among other things also constructed the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, USA?

A train passes through a station protected by platform screen doors

• ...that although platform screen doors have been installed at stations to reduce the movement of air caused by the trains at they pass through the tunnels as well as to reduce air conditioning costs for stations in warmer climates such as Singapore, they also serve a safety purpose in preventing passengers falling onto the tracks or in front of an oncoming train?

Marielund station at Upsala- Lenna heritage railway in 2006

• ...that Sweden's Upsala-Lenna Jernväg narrow gauge railway is built to the gauge of 3 Swedish feet (891 mm/35.1 in), a gauge not used anywhere in the world outside Sweden other than a mine railway on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen?
• ...that London and South Western Railway's T9 class of 4-4-0 steam locomotives gained the nickname 'Greyhounds' early in their operational career due to the speed that these locomotives were capable of achieving while pulling LSWR express trains?

• ...that the Tōkaidō Main Line, the busiest trunk line of Japan Railway (JR), is paralleled by the high-speed Tōkaidō Shinkansen line and other than certain overnight services there are now no passenger trains that operate over the entire length of the line?

• ...that the MPI MPXpress model passenger locomotive currently offered by Motive Power, Inc. can be ordered with different prime mover and traction motor models as well as the option of head end power (HEP) generated by a separate engine or by the prime mover?

Gough Whitlam, Prime Minister of Australia 1972-75

• ...that the Australian National Railways Commission was formed in 1975 after Prime Minister Gough Whitlam invited the six states of Australia to hand their railways over to the Federal Government to create a single unified system, however only Tasmania and South Australia accepted the offer?

• ...that New Zealand's Ferrymead Railway, the first public railway in the country, was originally laid to 5 ft 3 in (1,600 mm) broad gauge to suit rolling stock obtained second-hand from the Melbourne and Essendon Railway Company in Australia?

E424 075 in its original livery, at the FerAlp Team museum, in Bussoleno

• ...that the Italian Railways (FS) Class E424 first appeared in 1943 as a prototype, but mass production began only after the end of World War II, with part of the funds provided by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration program?

Trains of Luzern-Stans-Engelberg-Bahn in Obermatt

• ...that Switzerland's Luzern-Stans-Engelberg-Bahn was electrified from its beginning in 1898, making it the longest electrically operated railway line in the country at the time?
• ...that Harold Clapp's "fiendish efficiency" in improving Victorian Railways' train reliability in Australia was credited with losing Melbourne commuters "another excuse for being late for work in the mornings"?

Scharfenberg coupler (Schaku) at german railcar type 612

• ...that Scharfenberg couplers have a distinct advantage over conventional AAR (Janney/Knuckle) automatic couplers as they also automatically connect and disconnect electrical and hydraulic systems, but their low maximum tonnage rating makes them unsuitable for heavy freight service?

• ...that Barcelona Metro's Catalunya station in Spain, built in 1926 as the terminus of Ferrocarril Metropolitano Transversal, boasted an underground shopping centre called Avinguda de la Llum until 1990?

• ...that as well as becoming in 1934 the first steam locomotive to be officially recorded as reaching , London and North Eastern Railway Class A3 4472 Flying Scotsman set another record in 1989 by traveling 442 miles (711 km) non-stop, the longest such run by a steam locomotive ever recorded?

V/Line A class locomotive A 70

• ...that 15 of the V/Line N class diesel-electric locomotives were built using surplus parts from a cancelled program to rebuild 1952-era B class streamliner locomotives into the EMD 645-powered A class?

• ...that Denmark's Little Belt Bridge (da: Gamle Lillebæltsbro) was built without the benefit of mass machinery, and molds both for the piles and each end of the bridge were first constructed of wood and later manually filled with cement from buckets?

• ...that the Tōkaidō Shinkansen, the original Japanese Shinkansen line, goes through Japan's three largest metropolitan areas and is the most heavily traveled of all Shinkansen routes, carrying a total 4.16 billion passengers in its first 40 years?
• ...that the only original locomotive design of Charles Fairburn to emerge during the year that he served as Chief Mechanical Engineer for London, Midland and Scottish Railway before his death in 1945 was the LMS Fairburn 2-6-4T?

• ...that the Plac Wilsona (Wilson Square) station on the Warsaw Metro in Poland was selected as the Metro Award recipient for the "Best New Station" in 2008?

• ...that Swedish mining company LKAB's IORE locomotives, used for transporting iron ore, are so named because IORE is an acronym of "iron ore", as well as an intentional close-match of the name carried by the fictional donkey Eeyore (Swedish: Ior)?

• ...that Advanced Rapid Transit, the current name given to a metro system manufactured by Bombardier Transportation, uses linear electromagnetic propulsion which removes the need for a motor with moving parts?

An official photograph of No. 2395 from 1925

• ...that the London and North Eastern Railway Class U1, a solitary 2-8-0+0-8-2 Beyer-Garratt locomotive designed for banking coal trains over the steeply graded Worsborough Bank in South Yorkshire, was fitted with crew respirators due to the poor ventilation in the two tunnels on the bank?

Southern Pacific 4294

• ...that Southern Pacific 4294, the last in a group of 20 locomotives that comprised Southern Pacific Railroad's AC-12 class of 4-8-8-2 cab forward locomotives and now preserved at the California State Railroad Museum, was the last new steam locomotive ordered by the Southern Pacific Railroad?

• ...that Kuala Lumpur's Ampang Line was the first railway system in Malaysia to adopt standard gauge as its rail gauge, in contrast to the metre gauge railway lines that span the country?

Series 70 linear motor EMU heading to Kadoma-Minami

• ...that under its original plan the Nagahori Tsurumi-ryokuchi Line (the first linear motor metro railway built in Japan) would have provided access to the Osaka prefectural government offices near Osaka Castle, however the presence of underground artifacts around the castle area made this plan impractical and the line was thus shifted farther south?

• ...that the Russian Railways VL10 (ru: ВЛ10) class electric locomotive, introduced in 1961, takes its class designation from the initials of Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin?

Animation of a schematic Napier Deltic diesel engine

• ...that the British Rail Class 55 'Deltic' express passenger locomotives take their name from the Napier Deltic 2-stroke uniflow opposed-piston high-speed diesel engine that powers them?

• ...that Swiss Federal Railways' origins date back to 20 February 1898, when the Swiss people agreed in a referendum to the creation of a state-owned railway company after the collapse of a number of private railway companies?