Portal:Trains/Did you know/April 2007

April 2007

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An inspection locomotive of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad
 
Map of Botswana
 
KCR East Rail at Kowloon Tong station
  • ...that until a policy change on Hong Kong's KCR East Rail in 1994 setting train lengths at 12 cars, trains were made up of sets of two, three or four EMUs, which gave them a total length of either six, nine or 12 cars?
 
HRS 161.106.0 at Hallsberg, Sweden
  • ...that the original body design for NSB's El 15 class of electric locomotive in Norway called for operator cabs at only one end because the locomotives were intended to be operated in pairs?
 
3801 operating in 2006
 
Baker Street Station on the Metropolitan Line
 
Simplon tunnel from the Italian side
  • ...that for more than half a century the 19,803 metre (12.3 mile) long Simplon Tunnel, which connects the railways of Switzerland with those of Italy, was considered to be the longest tunnel in the world?
 
Laigh Milton Viaduct
 
SNCF TGV train at Marseille St-Charles station.
 
Exterior view of New York City's Penn Station, circa 1911
 
Disused railway viaduct on the former Tralee and Dingle Light Railway
 
Verensk Bridge on the Trans-Iranian Railway
  • ...that the Trans-Iranian Railway faced numerous geological challenges during its construction, including collapsing tunnels, excavation through unblastable pumice, and a void within a mountain being tunnelled which required a bridge to be built within the tunnel?
 
Name plate of the Decauville company
 
Helsinki Railway Station, Finland
 
View of Huayna Picchu towering above the ruins of Machu Picchu
  • ...that PeruRail is one of the highest railways of the world, and is the primary mode of transportation for tourists visiting Machu Picchu?
 
Hitachi train at Melbourne's Flinders St Station
 
An Amtrak train at the Brattleboro, Vermont, station in 2004
 
Hell station, Norway
  • ...that Hell Station in Norway (the town name being derived from the Old Norse word "hellir", meaning "cave") features a sign for "Gods Expedition" (meaning goods/cargo transport) that based on its entirely different English meaning has become a popular photographic subject for English-speaking visitors?
 
DUEWAG GT 8-100D/2S-M
  • ...that DUEWAG AG built virtually all vehicles for West Germany's tram and light rail network since the 1960s and remained a major manufacturer of railway vehicles until being bought and subsequently dissolved by Siemens in 1999?
 
Tsar Nicholas I of Russia
 
A Portland and Western train in Oregon
 
Plaque on the site of the former Rosstown Railway
  • ...that the Rosstown Railway in Australia, a private railway built to service a sugar beet mill that never went into production, reportedly only ever carried one train (other than construction and ballast trains) between its construction in 1888 and dismantling in 1916?
 
Iraqi Republic Railways
 
Victoria Falls Bridge
 
An NTrak layout setup for operations at Trainfest (in Milwaukee, Wisconsin) in 2004
  • ...that the first NTrak modules were displayed at the 1973 Model Railroad Industry Association show in Costa Mesa, California and were then displayed at the National Model Railroad Association's 1974 national convention in San Diego?
  • ...that HO scale model trains were first introduced in the United Kingdom in the 1930s, originally as an alternative to 00 gauge?
  • ...that the German company Trix began producing electrically powered model trains under the brand name "Trix Express" in 1935?
  • ...that the goal of train shunting puzzles can be to shunt the cars making the minimum number of couplings and uncouplings, or making the minimum number of junction direction changes, or completing the puzzle within a specified time limit?