Portal:Trains/Did you know/July 2007

July 2007

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Original Harris 795M at the North Williamstown railway museum
  • ...that when Melbourne, Australia's Harris suburban EMU fleet reached the end of its life in the 1980s, one single carriage went to a museum, 16 carriages were (unsuccessfully) refurbished as new EMUs, 55 carriages were refurbished into locomotive-hauled interurban carriages, and the remaining carriages were wrapped in plastic and buried in a quarry due to concerns about their asbestos insulation?
Metro station "Kamiennaja Horka", Minsk, Belarus.
Metro station "Kamiennaja Horka", Minsk, Belarus.
 
Shinkansen 700T train head at Kaoshung depot, Aug. 2004
 
Eva Perón
 
Kylchap steam locomotive exhaust system
  • ...that the Kylchap multi-stage steam locomotive exhaust system takes its name from the two persons responsible for its design: the Finnish engineer Kylälä who designed the "spreader" stage, and the renowned French locomotive designer André Chapelon who patented the final design?
  • ...that the British Rail Class 13 locomotives consisted of a 'master' and 'slave' configuration (also described in the United States as a Cow-calf configuration) in which two locomotives were permanently coupled, the 'slave' unit being cabless and driven from the 'master' unit, to enable hump shunting where a larger, single rigid locomotive could not be used due to the risk of grounding on the hump?
 
Shinkansen 0 Series at Fukuyama Station, April 2002
 
ICE 3, a European high speed train
 
Thalys trains in Paris
 
2 ft (610 mm) gauge tracks
 
Penn Central freight train
 
RVR No. 9409 in Nairobi
 
The remains of Woodhead Station and the tunnel portal
 
Bayerische Ludwigs Bahn 1835/69 share certificate
  • ...that although Bavaria's Bayerische Ludwigsbahn is recorded as the first railway in modern-day Germany to operate with locomotive-hauled services, most services in its early years were in fact horse-drawn due to the high cost of importing coal from neighbouring Saxony?
 
A train on the Inlandsbanen
 
A Victorian Railways (VicRail) locomotive
 
A modern-day High Speed Train enters the Severn Tunnel from the Monmouthshire side.
  • ...that during World War II, a Great Western Railway passenger train reached speeds of up to 90 mph (145 km/h) while being pursued and fired upon by a German aircraft along the main line to Wales, with the train's driver eventually stopping the train in the shelter of the Severn Tunnel to avoid further attack?
 
Interior of dining car on the Blue Train
  • ...that the luxury of South Africa's Blue Train is such that many compartments on the train are equipped with their own full-sized bathtubs, in addition to other appointments such as gold tinted windows, extensive soundproofing, and a butler for each carriage?
 
Railway gun used during the Siege of Petersburg
 
Schematic diagram of a Franco-Crosti boiler with single feedwater heater
 
A Welsh Highland railway train leaving Caernarfon station pulled by locomotive Mileniwm
  • ...that efforts to restore and reopen the Welsh Highland Railway were initially hampered by the legal status of the original operating company, which was complicated by the death of all its directors, officers and even shareholders, the destruction of its registered address, and finally the death of the company's liquidator?
 
S.A.R. GL class Garratt No. 2352, preserved at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester
 
TEE leaving Munich in 1986
  • ...that the Trans Europ Express network of premier passenger services, which ran across different rail systems between major European capitals, were originally entirely diesel-hauled as the electrification schemes of the various joint operators ran to different voltages and in many cases did not extend to their respective national borders?
 
DRG SVT 137, a class of railcars based on the SVT 877 prototype)
 
Unstreamlined C38 No. 3820, preserved at the Rail Transport Museum at Thirlmere
 
A BM73 b-series train entering Trollhättan.
 
Station building as seen from the river Spree)
  • ...that the new Berlin Hauptbahnhof (Berlin Central Station) which opened in 2006 is built on the site of the former Lehrter Bahnhof, an historic station dating back to 1871 which fell into disuse in 1950s after the division of Germany and was eventually demolished?