Portal:Trains/Did you know/May 2009

May 2009

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The point where the Eastern Rail line leaves the Swan Coastal plain and follows the Avon river through the Darling Scarp to Toodyay
 
Railway map of West Flanders with the main railways and vicinal railways
 
K 88 without tender
  • ...that the New Zealand Railways K class 2-4-2 steam locomotives of 1877, a highly successful design that had profound influence on New Zealand locomotive development, were dumped in the Oreti River for embankment protection after retirement in the 1920s and one, K 88, has been recovered from the riverbed and restored to full working order?
 
EFVM number 861, a DDM45, at Estacão Intendente Câmara in 2008
  • ...that the EMD DDM45, a narrow gauge version of the SD45 built for service in Brazil, required two additional driving axles since the smaller narrow gauge traction motors would otherwise be overloaded by the locomotive's electrical output?
 
Former Tropicana refrigerated box car
 
rail couplers
  • ...that slack action, the amount of free movement of one railway car before it transmits its motion to an adjoining coupled car, can aid in starting heavy trains, since the application of the locomotive power to the train operates on each car in the train successively, and the power is thus utilized to start only one car at a time?
 
Great Northern Rail Services locomotive
 
A Hungarian-operated TRAXX locomotive
 
Beijing–Tianjin Intercity Rail high speed EMU
 
Preserved Georgia Railroad EMD GP7 locomotive
 
Núria station building seen from the platform of the Vall de Núria Rack Railway
 
The Furka heritage railway
 
Preserved QJ class locomotive, now preserved in the USA
 
MSTS simulation of SNCF 4-8-4 No. 242A-1
 
Preserved NS Class 1500
 
Gara de Nord station, 2007
 
Locomotive 141R568 at Lons-le-Saunier (Jura) station, on 1 August 1996
 
Strasburg Railroad #475, one of the non-Thomas the Tank Engine locomotive fleet
 
Western Australian Government Railways, X Class Diesel, XA 1416, in Bunbury Railway Station yard
 
Replica of first locomotive of Russia (1834). Monument in Nizhny Tagil.
 
Diagram of Balanced Poppet Valve for use in steam engines
 
Lord Cloncurry's bridge, near Blackrock, 1834
 
Preserved Union Pacific Big Boy 4023 in Omaha, Nebraska, in 2001
  • ... that although the Union Pacific Big Boy is often billed as being the largest steam locomotive ever built, in each of the categories of weight, length, horsepower and tractive effort a larger locomotive can be found?
 
Radio telescope antenna array along the former Cambridge-Bedford railway line
 
The Rhodes Colossus: Caricature of Cecil John Rhodes, proponent of the Cape Town to Cairo railway
 
Junction on Listowel and Ballybunion Railway
  • ... that the Listowel and Ballybunion Railway (a Lartigue Monorail that operated in Ireland between 1888 and 1924) required each side of the carriage to be equally balanced and thus if a farmer wanted to send a cow to market, he would have to send two calves to balance it, with the calves then having to travel back on opposite sides of the same freight wagon, balancing each other?
 
Preserved H-8 class locomotive 1601 in 2008