Portal:Trains/Did you know/April 2012

April 2012

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Fairfield station, Melbourne, in 2008
 
Ben Holladay
 
Hazel Grove station in 1907
 
The station building at Harajuku in 2009
 
The station building at Hamilton in 2010
 
Andrew Smith Hallidie before 1900
 
GWR 3009 "Flying Dutchman" in 1907
  • ...that despite the fact that the 7 ft (2,134 mm) broad gauge was in its very final months on the Great Western Railway in England, new broad gauge engines were still needed to maintain services, and eight of the new 3001 Class 2-2-2 engines built in 1891-2, Nos. 3021-3028, were built with the wheels outside the frames, to run on the broad gauge and then were converted to standard gauge in 1892?
 
A Yokohama Subway Green Line train in 2008
 
Gorey station in 2001
  • ...that until the installation of mini-CTC in April 2008 on the line Dublin to Wexford and Rosslare, Ireland, it was not normally possible for northbound trains to use the passing loop at Gorey railway station, as it was only signalled in the Rosslare direction which led to some awkward shunting arrangements when a locomotive-hauled train terminated in the station?
 
A TPG tram in 2005
  • ...that Geneva Public Transport (French: Transports Publics Genevois, TPG), the tram, trolleybus and bus operator of Geneva Canton, Switzerland, is the successor organization to the Compagnie Genevoise des Tramways Électriques (Geneva Electric Tramway Company), which operated trams throughout the canton and parts of neighbouring France from 1900 until 1 January 1977?
 
Gare de Montdidier in 2008
 
A 200 series Shinkansen approaching Gala-Yuzawa Station in 2006
 
The facade of Fulong Station in 2007
 
One of the cars of the Fløibanen at Fjellveien station in 2006
  • ...that the 850-metre-long (0.53 mi) metre gauge Fløibanen funicular railway, which opened in 1918 connecting Bergen to the summit of Fløyen mountain, is one of Norway's most visited attractions serving more than 1 million passengers per year?
 
Diagram of a return flue boiler
  • ...that in contrast with later fire-tube boiler designs, some flued boiler designs of the early 1800s used a single large U-shaped flue called a return flue which proved practical enough that the Canadian Samson of this pattern, built in 1838, remained in service as late as 1885?
 
The Fastech 360S train at Omiya Station in 2008
 
A freight train passing Ethelton station in 2005
 
The first EP20 locomotive, EP20-001, at its debut in September 2011
 
A Prignitzer Eisenbahn Class 643 at Enschede railway station in 2011
  • ...that in the late 1970s train services between Germany and the Netherlands was suspended, but although the connection from Enschede railway station to Gronau and Dortmund was reopened in 2001, there is no longer a connection allowing the German trains to run any further into Holland?
 
A train at Seaforth Sands station, Liverpool, in 1951
 
Rajshahi station on the Calcutta-Siliguri Main Line in 2008
 
du Bousquet locomotive built for the Peking-Hankow Railway in 1909
  • ...that the unusual du Bousquet locomotive design, in which a tank locomotive's boiler and superstructure were supported upon two swivelling trucks in a manner similar to a Meyer locomotive, overcame the problems the Meyer design had with poor sealing on the steam-pipe flexible joints by having the rear truck, holding the high-pressure cylinders, mounted on a bearing that permitted only rotation and not any other axes of flexibility?
 
The entrance to Den-en-chōfu Station in 2006
  • ...that when Den-en-chōfu Station at the junction of the Tōkyū Toyoko and Meguro lines in Tokyo, Japan, was rebuilt in the 1980s a copy of the original station building was constructed on elevated ground to become an entranceway to the plaza in front of the new subway station entrance?
 
Daisy Hill station in 1989
 
A TR1 locomotive set operated by Illinois Central Railroad in 1942