Portal:Trains/Did you know/January 2016

January 2016

Natzaret tram station in 2012

• ...that although construction on Metrovalencia's Tavernes Blanques - Natzaret line began in 2007 and portions of the line were put into service in September 2007, the line has yet to be completed due to a lack of funding?

Takargo locomotive number 6002 at Constantí in 2010

• ...that Takargo Rail, founded in 2006 by Mota-Engil, became the first private train operating company in Portugal when it began operations in 2008?

Aerial view of Taipei Railway Workshop soon after its construction in 1935

• ...that the 16.82-hectare (41.6-acre) Taipei Railway Workshop, built in 1935 and designated an "official national historic site" in 2015, was the largest and oldest facility of its kind on the island of Taiwan?

SŽ 363-004 at Divača station in 2011

• ...that the distinctive French styled bodywork of Slovenian Railways series 363 locomotives led to them acquiring the nickname "Brižita" (English: "Brigitte") after the French actress Brigitte Bardot?

The Südbrücke in 1862

• ...that the Südbrücke railway bridge (South Bridge) built in 1860 at Mainz, Germany, was the first permanent bridge built across the Rhine at Mainz since the Roman bridge (Pons Ingeniosa) first built c. 30 AD and the Carolingian Rhine bridge of Charlemagne?

A C Class Tram at terminus of Ocean Street to Rose Bay Line

• ...that the single-truck C-Class Tram type built in the late 1890s was the most widely used tram of the Sydney tram network in Australia, with the last being withdrawn by 1958?

• ...that when the earliest organization that led to the Switchmen's Union of North America was formed in 1870, many switchmen in and around Chicago were paid $50 a week for twelve hour days, seven days a week?

• ...that Storstockholms Lokaltrafik (SL) was originally formed in 1915 by the City of Stockholm as AB Stockholms Spårvägar with the aim to deprivatize the city's two separate private tramway networks into one more efficient company?

The Storey (Madera) stop in 2001

• ...that unlike the Southern Pacific that built a train depot in downtown Madera, California, the Santa Fe never constructed a depot for the Storey Train Station, opting instead to keep the location as a flag stop?

Railmotor number 1901 crosses the Splitters Creek railway bridge circa 1989

• ...that the aging plate girders and long timber spans of the Splitters Creek Railway Bridge, completed in 1880 on the Bundaberg - Mount Perry Line in Queensland, Australia, led to restrictions on the use of heavy engines on the line as early as 1916?

NGR no. 307, SAR no. 1277, at Delmas Colliery, Hawerklip, May 1977

• ...that Natal Government Railways five Class B 4-8-0 steam locomotives of 1904 were developed to replace double- and triple-heading operations on the railway's steep 1 in 30 gradients and proved so successful that the railway ordered fifty more to be delivered in 1906?

A diesel railcar built by Sorefame being loaded at Oporto Campanhã station in 2006

• ...that Sorefame supplied the vast majority of Portugal's railway rolling stock until the Carnation Revolution of 1974 and economic liberalisation, especially following Portugal's entry to the European Union in 1986, resulted in far greater international competition?

Honigmann caustic soda locomotive in Aachen, Germany, in 1884

• ...that steam for a soda locomotive was raised in a boiler and expanded through cylinders in the usual way like other fireless locomotives, but the steam was then condensed in a tank of caustic soda that surrounded the boiler to chemically generate more heat and steam?

SNCB 2826 with a freight train near Gremberg yard in October 2015

• ...that SNCB's new Class 28 Bombardier TRAXX electric locomotives introduced in 2007 were originally planned to work passenger services between Brecht and Antwerp but have instead been used on heavy freight trains between Aachen-West, Antwerp, and Zeebrugge?

• ...that Sendai Subway's 1000 series trains introduced in 1987 were the world's first trains to use fuzzy logic to control their speed which made their acceleration smoother and their energy consumption more efficient than other train types?

The tracks and platforms of Seibu-Shinjuku Station in 2012

• ...that Seibu-Shinjuku Station, the terminus of Seibu Railway's Shinjuku Line, was initially intended to be a temporary station until the line could be extended via a former streetcar right-of-way south of the station to Shinjuku Station?

• ...that at its peak in the 1910s, the Rosario Tramway, the third such system built in Argentina, had 300 vehicles on its 192-kilometre long (119 mi) network?

A green line train at the Roosevelt elevated station in 2011

• ...that when the new elevated station was constructed at Roosevelt on the Chicago 'L' system in 1993, it was intended that there should be a direct link to the subway station below it, but this connection wasn't built until 2002?

NMBS and NS trains at Roosendaal Station in 2008

• ...that Roosendaal railway station, a border station between the Netherlands and Belgium where trains switch between right-hand and left-hand running, respectively, was the first station built in North Brabant?

The tracks and platforms at Rokkō Station in 2014

• ...that Rokkō Station in Kobe, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, is the only station operated by Hankyu having two side platforms serving a siding track each outside of the passing tracks?

Drawing of the 1853 Norwalk accident

• ...that the Norwalk rail accident of 1853, in which an engineer passed a signal at danger and drove his passenger train through an open swing bridge in Connecticut, was the first major U.S. railroad bridge disaster?

Puerto Barrios station in 1896

• ...that in the early 20th century, the Northern Railroad of Guatemala was a major part of United Fruit Company's monopoly control of Guatemala's agricultural production?

• ...that the Nippon Sharyo DMU trains built for the North American market are designed to be convertible to electric multiple unit operation?