Portal:Trains/Did you know/October 2012

The Soviet-built opposed-piston 2-10-4 of 1949

...that in 1949 the Voroshilovgrad Works in Russia built an opposed-piston 2-10-4 steam locomotive with centrally-located cylinders intended to balance the driving forces on the wheels, allowing the counterweights on the wheels to be smaller and reducing "hammer blow" on the track, but the design ultimately proved unsuccessful?

Natal Government Railways number 324, a Class 1B locomotive in 1906

...that when Natal Government Railways, in present-day South Africa, modified six of its Class Hendrie B 4-8-0 locomotives in 1906 by adding a trailing bissel truck below the cab to improve operations with passenger trains, the resulting Class Altered Hendrie B became the first steam locomotives in the world with a 4-8-2 wheel arrangement?

Mount Kineo House in 1908

...that the Somerset Railroad, which was originally built in the 1870s as a 5 ft 6 in (1,676 mm) gauge line from the Maine Central Railroad north along the Kennebec River in Maine, built a large resort hotel in 1906 called the Mount Kineo House on Moosehead Lake that was reached by steamboat from the railroad terminal at Kineo Station?

An X40 train at Eskilstuna station in 2007

...that SJ's X40 class of electric multiple unit trains, built by Alstom for regional commuter traffic, were designed with wider doors to allow the trains to make only 30 second stops in smaller stations and 60 second stops in larger stations?

...that a locomotive depot at Seymour railway station, in Seymour, Victoria, Australia, that was the home of the Victorian Railways S class 4-6-2 Pacifics as used on the Spirit of Progress for the whole of their working lives, existed from the opening of the station in 1872 until 1993?

...that in addition to operating the points and signals from a signal box in order to control the movement of trains, another aspect of the signalman's duties included checking each train that passed his signal box looking for the red tail lamp on the trailing vehicle to ensure that the train was still complete and logging the passage of each train in a train register book?

...that although the name of Shijō-mae Station, which opened in 2006 on the Yurikamome line, in Kōtō, Tokyo Prefecture, Japan, literally translates as "in front of the marketplace", as of 2012 there is no market on either side of the station?

...that at 52.4 kilometres (32.6 mi), Seoul Subway's Line 5 in Korea is the second longest fully underground subway line in the world just behind Guangzhou Metro Line 3 in China?

...that Harry Wainwright, chief mechanical engineer of the South Eastern and Chatham Railway in England was asked to retire in 1913 following criticisms of his original design for the L class 4-4-0 steam locomotives coincident with an acute motive power crisis on the railway during the summer that year?
...that historian Vincent Arthur Smith believed that the site of Satna Railway Station in present-day Madhya Pradesh, India, was the capital of the ancient Kosambi state?

...that San Diego Electric Railway designed its Class 1 streetcars in 1915 to both provide transportation for the visitors at the Panama–California Exposition and for the city of San Diego, California, in the following decades of anticipated growth?

...that in 1931 when the underground extension from Saiin to Keihan Kyoto Station (present-day Ōmiya Station) in Japan was completed, the former Kyoto Saiin Station was moved from the ground level to the underground facilities and renamed Saiin Station?

...that Roma Ostiense railway station in Italy was built in 1938 commemorate the forthcoming visit of Adolf Hitler to Rome replacing an existing rural rail station, with the aim of creating a monumental station to receive the German dictator?

...that the Rhodesia Railways (RR) 15th class of Garratt locomotives, with a 4-6-4+4-6-4 wheel arrangement sometimes called a "Double Baltic" Garratt, was one of only two Double Baltic Garratt classes built, the other being the Sudan Railways 250 class (which later became RR's 17th class)?

The original Ramleh station circa 1930

...that as part of the double tracking and upgrading project of the Lod-Beersheba main line in present-day Israel, the size of Ramla Railway Station was doubled in 2012 and the railway's upgraded route in the area actually no longer passes next to the original 1891–1998 station location?

...that in mountainous areas where rock slides may occur without warning, railways will sometimes employ a slide fence that is designed to be displaced by a rock slide, causing the signaling system to display a stop aspect on nearby signals?

...that rail motor coaches, powered rail vehicles able to pull several trailers and at the same time transport passengers or luggage, were often used on electrified narrow gauge railways on the European continent to replace locomotives at the head of local passenger or freight trains?

Map of the South Gippsland line just outside Melbourne

...that proposals for railway extensions around Melbourne, Australia, date back as far as 1857 when a proposal was brought forward to bring the Gippsland Railway into Melbourne via Elsternwick, Elwood and St Kilda connecting to the now closed St Kilda Line?

Cockfosters station in 2003

...that London Underground's Piccadilly line extension to Cockfosters was constructed in the 1930s in part to help alleviate congestion at Finsbury Park station where passengers were transferring to trams and buses instead of trains on the Great Northern Railway as the railway companies had hoped?

...that Pacific Electric Railway's Sub-Station No. 14, which served the Watts-Santa Ana Line, the Santa Ana-Orange Line, and the Santa Ana-Huntington Beach Line from 1907 to the end of service in 1950, is the last Pacific Electric substation remaining in Orange County, California?

...that because the Oresund Line connects Fosieby (a neighborhood of Malmö), Sweden, and Copenhagen Central Station, Denmark, both the electrification and signalling systems are switched for trains on the line at Peberholm, an artificial island at the end of the Oresund Bridge?

...that in August 2011, 10-car set number 3093 of Odakyu Electric Railway's 3000 series in Japan was reliveried in a Doraemon livery to commemorate the opening of the Fujiko F. Fujio Museum in Kawasaki, Kanagawa, but the livery's scheduled year-long use ended in one month due to complaints from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government that it violated metropolitan ordinances regulating advertising on train exteriors?

...that in 2009 Nederlandse Spoorwegen began a modernization project on its DD-AR class of electric multiple unit trains which led to the newly rebuilt cars being reclassed as NID, an acronym for Nieuwe Intercity Dubbeldekker?

...that the North Caucasus Railway system in Russia comprises Grozny, Krasnodar, Makhachkala, Mineralnye Vody, and Rostov passenger and freight railways extending to more than 6,300 kilometres (3,900 mi) of track, as well as two children's railways (in Vladikavkaz and Rostov)?

...that Northern Ireland Railways Class 450 bear a strong resemblance to British Rail classes 150, 210, 317, 318 and 455 altered to Irish gauge because they use the new Mark 3 bodyshells?

...that in recent years, Narvskaya station of the Saint Petersburg Metro has struggled with large volumes of passenger traffic such that in peak hours, the station works only in one direction: as an entrance or an exit?

...that Nagamachi Station, which serves both the Sendai Subway Nanboku Line and the JR East Jōban Line and Tōhoku Main Line in Japan, was originally opened in 1894 as a military station of Nippon Railway?

...that with a line reaching 65 kilometres (40 mi) long, the 760 mm (2 ft 5+15⁄16 in) gauge Mur Valley Railway, connecting Unzmarkt through Murau to Tamsweg, is the second longest narrow-gauge railway in Austria?