Portal:Trains/Did you know/September 2014

September 2014

The center platform at 59th Street station in 2013

• ...that the center IND Eighth Avenue Line platform at the 59th Street – Columbus Circle station in New York City served the purpose of a Spanish solution, allowing passengers to exit both sides of subway cars, but has since been converted to be a crossunder between the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line side platforms?

Aerial view of the 1996 Silver Spring collision aftermath

• ...that the 1996 Silver Spring, Maryland, train collision led to the creation of comprehensive federal rules for passenger car design, the first in the history of passenger service in the United States, as well as changes to operating rules?

Track and platform diagram of Zhongnan Road Station

• ...that the two sets of platforms at Wuhan Metro's Zhongnan Road Station in China offers paired cross-platform interchange for passengers riding between four directions of Line 2 and Line 4?

Westchester Avenue station as seen from Concrete Plant Park in 2008

• ...that although proposals have been made to repair and restore the abandoned Westchester Avenue station in the Bronx in New York City, Amtrak owns the station and the land it occupies and has listed it as a trackside structure in need of demolition?

The Walpole station building in 2010

• ...that the current Walpole station building on MBTA Commuter Rail's Franklin Line in Walpole, Massachusetts, was built by the Old Colony Railroad in 1883 and is the oldest station building still extant on MBTA's Franklin Line?

A power van being shunted at Dudley Street carriage yards, Melbourne, in 2007

• ...that Victorian Railways in Australia built and operated several classes of power vans, replacing axle-mounted generators, as a means to provide electrical power to passenger cars?

Builder's photo of Virginian Railway 900, a USRA 2-8-8-2

• ...that the USRA 2-8-8-2 steam locomotive design drew heavily on the Norfolk and Western Railway’s Y-2 class locomotive design which used smaller cylinders and higher boiler pressure than other 2-8-8-2 locomotives of the time?

Platform 2 and tracks at Tsuen Wan station in 2013

• ...that Hong Kong MTR's Tsuen Wan Station, which was the westernmost (until the Airport Station opened in 1998) and northernmost station (until the MTR–KCR merger in 2006) in the system when it opened in 1982, is the only Tsuen Wan Line station at ground level?

TASC transponders at a railway station in Japan in 2007

• ...that the Train Automatic Stopping Controller (TASC) system used in Japan was originally developed in the 1950s and the 1960s as a way of ensuring that trains stop properly at stations but has also been useful at preventing SPADs?

An R44 train in A service in 2007

• ...that after extensively studying New York City Subway system rule books and manuals, Keron Thomas posed as motorman "Regoberto Sabio" on May 8, 1993, and operated an A train in revenue service for over three hours, when he was sixteen years old?

A train at Taralga in 1946

• ...that the Taralga railway line, which opened in 1926 in New South Wales, Australia, became one of only a few lines in New South Wales to be formally closed by an Act of Parliament when it closed in 1957?

The platforms and tracks at Subiaco railway station in 2006

• ...that until the opening of the William Street platforms at Perth station in Western Australia, Subiaco railway station was the only underground railway station in the Transperth network?

SS Lansdowne crossing the Detroit River in winter 1905

• ...that the railroad car ferry SS Lansdowne, which was built in 1884 and is reported to have served as late as the 1970s was the longest ship on the Great Lakes when it was built and was the last sidewheeler serving on the Great Lakes when it was retired?

Builder's photo of a South African Railways class 18 locomotive in 1928

• ...that with a tractive effort of 53,650 pounds-force (238.647 kilonewtons) at 75% boiler pressure, South African Railways' two class 18 2-10-2 locomotives were the most powerful non-articulated steam locomotives to see service on the SAR?

SNCB Class 14 locomotive No 1356 at Ostend train station in 2006

• ...that traction and electrical equipment for SNCB's class 13 locomotives was tested on a converted class 21 locomotive, while pantograph equipment for the class was tested on a class 27 locomotive?

Shinagawa Station in the late 19th century, with the Tokyo Bay shore visible immediately next to the station

• ...that Shinagawa Station, one of Japan's oldest stations, opened on June 12, 1872, four months before the inauguration of "Japan's first railway" between Shimbashi and Yokohama through Shinagawa on October 14, 1872?