November 2013

Taipei station in 2005

• ...that the current Taipei Railway Station building in Taiwan opened in 1989 with the completion of the Taipei Railway Underground Project which included an underground railway tunnel between Huashan and Wanhua to alleviate traffic congestion caused by railroad crossings in downtown Taipei?

Two Sulzer-engined British Rail Class 47 locomotives with a passenger train at Bangor in 1987

• ...that the Sulzer LDA (prefixed by the number of cylinders, and with a suffix related to the cylinder bore) diesel engine was widely used by British Rail with many built under license by Vickers-Armstrong at Barrow as six-, eight- and twelve-cylinder form?

An InterCity 125 train at Bristol Temple Meads station in the 1970s

• ...that St Philip's Marsh depot in Bristol, England, was originally developed by the Great Western Railway as a twin-turntable facility for freight locomotives and has been used since their introduction for the maintenance of InterCity 125 trains operating between London Paddington, Bristol Temple Meads and South Wales?

An SAR Class MC1 locomotive and its assigned driver pose for a portrait circa 1930

• ...that the improvements implemented in the South African Railways Class MC1, mainly a redesigned boiler that included a superheater and 0.5 inches (12.7 millimetres) larger diameter low pressure and high pressure cylinders, resulted in a much better performing locomotive than its predecessor Class MC with an increased tractive effort brought about by the larger cylinders?

SAR Class 6J number 642 leads the Dining Car Express circa 1904

• ...that the Class 6J 4-6-0 steam locomotive has been described as the most successful of the bar framed 6th Class locomotives that were owned by Cape Government Railways in South Africa, and as such they were placed in service on the Cape main line and for several years hauled the 'Dining Car Express Train' that left Cape Town every Wednesday morning for the Orange River Colony and Johannesburg?

SAR No. 3511 at Hartswater, Cape Province, in 1981

• ...that the condensing tenders of South African Railways' Class 25 4-8-4 steam locomotives were rather appropriately classified as Type CZ, since CZ is also the motor vehicle registration letters of Beaufort West, the capital town of the Karoo where the Class 25 was to serve?

Soneda Station in 2011

• ...that in 2010, Soneda Station, on Fukushima Transportation's Iizaka Line in Fukushima, Fukushima, Japan, was repainted to have a red roof and cream walls in the image of the Tokyu 5000 series trains that ran on the Iizaka Line until 1991?

Titan metro station on the Bucharest Metro in 2006

• ...that many metro stations on systems around the world can be characterized as single-vault stations where the platforms and tracks are contained in a single wide and high underground hall in which there is only one vault?

A 185-200 series EMU on a Shinkansen Relay service at Omiya Station in 1982

• ...that Japanese National Railways introduced the Shinkansen Relay service in 1982 to shuttle passengers between Ueno in Tokyo and Ōmiya via the narrow gauge Tōhoku Main Line to connect to the Tōhoku Shinkansen which was not yet completed to Ueno?

The tracks and platforms at Shimo Ochiai station in 2008

• ...that in 2011, Shimo-Ochiai Station, which originally opened in 1927 and now serves the Seibu Railway's Shinjuku Line in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan, was used by an average of 10,752 passengers daily?

An SBB RABDe 500 between Schwarzenbach SG and Algetshausen-Henau in 2004

• ...that before being sold in 1995 to FIAT and subsequently in 2000 to Alstom, the railway equipment division of Schweizerische Industrie Gesellschaft, which was founded in 1853, built the first six CLRV L1 trams for Toronto Transit Commission as well as designed the tilting system of the SBB RABDe 500?

The west portal of the Soumagne tunnel in 2008

• ...that the 6,505-metre long (21,342 ft) Soumagne Tunnel, which was opened in 2004 on the HSL 3 line of the Belgian TGV service for Brussels-Liège-Cologne, is the longest railway tunnel in Belgium?

A car on the Takaotozan Railway line in 2007

• ...that the 1-kilometre long (0.62 mi) Takaotozan Railway (高尾登山電鉄, Takao Tozan Dentetsu) connecting Kiyotaki Station at elevation 201 m (659 ft) and Takaosan Station at elevation 472 m (1,549 ft) creating a 608‰ (31°) grade is the steepest funicular railway in Japan?

A car on the Sakamoto Cable line in 2007

• ...that with a track length of 2 kilometres (1.2 mi), the Sakamoto Cable (坂本ケーブル, Sakamoto Kēburu), a funicular railway operated by Hieizan Railway in Ōtsu, Shiga, Japan, is the longest funicular railway in Japan?

The tracks and platforms of Rushall station in 2005

• ...that although Rushall railway station, on the South Morang railway line in the suburb of Fitzroy North in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, is somewhat isolated and little-used with an average of 430 passenger boardings per day in 2009, all advertised passenger services to and from Epping and South Morang stop there?

The remains of the locomotive shed at Summit Station in 2006

• ...that remnants of the Wairarapa Line at and around the former Summit railway station on the North Island of New Zealand have been preserved and can be viewed by visitors on the Rimutaka Rail Trail which follows the former line's right-of-way?

The opening of Randsfjordbanen in 1868

• ...that while Norwegian railway director Carl Abraham Pihl recommended in 1858 that a railway line should connect Drammen to Randsfjorden, forester Thorvald Meiddell argued for a channel instead and the decision for a rail line, which became the Randsfjorden Line, was made in a meeting of the Drammen chairmanship with the final vote in 1863 being six to three in favor of rail?

Map of rail lines in Angola as of 2011

• ...that rail transport in Angola consists of three separate and disconnected 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in) gauge lines—the Luanda Railway (northern), the Benguela Railway (central) and the Moçâmedes Railway (southern)—and a 600 mm (1 ft 11+5⁄8 in) gauge line that once linked Gunza and Gabala?

The Pune Junction station sign in 2013

• ...that Pune railway station, a railway junction on the Mumbai-Chennai railway line in India, is the proposed terminus for a new high-speed passenger service connecting Pune, Mumbai and Ahmedabad that is expected to reduce the travel time from 10 hours to just under two hours?

Henry B. Plant

• ...that convinced of the eventual economic revival of the South, Henry B. Plant bought at foreclosure sales in 1879 and 1880 the Atlantic and Gulf Railroad and the Charleston and Savannah Railroad which formed the basis of a transportation system that twenty years later included fourteen railway companies with 2,100 miles (3,400 km) of track, several steamship lines, and a number of important hotels?

The tracks and platforms of Parnas station in 2010

• ...that Parnas, which opened in 2006 as the northern terminus of the Moskovsko-Petrogradskaya Line of Saint Petersburg Metro, is the northernmost subway station in Russia?