Portal:Trains/Did you know/April 2016

April 2016

A preserved steam locomotive at Medellín station

• ...that construction of the Antioquia Railway was one of the last public works that Colombia was able to finance by going to international capital markets in the 1920s?

The facade of Córdoba station in 2009

• ...that Córdoba station served as the western terminus for the Central Argentine Railway, which was the longest railway system in Argentina when it opened and the first railway to join two Argentine provinces?

A Crossrail Benelux Class 66 locomotive near the Blauwe Toren junction in Bruges, Belgium in 2012

• ...that Dillen & LeJeune Cargo, now known as Crossrail Benelux, became the first private company to haul a freight train in Belgium when it operated a container train for MSC from Antwerp to Aachen in April 2002?

Opening ceremonies for Constitución station in 1944

• ...that the first tunnels heading towards Constitución station (which is now a ghost station) on Buenos Aires Underground's Line E were actually constructed in 1932 instead of 1938 like the rest of the line?

COMSA locomotive 253 102 during tests on the Bilbao-Miranda line in 2011

• ...that in September 2005 COMSA Rail Transport became the first private rail company to obtain a license to operate on the Spanish railway network, over which they began operating freight trains in 2007?

A railcar on the Comodoro Rivadavia Railway before 1948

• ...that the railcars used on the 1,676 mm (5 ft 6 in) gauge Comodoro Rivadavia Railway in Argentina were nicknamed chanchitas (lit. "little pigs") by local residents due to their lack of comfort?

A Canadian Pacific colonist car in 1924

• ...that railways competing for immigrant traffic to western North America such as the Great Northern Railway and the Canadian Pacific Railway developed large fleets of more advanced colonist cars providing spartan sleeping accommodation to western immigrants?

A train pulled by a EMD G22 locomotive decorated with corporate colors in August 2015

• ...that Belgrano Cargas y Logística is often erroneously called Belgrano Cargas by the Argentine government and press, despite the freight network encompassing numerous other Argentine railways, of which the General Belgrano Railway is only one?

The Coastal Pacific train at Christchurch station in 2011

• ...that the current Christchurch Railway Station in New Zealand is the third station in Christchurch to bear that name and, since suburban passenger train service was discontinued in the 1970s, is now the only remaining passenger railway station in the city?

The southern ship dock of the Chignecto Ship Railway

• ...that the partially built but never completed Chignecto Ship Railway, a portage railway in Nova Scotia, Canada, was designed to carry ships on a cradle forming an extremely wide rail car that straddled parallel twin standard gauge railway tracks?

A train of empty flatcars passes the new Chascomús train station in 2014

• ...that after construction delays due to the financial crisis in the 1980s in Argentina, the line to the newly-built Chascomús railway and bus station reduced the number of level crossings in Chascomús from 17 to four?

CGR number E34, the second Fairlie locomotive on the railway, circa 1888

• ...that the first Cape Government Railways Fairlie 0-6-0+0-6-0 built in 1876 was the first articulated locomotive to enter service in South Africa and also the first locomotive in South Africa to be equipped with Walschaerts valve gear?