Portal:Trains/Did you know/September 2017

September 2017

24-B Eurostar Head Car express train waiting to deploy at Bologna Station in 2006

• ...that all E.404 0xx motorcars of the older Ferrovie dello Stato ETR 500 trainsets have been refurbished and transformed into locomotives of the type E.414, to haul EuroStarCity trains on selected routes?

A preserved Class 290 locomotive at the Pietrarsa railway museum in 2012

• ...that Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane's Class 290 of 0-6-0 steam locomotives introduced in 1899 was the last and most successful 0-6-0 Italian locomotive?

The centrally-located overhead power rail of B&O's Baltimore Belt Line in 1901

• ...that when Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's Baltimore Belt Line was electrified power was supplied through a unique system in which a pickup shoe rode in a channel above and to one side of the track?

Two Freightliner locomotives at Ipswich in 2004

• ...that Freightliner, the largest intermodal freight transport operator in the United Kingdom, became a subsidiary of Genesee & Wyoming in 2015?

EWS locomotive number 66213 pulls a train of oil up the Lickey Incline in 2010

• ...that the Freight Route Utilisation Strategy published by Network Rail in March 2007 is one of only two Route Utilisation Strategy documents which have the perspective of the United Kingdom rail network as whole?

A portion of the Lerch plan of 1852 showing the city of Freiburg and the station outside it

• ...that due to the location of Freiburg Hauptbahnhof when it opened in 1845 outside the city of Freiburg im Breisgau, the city implemented a zoning plan called Hinterm Bahnhof ("behind the station"), leading to the development of the current Stühlinger quarter?

A Franklin Avenue Shuttle train at Park Place in June 2017

• ...that in 1974 a southbound Franklin Avenue Shuttle train derailed on a crossover and smashed the same place where BRT car 100 had hit in the Malbone Street Wreck in 1918?

Commuter trains at Newtonville station under Boston & Albany operations in 1911

• ...that the Framingham/Worcester Line in Boston, Massachusetts, was one of the first commuter rail lines, with daily commuter-oriented service to West Newton beginning in 1834?

Foxton station and industries in 1912

• ...that the Foxton Branch in New Zealand was built as wooden-railed tramway and was operated using the first New Zealand-built locomotive?

A CSX train crosses the Fourteenth Street Bridge in 2007

• ...that until the Fourteenth Street Bridge in Louisville, Kentucky, was built in the late 1860s, there were no bridges across the Ohio River at Cincinnati or any place west, including Louisville?

A preserved Fort Eustis Military Railroad steam locomotive at the US Army Transportation Museum in 2006

• ...that beginning in June 1965, the 714th Transportation Battalion (Railway Operating) (Steam & Diesel Electric), which operated and maintained the Fort Eustis Military Railroad, was the only active duty railway unit in the U.S. Army?

Fort Collins Birney car 21 on the 1984-opened heritage streetcar line in 1987

• ...that the heritage streetcar service in Fort Collins, Colorado, developed from a 1977 proposal to give the Fort Collins Municipal Railway 1919-built streetcar 21 a cosmetic restoration?

An empty EMU train passes Forest Hill station on the up express track in 1991

• ...that Forest Hill railway station was the northern terminus for an experimental atmospheric railway to West Croydon in 1844?

Tracks of the South Kensington-West Footscray line pass under Footscray station

• ...that a pair of dual gauge tracks forming the mainly freight-only South Kensington-West Footscray line pass underneath Footscray railway station in Victoria, Australia?

Southern Pacific number 3031, an H24-66, leads commuter train 122 at San Francisco, CA, on February 5, 1971

• ...that Fairbanks-Morse touted its H-24-66 diesel-electric locomotive as "...the most useful locomotive ever built..." upon its introduction in 1953?

The Flying Yankee train at an unidentified location in 1938

• ...that when the Flying Yankee train was introduced on the Boston and Maine Railroad and Maine Central Railroad systems in 1935, its schedule had it running a 750-mile (1,210 km) circuit six days a week?

LNER's Flying Scotsman pulled by No. 2547, "Doncaster," with a corridor tender in 1928

• ...that London and North Eastern Railway introduced corridor tenders for the Flying Scotsman in 1928 to allow non-stop service by enabling a replacement driver and fireman to take over halfway without stopping the train?

1873 Map of the Flushing and North Side Railroad

• ...that the Flushing and North Side Railroad was built partly because Flushing residents felt they had been tricked into building the Flushing and Woodside Railroad instead?

A Flexity 2 tram in Blackpool in 2013

• ...that Bombardier's Flexity 2 tram has cells to store energy temporarily after braking?

Jim Fisk

• ...that James Fisk, who controlled the Erie Railroad, had a covered passage built linking the back doors of the railroad's headquarters and the apartment building where he rented an apartment for his mistress, Josie Mansfield?

A First ScotRail train at Port Glasgow station in 2008

• ...that the densest part of First ScotRail's network was the suburban network around Glasgow, with 183 stations, the second-largest suburban rail network in the UK, after London?

Two Fillmore & Western trains in 2007

• ...that the Fillmore and Western Railway has been used in more than 400 movie, TV and commercial shots?