Portal:Trains/Did you know/March 2020

March 2020

SBB-CFF-FFS Am 843 (G 1700-2 BB) shunting in Basel in 2010

• ...that the Vossloh G1700 locomotives ordered by Swiss Federal Railways have a particulate filter built in to comply with a requirement for very low emissions?

Railway bridge in El Chorro

• ...that although the 1965 film Von Ryan's Express is set in Switzerland, the railway sequence at the film's conclusion was shot in Spain along the Caminito del Rey walkway in the El Chorro limestone gorge and the adjacent railway bridge?

Golden Spike reenactment at the Chicago Railroad Fair

• ...that Virginia and Truckee Railroad steam locomotives #18 Dayton and #22 Inyo were both modified to represent Union Pacific's #119 and Central Pacific's Jupiter for reenactments of the Golden Spike ceremony during the Chicago Railroad Fair?

Portrait of Henry Villard

• ...that Henry Villard, president of Northern Pacific Railway in the 1880s, acquired the New York Evening Post and The Nation and also had a hand in the large electric power business founded by Thomas Edison?

The original Victoria Bridge in 1859

• ...that the original deck of the Victoria Bridge in Montreal, the first bridge built across the St. Lawrence River and still used by Canadian National Railway, was a long structural metal tube (a tubular bridge) made of prefabricated wrought iron sections imported from England?

VIA train number 66, a Corridor service, departs Toronto toward Montreal in September 2007

• ...that the ViaFast proposal of the early 2000s aimed to reduce travel times throughout the Quebec City – Windsor Corridor by up to two hours?

Verona station in 1909 with the freight shed

• ...that the freight shed at Verona station in New Jersey survived two separate fires that both destroyed the passenger station building?

Sculpture of T.T. Vernon Smith at the job site building a trestle for the Windsor and Annapolis Railway

• ...that T. T. Vernon Smith, Chief Engineer on the Windsor and Annapolis Railway project in the 1860s, was awarded an 1859 patent for the first automated steam-powered foghorn?

class 423 multiple unit leaving the Hasenberg tunnel of the S-Bahn Stuttgart main tracks in 2006

• ...that although construction didn't begin until the 1970s, the idea of a tunnel between Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof and the Alter Postplatz, which eventually became the Verbindungsbahn, was first proposed in the late 1940s?

An SBB Ae 6-6 electric locomotive pulling the Venice-Simplon Orient Express at Siders, Switzerland, in 2006

• ...that although the luxury Venice-Simplon Orient Express uses some restored carriages from the original Orient Express service and operates over similar routes, it is not considered as the lineal descendant of that service?

The preserved Venice station in 2014

• ...that the site of Seaboard Air Line Railroad's Venice station in Florida was moved due to was a desire by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers to increase the union's assets and holdings in the area?

Interlaced track on the Boyne Viaduct in 1983

• ...that after about 80 years of service as a double track bridge, Boyne Viaduct in Drogheda, Ireland, was rebuilt in the 1930s with new steel girders that required interlaced track on a section of the bridge?

A scene from a 1917 Harold Lloyd film that used the Venice Miniature Railway in which the lion's head ornaments are clearly visible

• ...that the lion's head ornaments on the sides of the Venice Miniature Railway's passenger cars were supplied by the J.G. McLain Company for $400 (equivalent to $13,564 in 2023) each?

High-speed trains at Venezia Santa Lucia station in 2013

• ...that Venezia Santa Lucia railway station is named in recognition of the Church of Santa Lucia which, along with its convent, was demolished in 1861 to make way for the station?

A WAGR Ec class showing typical application of Vauclain compound system circa 1903

• ...that uneven forces at the crosshead on Vauclain compound equipped steam locomotives produced excess wear, which increased maintenance costs offsetting predicted fuel economies?

The rear of a Skytop Lounge at Chicago Union Station in 1974

• ...that in the 1960s, the Milwaukee Road's Chicago Union Station to Madison, Wisconsin, Varsity service used displaced Skytop Lounges from the defunct Olympian Hiawatha?

A Variotram in the Töölö district of Helsinki, Finland, in 2004

• ...that forty Variotrams were built by Transtech for Helsinki City Transport, but because Transtech was acquired by Bombardier during their production, the Helsinki trams were the only Variotrams to be produced under the Bombardier name?

1870 cartoon depicting Cornelius Vanderbilt atop Hudson River and New York Central locomotives in a race against James Fisk atop an Erie Railroad locomotive

• ...that after purchasing control of the Hudson River Railroad in 1864, the New York Central Railroad in 1867, Cornelius Vanderbilt created the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad, one of the first giant corporations in United States history?

The platform level of Van Dorn Street station in 2005

• ...that a decade before construction began, the city of Alexandria, Southern Railway, and UPS reached an agreement allowing Washington Metro to retain the air rights to build Van Dorn Street station when funding became available?

A TGV train at Vallorbe station in 2008

• ...that southbound trains from France approach Vallorbe railway station from a southwesterly direction, and northbound trains from Lausanne approach from the northeast?

Valley Railway stock certificate from 1880

• ...that the 1879 title transfer of a portion of the former Ohio and Erie Canal for the Valley Railway's right-of-way was the basis of a lawsuit that was finally settled in 1912 in the Supreme Court of Ohio in favor of the railway?

A Sprinter at Wallan station in November 2007

• ...that the 1,600 mm (5 ft 3 in) gauge V/Line Sprinter cars built by A Goninan & Co, Broadmeadow, were transferred to Melbourne by rail on standard gauge transfer bogies?