Portal:Trains/Did you know/December 2019

December 2019

Schematic drawing of a track circuit on unoccupied track

• ...that track circuits to detect trains for signalling are designed for fail-safe operation to indicate the presence of a train when failures occur?

An TLR0600 train on the Toyama Light Rail Toyama Port Line in 2015

• ...that the Toyama Light Rail Toyamakō Line is regarded as the first fully converted or constructed "light rail transit" (LRT) in Japan?

The former Tower station and preserved train behind it in 2017

• ...that in 2012 solar panels were installed on the canopy at Tower station in Tower, Minnesota, to provide electricity to the railroad cars and depot?

The Tower City Center complex main building in 2012

• ...that site preparation for Cleveland Union Terminal in 1922, now Tower City Center, required the demolition of approximately 2,200 buildings?

A train at Totnes station passing the unused atmospheric railway engine house in 2013

• ...that the unused engine house behind the eastbound platform at Totnes railway station was built to provide atmospheric power for the railway?

Uinta-Piceance Basins geologic map

• ...that one of the currently active proposals for a Uinta Basin Rail line uses a route surveyed in 1902 by the never finished Denver and Salt Lake Railroad?

The southern signal box at Torquay station in 2009

• ...that the former signal box at the south end of Torquay railway station in Devon, England, is now rented out for commercial use?

One of the Toronto and Nipissing Railway's Fairlie locomotives circa 1915

• ...that the Toronto and Nipissing Railway, chartered in 1868 in Ontario, Canada, was the first public narrow-gauge railway in North America?

The cab and number plate of First Great Western locomotive 57604 "Pendennis Castle" in November 2010

• ...that the TOPS system purchased by British Rail in 1968, which led to the adoption of a uniform numbering system for rolling stock in Britain, was originally developed in a partnership of Southern Pacific Railroad, Stanford University and IBM?

A token catcher in operation at Horopito in 1921

• ...that some British railways developed mechanical systems that enabled faster token handover, using catcher devices that could be extended from the locomotive cabside?

A Tobu 7800 series 4-car EMU approaching Ogose Station on the Tobu Ogose Line in 1977

• ...that Tobu Railway's Ogose Line was that company's first line to receive a CTC signalling system?