Portal:Trains/Did you know/August 2021

August 2021

Portrait of Erastus Corning circa 1860

• ...that his work on the Utica and Schenectady Railroad's board of directors in the 1830s and in the New York State Senate in the 1840s motivated Erastus Corning to lay the groundwork for the largest corporation in America at the time, the New York Central Railroad?

Richard J. Corman in 2009

Richard J. Corman in 2009

• ...that Richard J. Corman, founder and owner of R.J. Corman Railroad Group, missed 105 of 173 possible school days during his senior year of high school but still graduated in 1973?

CB&PR locomotive number 1 in 1916

• ...that after about 50 years in operation, the Cork, Blackrock and Passage Railway was converted to narrow gauge because it was calculated that building an extension in the late 1890s as narrow gauge and converting the entire line to the same gauge would save money?

GS&WR train at Youghal 1902

• ...that by the late 1980s, the former Cork and Youghal Railway branch to Cobh was the only part of the previously extensive rail network around Cork City to remain operational apart from the main line to Dublin?

The tracks and platforms at Blaenau Ffestiniog station, the interchange between Conwy Valley trains and the narrow gauge Ffestiniog Railway, in October 2012

• ...that the Conwy Valley line in Wales traverses the Ffestiniog Tunnel, the longest single track railway tunnel in the United Kingdom?

A preserved GWR autotrain, running with the locomotive sandwiched between two driving coaches on the South Devon Railway in 2013

• ...that control cars have been in use for a very long time, with an early example being the Great Western Railway in the United Kingdom often using autocoaches on steam locomotive powered branch line services?

The main facade of Connolly station in 2006

• ...that the current Connolly station in Dublin grew from the merger of the original Dublin and Drogheda Railway's and Great Northern Railway's stations in the 1950s?

Two preserved Condor flat cars in 2008

• ...that except for a two-minute stop at Carlisle for a crew change, British Railways' Condor container trains of the early 1960s operated non-stop overnight between London and Glasgow?

View showing both upper and lower platforms of Commercial-Broadway station in February 2019

• ...that Metro Vancouver's SkyTrain Commercial–Broadway station not only had the third-highest number of boardings of any SkyTrain station, but is also a terminus of the region's busiest bus route?

The cast-iron urinal at Colyford station in 2009

• ...that a preserved cast iron urinal is the only building remaining from the original Colyford railway station structure?

Amtrak's Colonial at Williamsburg station in 1978

• ...that in the 1980s because Amtrak's three long-distance trains serving Richmond, Virginia, frequently ran late, only the Colonial/Tidewater services provided reliable northbound service from Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Quantico?