Portal:Trains/Did you know/June 2016

June 2016

• ...that the Kŭmsŏng-class locomotives built by the Kim Chong-t'ae Electric Locomotive Works in P'yŏngyang, North Korea, were unlicensed copies of the Soviet-made M62-type diesel locomotive?

• ...that the Kent Route Utilisation Strategy study area encompasses the only dedicated very high-speed railway in the United Kingdom, known as High Speed 1?

• ...that the conversion of Soviet-built K62-class diesel locomotives to 3,000 V DC electric operation produced the Kanghaenggun-class locomotives which are considerably lighter than the diesel version, and sound like oversized streetcars?

• ...that in the late 1990s the Korean State Railway bought several secondhand K62-class locomotives from Russia, Germany, Poland and Slovakia, and although they retain their European-style buffers, the European couplers have been replaced with the Janney (AAR-type) knuckle coupler?

• ...that the DisneySea Electric Railway was built after the 1987 repeal of a Japanese law regulating any railway that connected two points and could be used as a means of transportation, even if the railway was entirely on private land?

• ...that the İzmir-Aydın section of the Izmir–Eğirdir railway was opened in 1866 and became first railway in present-day Turkey?

• ...that Humber Loop in Toronto was a fare zone boundary between the Queen Street route and the 507 Long Branch route until the two routes were merged in 1994 to form the 501 Queen line, the longest streetcar line in North America?

• ...that the history of the Union Pacific Railroad extends back to 1862 when the first federal laws were passed creating the railroad and it remained under partial federal control until the 1890s?

• ...that within 7 years of being under W. Graham Claytor's leadership, Amtrak was generating enough money to cover 72 percent of its $1.7 billion operating budget by 1989, up from 48 percent in 1981?

• ...that the Hirschengraben Tunnel station platforms at Zürich Hauptbahnhof in Switzerland are numbered as Hauptbahnhof tracks 41 to 44 but are also sometimes referred to as Museumstrasse station?

• ...that High Park Loop, sometimes called Howard Park Loop, is one of two Toronto Transit Commission loops to have used High Park as the name of the destination?

• ...that the previous station entry building for Harvard station on MBTA's Red Line had proven far too small for the volume of passenger traffic, so it was reinstalled slightly north of its original location, and repurposed as a news stand?

• ...that Until 1897 the original Hammer Bridge in present-day Belgium was the highest railway viaduct in what had, by that time, become the unified German state?