March 2013

• ...that SNCF's electric multiple unit Z-TER trains, built by Alstom and Bombardier Transportation in 2003 and 2004, were the first regional trains in France to reach 200 kilometres per hour (124 mph) in regular operation?

• ...that Yurikamome, an automated guideway transit service that opened in 1995 connecting Shimbashi to Toyosu via the artificial island of Odaiba, was the first fully automated transit system in Tokyo, Japan, controlled entirely by computers with no drivers on board?

• ...that soon after its opening in 1897 as part of the Sanyō Railway, Yokogawa Station, in Hiroshima, Japan, also became a terminal for the first public bus service in Japan in 1905?

• ...that the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway, a predecessor of the Norfolk and Western Railway, was known by the nickname "The Iron Cross" for many years in reference to its two crossing main lines in Ohio?

• ...that Wakkanai Station in Hokkaidō prefecture, which serves as the northern terminus of the Sōya Main Line, is the northernmost railway station in Japan?

• ...that in 1879 William Kissam Vanderbilt, heir to Cornelius Vanderbilt and president of New York Central Railroad, took over P. T. Barnum's Great Roman Hippodrome which was on railroad property by Madison Square Park and he renamed the facility Madison Square Garden?

• ...that Universidad station on the Monterrey Metro in Mexico served as the terminus of Line 2 from the station's opening on October 31, 2007, until stage two of the Line 2 expansion was completed on October 1, 2008, and Sendero became the new terminus?

• ...that one of the greatest feats of the United States Army Transportation Corps, via the Military Railway Service, was the rebuilding of France's shattered railroad network after D-Day and the transportation of 1,500 locomotives and 20,000 railway cars specially built for the lighter French track system?

• ...that JR Tower, part of the Sapporo Station complex, the starting point and terminus for the limited expresses of JR Hokkaido on the Hakodate Main Line, Chitose Line and Sasshō Line, is the tallest building in Hokkaido, Japan?

• ...that the Toei Ōedo Line, a subway line in Tokyo, Japan, which was originally designated as Line 12 and uses 12-000 series trains, opened on December 12, 2000, a date that can be written as "12/12/12" since the year 2000 equals Heisei 12?

• ...that The Great Train Story, a 3,500-square-foot (330 m²) HO scale model railroad display located in Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry, can accommodate up to 34 trains running simultaneously on 17 tracks including a 1,425-foot long (434 m) three-track main line?

• ...that Tanigawa trains, services that were first introduced in 1982 for limited express services between Ueno in Tokyo, Japan, and Minakami on the Jōetsu Line, terminate and start at the seasonal Gala-Yuzawa Station during the winter skiing season?

• ...that the Takayama Main Line, operated by JR Central and JR West, directly links the Chūkyō Metropolitan Area (metropolitan Nagoya, Japan) and Hokuriku region in a shorter distance, but with a longer travel time, than by using the combination of the Tōkaidō Shinkansen and Hokuriku Main Line?

• ...that from the start of the revised JR East timetable on 16 March 2013, Tagokura Station on the Tadami Line in Tadami, Fukushima, Japan, is scheduled to close permanently due to low passenger usage, being used on average by roughly one person per day?

• ...that the Swing Door trains that operated on the suburban railway network of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, were originally 13.7-metre long (44 ft 11 in) steam-hauled bogie passenger cars that were extended by two compartments to a total length of 17.4 metres (57 ft 1 in), and then fitted onto new under-frames and bogies?

• ...that after a 12-year career in medicine, Worthy S. Streator spent much of the 1850s building railroads in Ohio including the Greenville and Medina Railroad, part of the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad and the Oil Creek Railroad?

• ...that as the owner of the San Diego Electric Railway, John D. Spreckels developed a unique fleet of special streetcars that could handle the large crowds attending the Panama–California Exposition and then continued in service until 1939?

• ...that after the first South African Railways Class GB 2-6-2+2-6-2 Garratt was placed in service in 1921 working passenger trains on the Natal South Coast line, it proved to be a successful locomotive, having good riding qualities and flexibility on light track with poor ballasting and many curves of 300 ft (91 m) radius, which led to a second order of six more locomotives of the class to be placed in service in 1924?

• ...that while the practice by most other locomotive builders was to allocate builder’s numbers or works numbers to record the locomotives built by them, when Union Carriage & Wagon (UCW) built the South African Railways (SAR) Class 5E1, Series 5, UCW simply used the SAR running numbers for their record keeping?

• ...that one of South African Railways' Class 16DA steam locomotives was built with Caprotti valve gear for test purposes rather than the Walschaerts valve gear that the rest of the class used, but was found to be unsuitable for conditions in South Africa and was eventually rebuilt with the standard Walschaerts valve gear in 1940?

• ...that SNCF's Class X 2400 diesel railcars, which were built in the early 1950s by Régie Renault and Decauville, facilitated the phasing out of steam traction and the renewal of aging railcar stock when they were introduced around Limoges and onto the lines of the Massif Central?

• ...that the Silverliner name, which refers to a series of EMU cars used in the Philadelphia area since 1958, came from the classes' shiny stainless steel body shell when they were introduced, and the cars made such an impression that the name has since been applied to all subsequent MU classes purchased by SEPTA for the Regional Rail services?