...that the New Zealand RailwaysK class2-4-2steam locomotives of 1877, a highly successful design that had profound influence on New Zealand locomotive development, were dumped in the Oreti River for embankment protection after retirement in the 1920s and one, K 88, has been recovered from the riverbed and restored to full working order?
EFVM number 861, a DDM45, at Estacão Intendente Câmara in 2008
...that the EMD DDM45, a narrow gauge version of the SD45 built for service in Brazil, required two additional driving axles since the smaller narrow gauge traction motors would otherwise be overloaded by the locomotive's electrical output?
...that slack action, the amount of free movement of one railway car before it transmits its motion to an adjoining coupled car, can aid in starting heavy trains, since the application of the locomotive power to the train operates on each car in the train successively, and the power is thus utilized to start only one car at a time?
...that Bombardier Transportation's TRAXX locomotive's name is an acronym for Transnational Railway Applications with eXtreme fleXibility; reflecting the versatility of a locomotive design with both passenger and freight applications and both electric and diesel variants, later electric versions of which are quad voltage machines able to operate on most Europeanelectrification schemes?
...that the Georgia Railroad and Banking Company, a U.S. rail operator which was originally chartered in 1833, has long since had its rail operations subsumed by CSX Transportation, but continues to operate in the real estate development business, controlling numerous properties along its former rail lines?
Núria station building seen from the platform of the Vall de Núria Rack Railway
...that Bucharest's Gara de Nordrailway station was heavily bombed by the Allies in 1944 in a campaign aimed at the German supply lines, as the station played an important part in the Romanian railway network and was the main departure point for troops headed to the Eastern Front?
Locomotive 141R568 at Lons-le-Saunier (Jura) station, on 1 August 1996
...that of the 1340 Class 141R2-8-2steam locomotives built for the SNCF (French National Railways) by American maunfacturers in the immediate postwar period, only 1323 actually entered service as 16 were lost at sea off Newfoundland when the ship transporting them sank in a violent storm, and a seventeenth was lost in the Marseilles harbour while unloading?
Strasburg Railroad #475, one of the non-Thomas the Tank Engine locomotive fleet
...that compensation to landowners whose properties were in the path of Ireland's first railway, the Dublin and Kingstown Railway, included for Lord Cloncurry the building of a private foot bridge over the line to a bathing area complete with a Romanesque temple, a short tunnel and a cutting to maintain his privacy?
Preserved Union Pacific Big Boy 4023 in Omaha, Nebraska, in 2001
... that although the Union Pacific Big Boy is often billed as being the largest steam locomotive ever built, in each of the categories of weight, length, horsepower and tractive effort a larger locomotive can be found?
Radio telescope antenna array along the former Cambridge-Bedford railway line
The Rhodes Colossus: Caricature of Cecil John Rhodes, proponent of the Cape Town to Cairo railway
...that obstacles to the completion of the Cape to Cairo Railway, a project to cross Africa by rail first proposed in the late 19th century, have included opposition to Britishcolonial expansion by other colonial powers, the use of three different rail gauges on completed sections, through to the current ongoing turmoil in Sudan?
Junction on Listowel and Ballybunion Railway
... that the Listowel and Ballybunion Railway (a Lartigue Monorail that operated in Ireland between 1888 and 1924) required each side of the carriage to be equally balanced and thus if a farmer wanted to send a cow to market, he would have to send two calves to balance it, with the calves then having to travel back on opposite sides of the same freight wagon, balancing each other?