X-Nico

unusual facts about railroad



676th Bombardment Squadron

The squadron flew its first combat mission on 5 June 1944 against the Makasan railroad yards at Bangkok, Thailand.

Abilene Network

The name Abilene was chosen because of the project's resemblance, in ambition and scope, to the railhead in Abilene, Kansas, which in the 1860s represented the frontier of the United States for the nation's railroad infrastructure.

Alleghany Corporation

The company's residual railroad investments led to president and CEO John J. Burns serving on the board of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation from 1995 to 2004.

Ankara Vilayet

Weaving was a popular industry in the vilayet but declined after the introduction of the railroad, where locals would export wool and mohair instead of weaving it.

Antlers Frisco Depot and Antlers Spring

The railroad, which was built north to south through the mountains and virgin timberlands of the Choctaw Nation of the Indian Territory, brought civilization to the wilderness—three passenger trains operated daily in each direction, plus two freight trains, making for a total of ten trains per day.

Carpenter, Mississippi

A former railroad town located seven miles from Utica in the extreme northwestern corner of the county, Carpenter was named for Joseph Neibert Carpenter, president of the Natchez, Jackson and Columbia Railroad.

Catskill Mountain Railroad

On October 4, 2012, Ulster County Executive Michael P. Hein announced in his 2013 budget a plan to dismantle 32 miles of railroad in Ulster County to be replaced by a trail, leaving only the Phoenicia-Cold Brook segment, and ending Kingston operations.

Cedar Rapids and Missouri River Railroad

The city of Ames was chartered in 1864 for the railroad and was named by CR&M President John Blair for Massachusetts Congressman Oakes Ames.

Charles E. Kearney

He along with Kersey Coates and Robert T. Van Horn persuaded the railroad to build a cutoff of their line from Cameron, Missouri to Kansas City for the first bridge across the Missouri River which opened in 1869.

Clay Street Hill Railroad

In Herbie Rides Again, Mrs. Steimetz owns a cable car from the Clay Street Hill Railroad, which she calls "Old 22".

Colchester, Ontario

Colchester was also the birthplace and hometown of railroad engineer and inventor Elijah McCoy, whose 45 patents and the invention of the locomotive lubrication cup led to the slogan "The real McCoy", denoting quality.

Csanádpalota

Csanádpalota has railroad access via the Ujszeged-Mezőhegyes section of Lane 121 of the Hungarian State Railroad System (MÁV).

Cumberland Gap, Tennessee

In 1888, a work camp was established at Cumberland Gap by Scottish-born entrepreneur Alexander Arthur (1846–1912) to house workers needed to build a tunnel for the Knoxville, Cumberland Gap & Louisville Railroad.

Deer Creek Tunnel

The Deer Creek Tunnel is an incomplete and abandoned double-track railroad tunnel through the Walnut Hills in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States.

DGCX

railroad symbol for Dakota Gasification Company, a synthetic natural gas producing company in Beulah, North Dakota, United States

Divača

A tree of heaven plantation stands near the railroad station; it was used to cultivate eri silkworms in the 19th century.

Drums in the Deep South

To delay General Sherman's March to the Sea, a local guide can lead a party of men and their disassembled cannon inside caves that lead to the top of Devil's Mountain where a battery of guns can destroy the railroad and the Union troop and supply trains that travel it, buying time for the Confederacy.

Elbing, Kansas

The railroad wanted to call the town Regier but Mr. Regier suggested three other possibilities: Elbing, Danzig and Marienburg, all cities in Prussia where he had lived.

Florence, Colorado

Florence was built as small railroad depot for the trains that hauled coal from the neighboring towns of Rockvale and Coal Creek.

Florida State Road 710

In some places, the route is also known as Warfield Boulevard (named after S. Davies Warfield, the president of the Seaboard Air Line Railroad who originally built the adjacent railroad tracks).

Francis K. Shattuck

Shattuck was instrumental in getting the Central Pacific Railroad to construct a branch line into Berkeley in 1876 connecting the community and University of California with the main line and the railroad's ferry to San Francisco.

Freeway removal

In Toronto, Ontario, the easternmost portion of the Gardiner Expressway (between Don Road and Leslie Street) was demolished in 2000, replaced with an at-grade urban boulevard with stop lights and railroad crossings, and a bike trail.

Granger Laws

The laws, which upset major railroad companies, were a topic of much debate at the time and ended up leading to several important court cases, such as Munn v. Illinois and Wabash v. Illinois.

Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway

The plans to initiate construction were formulated by the railroad's first engineer, General Braxton Bragg, former commander of the Confederate Army of Tennessee.

Hepburn Act

Along with the Elkins Act of 1903, the Hepburn Act, named for its sponsor, eleven-term Republican William Peters Hepburn, was a subset of one of President Theodore Roosevelt's major goals: railroad regulation.

History of Maine

The Portland Company built early railway locomotives and the Portland Terminal Company handled joint switching operations for the Maine Central Railroad and Boston and Maine Railroad.

Idle Hour, Lexington

Its boundaries are Idle Hour Country Club to the north, CSX railroad tracks to the east, New Circle Road to the south, and Richmond Road to the west.

J. G. M. Ramsey

As early as 1825, Ramsey had proposed connecting Knoxville with the Atlantic Coast via railroad, which would have given the region's farmers better access to markets in Charleston.

John S. Marmaduke

Undeterred, Marmaduke campaigned four years later for Governor of Missouri at a time when public opinion had changed, and railroad reform and regulation became more in vogue.

Lackawanna Old Road

The storm also washed out the Pennsylvania Railroad's Bel-Del Railroad north of Belvidere, New Jersey, leading the railroad to remove the section north to the junction of the Old Road at Manunka Chunk and end PRR service from Trenton, New Jersey, to East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania.

Lake Point, Utah

The US Army sent Captain Howard Stansbury to the area in 1849 to evaluate emigration trails and scout for possible passages for a transcontinental railroad.

Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky

Based on the scientific research by U.S. management expert Frederick Winslow Taylor and her own research, Lihotzky used a railroad dining car kitchen as her model to design a "housewife's laboratory" using a minimum of space but offering a maximum of comfort and equipment to the working mother.

Merriam Theater

Lee and J.J. Shubert, theatrical producers and a founding members of the Theatrical Syndicate set out to build a theater memorializing their brother, Sam, who had died several years earlier in a railroad accident.

Milbank, South Dakota

The city was founded in 1880 when the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway first laid rails into South Dakota, and was named in honor of railroad director Jeremiah Milbank.

Mopac

The Mopac Expressway, State Highway Loop 1 in Austin, Texas, named after the Missouri Pacific railroad whose tracks bisect the expressway.

Moscow-Riga Railroad Bridge

Moscow-Riga Railroad Bridge is a concrete arch bridge that spans Moscow Canal between Tushino

New York State Route 204

NY 204 gradually returns to its prior elevation east of the railroad and connects to Airport Way, the primary access road to the Greater Rochester International Airport, by way of an interchange.

Norristown Transportation Center

It opened in 1989 to replace the older Norristown High Speed Line (Route 100) terminus one block away at Main and Swede Streets, and integrated the former Reading Company DeKalb Street Norristown railroad station (built 1933) into its structure.

North Coast Railroad

North Pacific Coast Railroad, predecessor of the Northwestern Pacific Railroad in California

North Western Refrigerator Line

Between 1924 and 1940 the company acquired more than 3,000 used wood refrigerator cars originally built by the American Car and Foundry Company, and leased the former Ringling Brothers Circus railroad car plant in Baraboo, Wisconsin to serve as a car shop.

Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad

Just after crossing the river, it traveled up the Belmont Plane, an inclined plane in the current location of West Fairmount Park, and continued west across the eastern part of the state to Columbia, where the Columbia Plane headed down to the Susquehanna River.

Samuel Orace Dunn

He learned the printing trade after graduating from high school, was editor of the Quitman, (Mo.) Record (1895–96) and associate editor of the Maryville, (Mo.) Tribune (1896–1900); from 1900 to 1904 was a reporter, and later editorial writer, on the Kansas City Journal, and in 1904-07 was connected with the Chicago Tribune as railroad editor and editorial writer.

Shelby Iron Company Railroad

The Shelby Iron Company Railroad was built to connect the Shelby Iron Company in Shelby, Alabama, to the Alabama and Tennessee River Railroad at Columbiana, Alabama, a distance of about five miles.

Simon H. Rifkind

He was appointed by the United States Supreme Court to sort out the rival claims of various western states to the Colorado River, was tapped by President John F. Kennedy to investigate railroad labor issues, and helped create (and later served as General Counsel of) the Mutual Assistance Corporation for New York City during New York's bankruptcy crisis in the 1970s.

Stephen and Harriet Myers House

Local historian Paul Stewart and his wife, Mary Liz, after researching Myers and his work, formed the Underground Railroad History Project of the Capital Region, hosting an annual conference on slavery with speakers from around the world starting in 2001.

Tennessee Railroad

In 1991, American country music band The Desert Rose Band filmed part of their music video for the single "You Can Go Home" at the Tennessee Railroad Museum.

Thomas Hogg

Thomas Hogg (MR&LE) (1808–1881), English-born chief mechanical engineer for the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad, the first railroad in Ohio

Tonawanda Island Railroad

The railroad ceased to operate after the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) imposed an emergency order to prevent operation over a swing bridge that was found to be structurally deficient.

Walhonding Canal

An article in The New York Times reported that as of September 3, 1893, the railroad had been occupying the state's canal property for more than a year and it had been six months without an action on the part of Attorney General Richards or the Republican-controlled Board of Public Works.


see also