60 Fun Facts About Railroad

Which Cornish engineer built the locomotive for the world's first railway train, at Penydarren in 1804?

He was also the pioneer of high-pressure steam; his son said he first made it work in England in 1799.

Which 1825 English railway was the world's first public railway to use steam locomotives?

Passengers rode in horse-drawn coaches until steam-hauled carriages arrived in 1833; the bicentenary was celebrated in 2025.

Stephenson's Rocket won which 1829 competition to pick locomotives for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway?

Ten engines were entered, five could compete, and the £500 prize even attracted a horse-powered entry called Cycloped.

The Liverpool and Manchester, the world's first inter-city railway, opened in which year?

It was also the first to run entirely on steam, the first fully double-tracked, the first timetabled, and the first to carry mail.

What is the width of standard-gauge track, used by about 60 percent of the world's railways?

It is also called Stephenson gauge; Russia uses 1,520 mm and India's broad gauge is 1,676 mm.

Where was the ceremonial last spike of America's first transcontinental railroad driven on May 10, 1869?

Central Pacific president Leland Stanford tapped it with a silver hammer, and the single word 'done' went out by telegraph.

Which two companies built the first US transcontinental railroad toward each other?

Central Pacific laid 690 miles east from Sacramento; Union Pacific laid 1,085 miles west from Omaha.

Which US president signed the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 that authorised the transcontinental line?

Years earlier, as a lawyer, he had been hired by Union Pacific's Thomas Durant in a case about a Missouri River bridge.

Which immigrant workforce did the Central Pacific favour for the brutal Sierra Nevada work?

Most were paid $31 a month with lodging, and the company even set up recruiting in Canton.

Where is the original golden spike from 1869 kept today?

It was pulled out immediately after the ceremony so nobody could steal it, and it is 17.6-karat gold weighing about 14 troy ounces.

Which 9,289 km line from Moscow to Vladivostok is the longest in the world?

It crosses a record eight time zones and the through journey takes about eight days.

How many time zones does the Moscow–Vladivostok line cross?

Construction was supervised by ministers appointed by Alexander III and Nicholas II between 1891 and 1916.

The Orient Express began service in 1883 between Paris and, eventually, which eastern terminus?

The Belgian Wagons-Lits company ran it; the timetabled service was cut back over decades and vanished entirely in December 2009.

Under what title was Agatha Christie's 1934 Orient Express mystery first published in the United States?

The novel came out in Britain on New Year's Day 1934 with the Belgian detective stuck in a snowdrift.

What did George Pullman invent after a miserable night trying to sleep in a train seat?

The first Pullman coach was built in Bloomington, Illinois, in 1859; after his death Abraham Lincoln's son Robert became company president.

The Pullman Strike, one of the most consequential in US labour history, took place in which year?

Workers lived in the company town of Pullman, Chicago; the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters later became a powerful African-American union.

Japan's first Shinkansen line opened in 1964 just before which event?

The Tōkaidō line linked Tokyo and Osaka; the network now runs at up to 320 km/h.

What speed did Japan's experimental L0 Series maglev reach in 2015, the fastest any train has ever gone?

It ran on the Yamanashi test line; commercial maglev service at 505 km/h is planned for the Chūō Shinkansen to Nagoya.

The 574.8 km/h wheeled-train world record was set in 2007 by a modified version of which train?

The special trainset, Project V150, weighed only 265 tonnes; the TGV has never had a passenger fatality in normal high-speed service.

The world's first commercial maglev opened in 1984 as a short airport shuttle in which city?

It ran 600 metres between the airport and the railway station at up to 42 km/h.

The Shanghai maglev, once the fastest passenger service at 431 km/h, uses technology from which country?

It runs from Pudong airport to the outskirts of central Pudong on German Transrapid technology.

Which steam locomotive set the still-unbeaten steam speed record of 126 mph in 1938?

Nigel Gresley named his streamlined A4 class after birds because he bred them.

Which famous locomotive became the first officially authenticated to reach 100 mph, in 1934?

It also holds the record for the longest non-stop steam run, 422 miles, set on a tour of Australia in 1989.

Union Pacific's Big Boy locomotives were designed to haul freight over which mountains?

Big Boy 4014 was restored in 2019 for the transcontinental railroad's 150th anniversary and is the largest operating steam locomotive in the world.

Amtrak was created in which year to take over most US intercity passenger trains?

Richard Nixon signed the Rail Passenger Service Act over the objections of most of his advisors; many expected it to be a 'last hurrah'.

Amtrak's Acela, the fastest train in the Americas, reaches 160 mph on which route?

It only hits that speed on about 40 miles of the 457-mile Washington-to-Boston run.

Which line opened in London on 10 January 1863 as the world's first underground passenger line?

It survives inside the Circle, District, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines; the Tube now has 272 stations.

Who designed the schematic London Tube map in 1931, later voted a national design icon?

Edward Johnston had created the Underground's typeface in 1916.

Which British rail company first standardised its timetable on Greenwich Mean Time, in 1840?

Before 'railway time' every town kept its own local time, which made timetables a nightmare.

North American railroads introduced standard time zones on 18 November 1883, a date nicknamed what?

Station clocks were reset as standard noon reached each zone; some junctions had previously kept a clock for every railroad.

The Channel Tunnel, opened in 1994, links Folkestone in England with which French town?

Its 37.9 km undersea section is the longest of any tunnel in the world.

Which Swiss bore, opened in 2016 at 57 km, is the world's longest rail tunnel?

It is also the deepest traffic tunnel and gives the first flat, low-level route through the Alps.

Which line holds the record for the highest point on any railroad, the Tanggula Pass at 5,072 m?

More than 960 km of the line sits above 4,000 m, and Tanggula station is the world's highest.

India's first passenger train ran in 1853 between Bombay and which town?

Three locomotives, Sahib, Sindh and Sultan, hauled 14 carriages and 400 passengers over 34 km.

The world's longest straight stretch of railway, across the Nullarbor Plain, is in which country?

The Indian Pacific crosses it on its weekly Sydney-to-Perth run.

The Ghan, running from Adelaide to Darwin, takes its name from which group?

The nickname was originally 'The Afghan Express'; the trip covers 2,979 km in about 53 hours.

Which Swiss train between Zermatt and St. Moritz is nicknamed 'the slowest fast train in the world'?

It takes about eight hours to cover 291 km, or as the marketing puts it, from Matterhorn to Piz Bernina.

Which New York station has 44 platforms, more than any other railway station in the world?

Opened in 1913, it covers 48 acres and its concourse clock and painted constellation ceiling are icons.

The cowcatcher on American locomotives was first proposed in 1830 by which computing pioneer?

He was working for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway at the time.

Railroad engineer Casey Jones died in 1900 at Vaughan, Mississippi, driving for which railroad?

He was the only person killed in the collision, and legend has his hands still on the whistle cord and brake.

The Great Train Robbery of 1963 stopped a Royal Mail train travelling from which city to London?

The gang, including Ronnie Biggs, took about £2.6 million at Bridego Bridge in Buckinghamshire.

The first peacetime train robbery in the United States took place in 1866 in which state?

Jesse James is often wrongly credited with the first western train robbery for his 1873 Adair, Iowa, heist.

The Great Locomotive Chase of 1862 saw Union raiders steal a Confederate train named what?

Disney filmed the story in 1956; Buster Keaton had already made it into a silent comedy.

Glenn Miller's 'Chattanooga Choo Choo' from 1941 was the first recording to receive what?

RCA Victor presented it in 1942 after the song, from the film Sun Valley Serenade, sold over a million copies.

Thomas the Tank Engine works on the North Western Railway on which fictional island?

Wilbert Awdry based Thomas on a wooden toy made for his son; its NW letters stood for 'No Where'.

Which actor played multiple roles in Robert Zemeckis's motion-capture film The Polar Express (2004)?

It was based on Chris Van Allsburg's 1985 picture book about a boy's Christmas Eve trip to the North Pole.

The 'toy train' Darjeeling Himalayan Railway in India runs on track of what gauge?

UNESCO made it a World Heritage Site in 1999; Ghum, at 2,260 m, is India's highest station.

The Semmering line in Austria, completed in 1854, is generally called the world's first true what?

Some 20,000 workers built it under Carl von Ghega, and it was the first standard-gauge line through mountains in Europe.

Which country has the world's longest high-speed rail network, at more than 50,000 km?

Its total network of over 159,000 km is the second longest in the world.

How many of the world's 50 busiest railway stations are in Japan?

Tokyo's Shinjuku is generally counted as the busiest of all.

Which is the only privately owned and operated intercity passenger railroad in the United States?

It runs between Miami and Orlando on track shared with the Florida East Coast Railway.

A caboose was traditionally coupled where on a North American freight train?

It sheltered the conductor and flagman, who watched for shifting loads and overheating axles.

What was Locomotion No. 1, built by the Stephensons in 1825, the first steam locomotive to do?

It was originally named Active and worked the Stockton and Darlington Railway.

Who was killed at the 1830 opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the first widely reported rail fatality?

The MP was struck by Rocket after stepping into the narrow gap between the two tracks.

Eurostar began running from London to Paris and Brussels in November 1994 from which London station?

The Waterloo-to-Paris trip took 2 hours 55 minutes at first; the service has since carried more than 400 million passengers.

Rudolf Diesel patented his compression-ignition engine in which year?

By 1925 a handful of 600 hp diesel locomotives were running in the United States.

The Panama line, the first rails to link the Atlantic and Pacific, opened in which year?

Its first full-length revenue train ran on 28 January 1855, well before the canal.

The through train from Moscow to Vladivostok takes about how many days?

Only Moscow–Pyongyang and the former Kyiv–Vladivostok services were longer, and both use much of the same track.

The Diolkos, a grooved stone trackway from around 600 BC, carried boats across which isthmus?

Wheeled vehicles hauled by men and animals ran in grooves cut into the limestone along the 6-to-8.5-kilometre route.

Matthew Murray's Salamanca of 1812, the first commercially successful steam locomotive, solved adhesion how?

Built for the Middleton Railway in Leeds, the twin-cylinder engine was too light to break the edge rails, so it gripped a rack instead.