ANSWERS TO RAILWAY QUIZ
d. By running standing-only (seat-free) carriages
8 The London Underground opened in 1863, followed by the Paris Métro in 1900. From the beginning to the middle of the 19th century the ‘Underground Railroad’ in the US had already transported tens of thousands of people. Who travelled on it?
a. The residents of New York
b. Runaway slaves on their way north
c. Coal miners in Kentucky
d. Skiers in the Denver Alps
9 The first money George Mortimer Pullman made was moving buildings. Although he died in 1895, his name is still a household word today, yet he is remembered for something completely different. What does posterity have to thank him for?
a. The onboard restaurant
b. The car train
c. The sleeping car
d. The driver’s compartment
10 The 1879 rail disaster on Scotland’s Firth of Tay was one of the worst railroad accidents of the 19th century. What happened in this disaster, which claimed the lives of 75 people and made international headlines?
a. A train was buried under a landslide
b. A storm brought down a bridge as a train was passing over it
c. A switch malfunction caused two trains to collide head-on
d. The brakes suddenly engaged causing the train to derail
11 Get on the train to Perth in Sydney and you know you’re about to set off on a worldrecord journey. What’s so special about this journey spanning more than 4300 kilometres across the Australian continent?
a. The train reaches record speeds of 495 km/h
b. The route runs along the longest straight track in the world
c. There are no stops on the way
d. The train has the largest number of carriages of any tourist passenger train
1 c. Elon Musk’s ‘Hyperloop’ proposes to use low pressure to transport passengers in a tube at speeds up to 1200 km/h. No one knows whether the system will ever be put into operation. To date, only a one-kilometre-long test track exists. Speeds of 463 km/h have been reached so far.
2 c. Stonemasons from Italy helped to build the bridges. Work on the line began on 31 May, 1891, and took more than a quarter of a century to complete.
3 b. Fans of the Harry Potter books know that the ‘Hogwarts Express’ departs from platform 9¾ and that the wizardry students and their families get to it through a stone pillar. The Jacobite Steam Train, which runs from Fort William over the famous Glenfinnan Viaduct to Mallaig in Scotland, played the role of the train in the film version of the books.
4 d. The construction of the first transcontinental railway led to more and more white settlers entering Native American territories. The railway companies also organised hunting parties where paying passengers shot herds of bison from the wagons for their hides. This deprived the Native Americans of an essential source of food.
5 c. After a series of rail crashes in 1867, many people came forward claiming they suffered long-lasting effects. Symptoms ranged from hearing loss to headaches to paralysis, and the mystery illness was called ‘railway spine’. However as doctors could find no physical injury, this was largely put down to hysteria. It is believed today it would be given the name PTSD – post-traumatic stress disorder.
6 a. From 1919, locomotives hauled heavy goods trains from Immensee in Switzerland at an altitude of 460 metres over gradients of up to 26 per cent to the Gotthard Tunnel at 1106 metres. They were called crocodiles because they were green and had long narrow ‘snouts’.
7 a. The stations employ staff who push as many passengers as they can into the carriages. During rush hour, the notorious Tozai Line carries twice as many passengers as originally intended. Since 2019, the train line has been offering free food vouchers to early commuters to try to ease congestion at rush hour.
8 b. The ‘Underground Railroad’ didn’t have any rails and was used by escaped slaves to find their way to freedom. Harriet Tubman, herself a freed slave, and her comrades-in-arms led the runaways from hiding place to hiding place over hundreds of kilometres.
9 c. George Pullman recognised the potential of train carriages with sleeping cars. He also built the first hotel on rails, and a high- class chain of hotels that still bears his name today, as do luxury stretch limousines from Mercedes.
10 b. At three kilometres long, at the time the Tay Bridge was the longest iron bridge in the world. But on December 28, 1879, gale-force winds caused 13 of its 85 piers to collapse. Unfortunately, the bridge’s architect, Thomas Bouch, had neglected to take wind loading into account in his calculations.
11 b. A section of track between Port Augusta and Kalgoorlie on the Trans-Australian Railway runs straight for 478 kilometres, a world record.