• the Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad's plan to expand into Wyoming's Powder River Basin would be the largest new railroad construction in the United States since the American Civil War?
• the Swedish narrow-gauge railroad Upsala-Lenna Jernväg includes the biggest remaining steam locomotive (pictured) built for 891 mm rail gauge?
• the Simpson Railroad is one of the last operational logging railroads in the continental United States?
• the Old Loggers Path, a loop hiking trail in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, uses old logging railroad grades and roads, and its trailhead is a lumber ghost town?
• the Paw Paw Railroad was the shortest common carrier railroad in Michigan?
• when he was promoted to president of the Great Northern Railway in 1919, Ralph Budd was the youngest American railroad president up to that date?
• the first (pictured) of four bridges on the current Taipei Bridge location was designed for rail traffic, but the railway was removed after only ten years?
• the first railroad steam locomotive built by Rogers Locomotive and Machine Works was also the first locomotive to operate in the U.S. state of Ohio?
• the 1954 syndicated TV series Stories of the Century, starring Jim Davis as a railroad detective, was the first western to win an Emmy?
• six World War I German Type UB II U-boats—UB-42, UB-43, UB-44, UB-45, UB-46, and UB-47—were built in Bremen but cut apart and shipped by rail for reassembly at the Austro-Hungarian port of Pola?
• although Pope Gregory XVI condemned railroads as "the road to hell," Vatican City includes the world's shortest national railway system?
• Eli H. Janney whittled the prototypes for his railroad coupler design out of wood in 1873?
• Alonzo C. Mather was awarded a medal in 1883 by the American Humane Society for the humane treatment of the livestock transported in railroad stock cars he designed?
• although Gridley Bryant invented many of the basic railroad technologies in the early 1820s, including tracks and wheels, he never patented them?
• an owner of the DeForest Skinner House was once the youngest railroad director in the United States?
• in 1901, after the death of John Flint Kidder, president of the Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad, his widow took over, becoming the first female railroad president?
• before building his first railroad steam locomotive, in 1832, Matthias W. Baldwin was apprenticed as a jeweler and devised and patented a method for applying gold plating?
• before becoming mayor of Erie, Pennsylvania in 1862, Prescott Metcalf started two railroads, numerous manufacturing firms, and was the director of a canal?
• Pennsylvania's Kinzua Bridge (remnants pictured) was the world's longest and tallest railroad bridge when built in 1882, became a state park in 1970, and was knocked down by a tornado in 2003?

Facts on topics related to Railroad

Rail tracks

• in 2002 the Western New York and Pennsylvania Railroad bought 41½ miles (66.8 km) of track between Meadville and Corry, Pennsylvania for $1?
• on average, laying the track leading up to the final spike of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway cost $112,000 a mile?
• the Chemin de Fer de la Baie de Somme (pictured) is a preserved railway in France that has dual gauge track with four rails?

Locomotive

• Fr. John Willms once stood in the way of a locomotive in order to allow his congregation to hear a sermon in silence?
• Sans Pareil (pictured), one of five locomotives to compete in the 1829 Rainhill Trials, was later used on the Bolton and Leigh Railway?
• in 1883, Southern Pacific Railroad tried to block the California Southern Railroad from installing a level junction across their tracks in Colton, California, by moving a locomotive slowly back and forth at the intersection point?
• the Norwegian manufacturing company Thune, started in 1815 as a blacksmith's workshop, later expanded to build agricultural machinery, turbines and locomotives?
• the Munich Soviet declared war on Switzerland, for their refusal to lend sixty locomotives?
• the Wrawby Junction rail crash involved a locomotive supposedly renumbered after a psychic predicted a locomotive with the original number would be involved in a crash?
• the Fairy Queen is the longest-operating steam locomotive in the world?
• the gardens of St George's Square, Pimlico, London, contain a statue of William Huskisson MP, the first person ever to be run over and killed by a railway engine?
• when the John Bull ran under its own power in 1981 it became the oldest operable steam locomotive in the world?