Train Facts for Kids

Imagine zooming along at 460 kilometers per hour (about 286 mph)! That’s faster than most airplanes take off!

This isn't magic; it’s magnetic levitation, or 'Maglev.' Powerful magnets lift the train up about 4 inches off the special track, meaning zero friction slowing it down.

It’s so fast that on its short route in China, it covers about 30 km in only seven and a half minutes—a true speed champion for kids to learn about!

Forget a normal long freight train—the actual world record holder was a monster! In 2001, a BHP Iron Ore train in Western Australia stretched an unbelievable 7.352 kilometers (4.57 miles) long.

To pull this massive load, they needed eight powerful diesel-electric locomotives, all controlled by one driver!

This train was so heavy—a total gross weight of 99,734 metric tons—it was like moving 402 Statues of Liberty all at once! That’s heavy-duty hauling for kids to picture!

The mighty Union Pacific 'Big Boy' steam locomotive, built in the 1940s, weighed 386.125 tons without its tender (the car carrying fuel and water).

That's heavier than 25 fully grown Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaurs if they were real and stood side-by-side!

To make a comparison for kids: that's more than 175 large family cars all sitting on the engine alone! It took 25 of these giants to be built.

Before the great Transcontinental Railroad, crossing the United States from the East Coast to the West Coast took about six months by wagon or ship—phew!

When the tracks finally connected at Promontory Summit, Utah, on May 10, 1869, that journey instantly shrank to just 7 days!

The entire hand-built track spanned an amazing 1,912 miles (about 3,075 km), linking the nation like never before for kids and families heading west.

Check this out: the Chenab Rail Bridge in India is the highest rail bridge in the world, soaring 359 meters (1,178 feet) above the riverbed!

The Eiffel Tower in Paris is only about 330 meters tall, so this train bridge towers over the famous landmark!

It was completed in 2025 and uses a huge steel arch design to safely carry trains across the gorge.

You probably picture massive passenger trains, but for some routes with fewer people, trains can be super short—sometimes just a single car!

This helps systems save energy when running during off-peak hours or on smaller branch lines.

Platform lengths at stations are a major reason for limiting train size, even if the engine could pull more cars.

Get ready to feel old! The Middleton Railway in Leeds, England, was established way back in 1758 to haul coal from the colliery.

That means it’s been operating for 268 years—that's nearly three centuries of service!

It started as a 'wagonway' using horse-drawn carts, but in 1812, it became the first railway to commercially use steam locomotives!

The world record for a conventional wheeled train, set by the French TGV in 2007, was a blazing 574.8 km/h (357.2 mph)!

This jaw-dropping speed was achieved on a special test run on the LGV Est line, showing how powerful modern electric trains can be.

If a running elephant runs about 25 mph, this TGV was moving about 14 times faster than that!

When the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads met on May 10, 1869, they celebrated by driving a ceremonial spike.

This famous 'Golden Spike' was made of 17.6-karat gold alloyed with copper and was tapped symbolically by Stanford.

The real spike was immediately swapped out for a regular iron one, and this treasure is now safely kept at Stanford University!

If you look at a freight car from the 1940s/50s, it could carry about 74 tons. A typical train had about 60 cars—totaling 4,440 tons!

Today's modern cars can carry about 125.5 tons each, and engineers run trains with 100 cars or more!

This means a modern giant can haul an incredible 12,500 tons of goods—that's over 181% more carrying power than the older trains for kids to track!