Despite being widely touted as the longest trains in the world, the up-to 2.5 kilometre-long freight trains which bring iron ore to Nouadhibou, Mauritania may not be particularly unique in their length.

On the day these images were captured, the longest train we can see at Nouadhibou (as measured with Google Earth’s measuring tool) is approximately 1.97km long.

In the past we’ve seen some other extremely long trains, like these 2.2 kilometre-plus coal trains in Wyoming, and over in Pennsylvania there’s a freight train which measures 2.98km from one end to the other – a whole kilometre longer than those in Mauritania.

However, all these trains could have been put to shame by the locomotives of Port Hedland, Western Australia – if only there had been any really long ones around when these images were taken.

Sadly, the longest I could find here was a distinctly average 2.2km, which falls far short of their longest ever, which purportedly consisted of 8 engines, 682 cars and totalled a staggering 7.3km – which quite probably would have made it the longest train of all time.

So, has anyone got a longer one to show us?

For more like this, see our posts on Incredibly Long Trains and Bailey Yard. Thanks to Helge Fahrnberger, Romke Soldaat and the Keyhole users.

Today is Groundhog Day, a North American festival which reckons that:

if a groundhog emerges from its burrow on this day and fails to see its shadow because the weather is cloudy, winter will soon end. If the groundhog sees its shadow because the weather is bright and clear, it will be frightened and run back into its hole, and the winter will continue for six more weeks.

So in celebration, we’re posting Woodstock, Illinois, the location where most of the scenes from the excellent Bill Murray comedy of the same name were filmed (although it was actually set in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania). And yes, in our thumbnail of the town square you can actually see “Gobbler’s Knob”…

For fans of the movie, the official Woodstock website has a PDF map which identifies all the locations used.

Thanks to Nev, Arthur and Pat.

Today is Groundhog Day, a North American festival which reckons that:

if a groundhog emerges from its burrow on this day and fails to see its shadow because the weather is cloudy, winter will soon end. If the groundhog sees its shadow because the weather is bright and clear, it will be frightened and run back into its hole, and the winter will continue for six more weeks.

So in celebration, we’re posting Woodstock, Illinois, the location where most of the scenes from the excellent Bill Murray comedy of the same name were filmed (although it was actually set in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania). And yes, in our thumbnail of the town square you can actually see “Gobbler’s Knob”…

For fans of the movie, the official Woodstock website has a PDF map which identifies all the locations used.

Thanks to Nev, Arthur and Pat.

Here’s the longest stone arch bridge in the world, the Rockville Bridge in Pennsylvania (Wikipedia page). It was opened in 1902 and (as you can clearly see on the linked Google map) carries heavy railroad traffic to this day.

There’s a great-old postcard of the bridge at Wikipedia which claims the record of “longest stone bridge”. However the Anping Bridge in China is also made of stone, and has been around much, much longer.

It seems that there truly is no end to the number of possible records to be broken.

Thanks to Jonathan Hoppe and RJ Marquette.

Not as popular here in the UK as it is in the US, we still know all about Hershey’s chocolate – we’ve even had S’mores! Damn they were good… I see you don’t even have to bother making them yourself anymore though.

However, we didn’t know that Hershey’s had a chocolate-themed amusment park! Actually, Hersheypark has some pretty cool-looking wooden coasters as well as around 60 other rides and attractions.

More about Hershey’s, Hersheypark and other chocolate-related stuff over at Wikipedia.

Thanks to GoatJuggler.