Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
The first line of a new rapid transit system in Spain’s capital city of Madrid was opened to the general public. The opening took place just two weeks after Spain’s King Alfonso XIII officially inaugurated this initial segment of the Madrid Metro. At the time of its debut, Line 1 of the Madrid Metro encompassed... Continue Reading →
The Lamington Bridge was officially opened to traffic in the British crown colony (and present-day Australian state) of Queensland. The bridge, which is located in Queensland’s Fraser Coast Region, crosses the Mary River between Gympie Road in the town of Tinana and Ferry Street in the port city of Maryborough. The Lamington Bridge was named... Continue Reading →
ICGV Thor (Þór), a new patrol vessel built for the Icelandic Coast Guard (ICG), arrived in Iceland’s capital city of Reykjavík two-and-a-half years after being launched at the ASMAR Naval Shipyard in Talcahuano, Chile. The ship was named after the Norse god Thor. The origins of ICGV Thor can be traced to a proposal drafted... Continue Reading →
In southern India, a grade separator (better known in the United States as an interchange) was fully opened at a major highway junction in the city of Chennai in the state of Tamil Nadu. This cloverleaf grade separator is called Kathipara Junction, and it was formally inaugurated by Tamil Nadu’s chief minister Muthuvel Karunanidhi. Kathipara... Continue Reading →
Jens Theodor Paludan Vogt, a civil engineer, and public transportation pioneer died at the age of 62 in Norway’s capital city of Kristiania. (In 1924, the city formally readopted its original name of Oslo.) Vogt had been born in 1830 in the Norwegian parish of Fiskum. To say that Jens Vogt came from a highly... Continue Reading →
Carlo Abarth, whose accomplishments spanned various modes of surface transportation, died in Vienna, Austria, just a few weeks before his 71st birthday. He had been born Karl Albert Abarth in 1908 in Vienna, which at that time was the main capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. When Abarth later became a naturalized Italian citizen, his first... Continue Reading →
In Siam (now known as Thailand), the Chaloem Sawan 58 Bridge made its formal debut in the capital city of Bangkok. The bridge, crossing the northern end of a manmade moat called Khlong Khu Mueang Doem in Bangkok’s present-day Phra Nakhon District, was opened by King Vajiravudh (Rama VI) on the second anniversary of the... Continue Reading →
The initial segment of a railway in present-day Italy was opened between the cities of Turin and Novara. At the time, this region was part of the Kingdom of Sardinia. This railway was built by renowned English civil engineering contractor Thomas Brassey, who carried out the project on behalf of the Società Vittorio Emanuele (Victor... Continue Reading →
The cargo ship ARA Canal Beagle was launched in Buenos Aires. She was named after the Beagle Channel, a strait in Tierra del Fuego (an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland). Canal Beagle was the first of three Costa Sur-class cargo ships built for the Argentine Navy to replace increasingly obsolete... Continue Reading →
In southeastern Norway, a new railway line connecting the village of Eidsfoss with the municipality of Tønsberg was dedicated. Jørgen Løvland, who was the minister of labor at the time and would briefly serve as prime minister of Norway later in the decade, officially opened the Tønsberg-Eidsfoss Line (Tønsberg-Eidsfossbanen, or TEB). At the time of... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 