Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
July 31, 1962 A steel beam bridge in Washington, D.C., was officially opened. This bridge was built to carry the 12th Street Expressway over the Washington Channel, a body of water that parallels the Potomac River. Originally known as the Washington Channel Bridge, this structure was inaugurated with considerable fanfare. These festivities, which included a... Continue Reading →
July 30, 2018 In central Florida, daily operations began for a recently completed segment of a commuter rail system in the Orlando metropolitan area. This 17-mile (27.4-kilometer) extension of SunRail encompassed the following four new stations for the second oldest commuter rail system in the Sunshine State: Meadow Woods Station in Orange County; and Tupperware,... Continue Reading →
July 29, 1900 An inaugural ceremony was held for the White Pass and Yukon Route (WP&YR), a narrow-gauge railroad linking the port of Skagway in what was then the U.S. territory of Alaska with the community of White Horse (later officially changed to Whitehorse and incorporated as a city) in the Canadian territory of Yukon. ... Continue Reading →
July 28, 1835 A major milestone for the Boston and Providence Railroad (BPRR) took place with the completion of Canton Viaduct on that line. This viaduct in the town of Canton, which is approximately 15 miles (24 kilometers) southwest of downtown Boston. Canton Viaduct was designed by William Gibbs McNeill (1800-1853), a captain in the... Continue Reading →
July 25, 2013 Operations began for Kualanamu International Airport in Indonesia’s province of North Sumatra. This airport is located in Deli Serdang Regency, which is about 14 miles (23 kilometers) east of North Sumatra’s capital city of Medan. A little over eight months after the “soft opening” of Kualanamu International Airport, a formal inauguration of... Continue Reading →
July 24, 2010 In the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW), a large-scale facility for the maintenance of trains made its debut in the Western Sydney suburb of Auburn. The Auburn Maintenance Centre (AMC) was officially opened by John Robertson (born in 1962), who had become NSW minister for transport on May 21 of... Continue Reading →
July 23, 1917 The U.S. Navy, as part of its efforts to acquire enough vessels for military service during World War I, purchased the express cruiser Ameera from machine manufacturer Alexander Sellers (1875-1957) for $31,000. This vessel was constructed earlier that year for Sellers by the Mathis Yacht Building Company in Camden, New Jersey. (Sellers,... Continue Reading →
July 22, 1904 In east-central California, a hiking trail that climbs up the 14,505-foot (4,421-meter)-tall Mount Whitney – the highest point in the contiguous United States – was officially ready for public use. That day’s edition of the Inyo Independente included updates on the trail from Gustave Francis “Gus” Marsh (1869-1946), the local engineer overseeing... Continue Reading →
July 21, 2000 Operations began for a transport hub in the market town of Eccles in northwestern England’s ceremonial county of Greater Manchester. (That market town, which is four miles [6.4 kilometers] west of the major city and metropolitan borough of Manchester, is best known as the namesake of a popular pie called the Eccles... Continue Reading →
July 18, 1964 USNS Thomas G. Thompson (T-AGOR-9), a U.S. Navy oceanographic research vessel, was launched at 10:50 a.m. into Menominee River at the Marinette Marine Corporation shipyard in the city of Marinette, Wisconsin. (The prefix USNS stands for “United States Naval Ship” and is used to identify non-commissioned vessels that belong to the Navy.)... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 