Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
April 26, 2008 The Utah-based FrontRunner commuter rail service made its inaugural run. This line was opened by the Utah Transit Authority (UTA) to serve the metropolitan region known as the Wasatch Front, with red, white and blue FrontRunner trains operating in the north-central part of the state from the vicinity of Ogden to Provo... Continue Reading →
Photo Credit: Library of Congress April 25, 1859 The first streetcars in Chicago made their debut. These horse-drawn vehicles began their service on a single rail track on State Street between Randolph and 12th Streets. Chicago’s inaugural streetcars – also known as horsecars – measured 12 feet (3.7 meters) in length and traveled three miles... Continue Reading →
April 24, 1834 The Long-Island Rail-Road (LIRR) Company was chartered by the New York State legislature. The genesis of that transportation enterprise can be traced to two years earlier when the Brooklyn & Jamaica (B&J) Rail Road was incorporated to build a 10-mile (16.1-kilometer)-long route from the East River in Brooklyn to the neighborhood of Jamaica. Civil... Continue Reading →
April 22, 1904 The Visalia Electric Railroad (VERR) Company was incorporated under the laws of California to provide transit service within the central region of the Golden State. Paul Shoup was president of the fledgling enterprise, while H.A. Culloden was named its secretary. A wholly owned subsidiary of the Southern Pacific Railroad, VERR was a... Continue Reading →
April 1, 1909 Automobile coachbuilder Fleetwood Metal Body was formally launched in Fleetwood, Pennsylvania, with Harry C. Urich serving as the new company’s president and general manager. Fleetwood Metal Body soon established itself as a leading high-quality producer of aluminum and wood automotive chassis. By 1920, the company was regularly exhibiting its creations at prestigious automobile... Continue Reading →
March 28, 1918 A milestone in the short but eventful U.S. Navy service of the vessel USS Aphrodite took place when she was assigned to convoy escort duty with a higher-than-average risk along the French coast during World War I. Aphrodite had made her debut a couple of decades earlier in decidedly more luxurious circumstances.... Continue Reading →
March 26, 1863 Truck industrialist George Albert Brockway was born in the village of Homer, New York. He was the son of William Northrup Brockway, who manufactured horse-drawn carriages and wagons. After William was stricken with a debilitating illness in 1888 that brought about his death the following year, George stepped in as the company’s business manager.... Continue Reading →
March 21, 1869 Albert Kahn, who helped create a number of key transportation-oriented facilities and is widely regarded as the “father of modern factory design,” was born in Rhaunen in the Kingdom of Prussia (now Germany). When Kahn was 11, he and his family immigrated to the United States and settled in Detroit. Kahn worked at... Continue Reading →
March 19, 1902 Joshua James, a renowned sea captain credited with saving numerous lives from shipwrecks along the coast of Massachusetts, died at the age of 75. James served as keeper of the U.S. Life-Saving Service’s Point Allerton Station near the town of Hull (located at the southern land point of the entrance to Boston... Continue Reading →
March 12, 1941 The car ferry S.S. City of Midland 41 made her maiden voyage along Lake Michigan between Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and Ludington, Michigan. (The ferry’s namesake was the city of Midland in central Michigan.) The all-steel vessel, which had been launched the previous September, was constructed by the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company for the Pere Marquette Railway’s... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 