Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
August 20, 1908 A first-of-a-kind automobile journey in Australia came to a successful end when a trio traveling in a Talbot car arrived in the city of Darwin in the Northern Territory. The three men completing this long-distance trip, which that had begun in the city of Adelaide in South Australia, were Henry Hampden Dutton... Continue Reading →
June 23, 2005 HMAS Cessnock (FCPB 210), a Royal Australian Navy (RAN) Fremantle-class patrol boat, was decommissioned following more than two decades of service. This vessel was named after the city of Cessnock in the Hunter Region of the Australian state of New South Wales. She was the second RAN vessel to bear the name... Continue Reading →
September 28, 1899 The first electric trams to operate in Perth, the capital city of what was then the British colony of Western Australia, made their official debut. (A little over a year later, Western Australia became a state as part of the newly formed Commonwealth of Australia.) The new transit system – owned and... Continue Reading →
March 19, 1932 Australia’s Sydney Harbour Bridge, which carries traffic between that New South Wales (NSW) city’s central business district and North Shore area, was officially opened in ceremonies attended by hundreds of thousands of people. The lavish festivities on that Saturday for the steel through-type arch bridge included decorated floats in a nearby parade in... Continue Reading →
February 25, 1985 In Australia, a major milestone for Kendell Airlines took place when that record-setting regional airline in Australia, added the twin-engine turboprop aircraft Saab 340 to its fleet. These 34-seat civilian planes, which had made their public debut only two years earlier, were built by the Swedish aerospace and defense company Saab AB... Continue Reading →
February 4, 1961 William George Toop Goodman, who made significant contributions to public transit in both Australia and New Zealand, died in the city of College Park in the state of South Australia (SA) at the age of 88. Goodman had been born in southeastern England in 1872. After studying at educational institutions such as... Continue Reading →
January 28, 1930 The prototype chassis for a pioneering American bus arrived in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW). The Model 54A bus had been constructed and inaugurated in the United States by the Ohio-based White Motor Company the previous year. This six-cylinder bus was designed to accommodate anywhere from 29 to 38... Continue Reading →
December 16, 1895 In Australia, the second race of the now-famous one-day road bicycle classic between Melbourne and Warrnambool in the British colony of Victoria took place. (Victoria became one of the states of the newly formed Commonwealth of Australia in 1901.) The first of those bicycle races had occurred just a little over 10 weeks... Continue Reading →
November 26, 2017 In the Australian state of Victoria, a new railway station was officially opened on Bay Road in the Melbourne suburb of Cheltenham. Southland railway station, which is part of the Frankston railway line (a commuter rail passenger train service in the Melbourne area), made its debut more than 130 years after building... Continue Reading →
November 20, 1897 Aviation pioneer Maude Rose “Lores” Bonney was born in the city of Pretoria in the present-day Republic of South Africa. (At the time of Bonney’s birth, the region where Pretoria is located was part of an independent and internationally recognized state known as the Transvaal Republic.) At an early age, Bonney –... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 