Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
June 25, 1916 A major railway station was opened in Bangkok, the capital of the Southeast Asian country known at the time as Siam. (The name of this country was officially changed to Thailand in 1939.) Bangkok Railway Station, which is located in the Pathum Wan District in the center of the city, has also... Continue Reading →
May 21, 1914 With 1914 nearly halfway over, 28-year-old Swedish immigrant Eric Wickman was dealing with more than his usual share of challenges. He had arrived in the United States in 1905, and found work as a drill operator in iron ore mines in the northeastern city of Hibbing, Minnesota. In 1914, however, Wickman was laid... Continue Reading →
April 6, 1983 Automotive designer Wellington Everett Miller died in Los Angeles at the age of 79. He developed a strong interest in the design of automobiles while attending an annual car show in Los Angeles in 1920, and subsequently took courses in mathematics and mechanical drawing to prepare for a career in that field. In... Continue Reading →
January 19, 1881 School bus pioneer Franklin A. “Patch” Patchett was born in San Miguel in San Luis Obispo County, California. In 1911, he went into business with his two of his brothers and a brother-in-law to run a Ford Motor Company distributorship for the western half of California’s Stanislaus County. A milestone for their... Continue Reading →
January 8, 1954 The Southern Pacific Railroad’s Sunset Limited became the first train to use the newly opened New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal (NOUPT). This train, which had begun its journey on the west coast, arrived at NOUPT at 4:35 p.m. At 5:00 p.m., the Illinois Central Railroad’s Panama Limited became the first train to... Continue Reading →
December 17, 2006 The Eleanor Schonell Bridge was formally opened almost two months ahead of schedule in the city of Brisbane in the Australian state of Queensland. This 1,706-foot (520-meter)-long structure crosses the section of the Brisbane River between Brisbane’s inner suburb of Dutton Park and the St Lucia campus of the University of Queensland... Continue Reading →
November 5, 1893 Industrial designer Raymond Loewy was born in Paris, France. Loewy would spend most of his professional career in the United States, and his wide range of design efforts included many with a transportation theme of some kind. These efforts started at an early age. When he was only 15 years old, for example, Loewy... Continue Reading →
September 11, 2001 The terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, resulted in the tragic deaths of nearly 3,000 individuals in the vicinity of New York City’s World Trade Center; the Pentagon in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area; and –where a hijacked airplane went down after passengers sought to overcome the terrorists... Continue Reading →
June 15, 1953 The New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA) came into existence at 12:01 a.m. This entity remains the largest and busiest transit system in North America. NYCTA, which operates under the governing body of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority MTA), is responsible for rapid transit and bus lines throughout New York City. Until 1956,... Continue Reading →
June 11, 1920 A new bus service began operating in Detroit on a five-mile (8.1-kilometer) route between Grand Circus Park and Water Works Park via Woodward and East Jefferson Avenues. The Detroit Motorbus Company (DMB), which had been organized the previous year by automobile accessory and supply distributor Herbert Y. McMullen, ultimately established itself as... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 