Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
January 7, 1946 On New Zealand’s North Island, a railway station in the city of Lower Hutt was officially opened. (At the time, New Zealand was still a dominion of the British Empire; it achieved full autonomy the following year.) This station serves Lower Hutt’s suburbs of Naenae and Avalon. The Naenae railway station, as... Continue Reading →
January 6, 1854 William Nelson Page, a civil engineer and industrialist who proved to be instrumental in the development of key railway routes within both Virginia and West Virginia, was born in Campbell County, Virginia. Page received his education in engineering at the University of Virginia and leveraged both that expertise and his considerable energies into... Continue Reading →
In Toronto, a dedication ceremony was held for a set of highway bridges crossing the Don River Valley’s West Branch in the city’s neighborhood of Hoggs Hollow. These bridges, now collectively known as Hogg’s Hollow Bridge, were formally opened to traffic at three o’clock that Saturday afternoon. More than 1,000 people attended this event and... Continue Reading →
January 2, 1923 “The old year is dead, prosperous live the new year,” asserted the Washington Post on New Year’s Day in 1923. “Now that the world is changing its calendar, writing another numeral at the end of its date lines, it is profitable to strike balances and to determine what is due in the... Continue Reading →
December 30, 1904 The East Boston Tunnel in the capital of Massachusetts was formally opened to the public. This tunnel became a key link in a streetcar route that originated at Court Street in the downtown area of the city, then coursed under Boston Harbor, and ultimately ended at Maverick Square in East Boston. (A... Continue Reading →
December 22, 1900 In what was then the British colony of New South Wales (NSW), a new timber truss bridge built across the Lane Cove River in Sydney was informally opened to the public. (NSW was a British colony until it became one of the states of the Commonwealth of Australia effective New Year’s Day... Continue Reading →
December 18, 1997 The M65 motorway in northwestern England’s ceremonial county of Lancashire was officially completed with the opening of the final segment of that route. This segment encompasses Junctions 1a to 6 within the area between Whitebirk, a suburb in the vicinity of the borough of Blackburn with Darwen; and this motorway’s linkage with... Continue Reading →
December 16, 1953 At the Delaware Water Gap – a section where the Delaware River slices through a major ridge of the Appalachian Mountains – a toll bridge connecting New Jersey with Pennsylvania was formally opened to traffic. New Jersey Governor Alfred E. Driscoll (1947-1954) was among the public officials on hand for the Wednesday... Continue Reading →
December 15, 1950 New York City’s Port Authority Bus Terminal -- owned and operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey -- made its formal debut. The new facility, which the New York Times proclaimed to be “as revolutionary as it is large,” was constructed to consolidate all of the private bus... Continue Reading →
December 11, 1976 On a Saturday morning, a ferry terminal in the city of Larkspur (located north of San Francisco) was opened with considerable fanfare. Larkspur Landing, which is also called Larkspur Ferry Terminal, provides commuter ferry services to downtown San Francisco via the North Bay. This terminal is operated by the Golden Gate Bridge,... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 