Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
June 30, 1979 The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA), which had been established in 1971 as a bus network only, opened the first part of its rapid rail system. This new transit service -- built on a section known at the time as the East Line -- made Atlanta the first city in the... Continue Reading →
May 29, 1884 Europe’s first cable-operated tramway was introduced to the public in north London. This .7-mile (1.1-kilometer)-long tramway ran on Highgate Hill in an area encompassing parts of both the Highgate and Archway sections of England’s capital city. While most of the line was double-tracked, about 1,000 feet (304.8 meters) of it was single-tracked. The... Continue Reading →
May 21, 2018 Operations officially began for an airport rail link in the Indonesian province of West Sumatra. This transit service was inaugurated by Joko “Jokowi” Widodo (born in 1961), who was president of Indonesia from 2014 to 2024. The link was built to reduce travel time between Padang, West Sumatra’s capital and largest city;... Continue Reading →
January 10, 1998 Operations began for a train station in the municipality of Ferraz de Vasconelos in southeastern Brazil’s state of São Paulo. This station is part of Line 11 (Coral) of the Companhia Paulista de Trens Metropolitanos (CPTM) , which is known in English as the São Paulo State Metropolitan Trains Company. The CPTM... Continue Reading →
December 9, 1941 Officials at the Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) Railway accepted the first of t0 large 2-6-6-6 Allegheny steam locomotives from the longtime Ohio-based manufacturer Lima Locomotive Works. This locomotive type’s numbers are due to the fact that it had two leading wheels, two sets of six driving wheels, and six training wheels. The “Allegheny” in... Continue Reading →
June 25, 1982 In Switzerland, the Furka Base Tunnel connecting the village of Oberwald with the municipality of Realp was opened. At the time, this structure was the world’s longest narrow-gauge tunnel. This 9.6-mile (15.4-kilometer)-long rail tunnel, which took nine years to build in the face of formidable engineering challenges, has made it possible for the Matterhorn-Gotthard-Bahn... Continue Reading →
May 31, 1969 A major tunnel that is located just south of the Belgian city of Antwerp and had been built under the Scheldt river first went into service when it was opened to motor vehicle traffic. Another milestone for this tunnel took place just a little over eight months later when it was opened... Continue Reading →
April 22, 1857 A railway station was opened in the prefecture and commune of Carcassonne in southern France’s department of Aude. This station was built by the Railway Company du Midi. Carcassone railway station (Gare de Carcassonne) is now operated by the Société nationale des Chemins de fer francais (SNCF), the national state-owned railway company... Continue Reading →
December 22, 2012 A single-track tramway line in Oranjestad, the capital city of the Caribbean island country of Aruba, was officially dedicated. Aruba is a constituent country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands and -- along with the Netherlands’ special municipalities and other constituent countries in the Caribbean Sea -- it is part of those... Continue Reading →
October 23, 1980 The first formal intercity air/ground/rail transportation connection in the United States -- and the country’s first rail station built on airport-owned property -- was officially dedicated about 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) from the terminal of Baltimore/Washington International Airport. Construction on that rail station serving the airport (now known as Baltimore Washington International... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 