Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
December 21, 1829 The first stone arch railroad bridge in the United States was dedicated in Baltimore, Maryland. The Carrollton Viaduct, spanning over Gwynn’s Falls stream in the southwestern part of the city, was constructed by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. James Lloyd designed this bridge, and Caspar Weaver oversaw its construction. During the nine months... Continue Reading →
October 29, 1983 Nearly a half-century after its debut, the streamlined electric locomotive known as the GG1was retired from active service once and for all. The GG1 era formally ended when New Jersey Transit (NJ Transit) – the last operator of that class of locomotives – ran a series of farewell trips between the borough... Continue Reading →
April 9, 1934 At its manufacturing plant in Philadelphia, the Budd Company finished work on a streamliner (a high-speed trainset) for the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. (That railroad, which operated in the midwestern United States from 1855 to 1970, was also known as both the CB&Q and the Burlington Route.) The exterior of the... Continue Reading →
February 25, 1832 The first railroad charter in Canada came into existence when the Champlain and St. Lawrence Railroad (C&SL) was incorporated. The C&SL was not only Canada’s first public railroad but also one of the earliest railroads to be built in all of North America. Construction on the C&SL began in 1835. This railroad was... Continue Reading →
February 9, 1875 The Hoosac Tunnel, which passes through a part of both the Berkshires and the Green Mountains known as the Hoosac Range, was opened in western Massachusetts. (“Hoosac” is an Algonquian phrase for “place of stones.”) Construction on that 4.75-mile (7.7-kilometer)-long tunnel had begun during the early 1850s, and the first train to... Continue Reading →
January 27, 1830 The first railroad in Kentucky was chartered by the state’s legislature. This charter for the Lexington & Ohio Railroad (L&O) named Lexington citizens Elisha Winter and General Leslie Combs as the lead organizers for the new railroad. The overall aim of Winter, Combs, and other L&O proponents was to find an effective means... Continue Reading →
January 22, 1903 Seattle businessman Fred Spenser Stimson and his associates Charles Terry Scurry and J.T. Robinson established the Yakutat & Southern (Y&S) Railroad to operate in the southeastern region of what was then the U.S. Territory of Alaska. For nearly seven decades, the Y&S served a unique role among American railroads. It was the... Continue Reading →
December 14, 1903 The luxurious Merchants Limited, which became the premier passenger train of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad (NH), first went into service. This train’s maiden journey was a late-in-the-day run between South Station in Boston and Grand Central Terminal in New York City. The next day’s edition of the Boston... Continue Reading →
December 3, 1967 After 65 years of service, the New York Central Railroad (NYC) express passenger train 20th Century Limited completed its final journey. The half-full train pulled into LaSalle Street Station in Chicago at 6:45 p.m. The Limited had actually been scheduled to arrive nine hours earlier, but was delayed due to a freight... Continue Reading →
October 23, 1914 In a late-afternoon ceremony near the city of Eureka in northwestern California, the last 200 feet (61 meters) of track of the Northwestern Pacific Railroad (NWP) was officially dedicated. This celebration specifically occurred at Chain Rock Bridge. The completion of the PWP occurred just about seven years after that line was created by the... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 