Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
July 24, 1884Wilson McCarthy, who achieved widespread prominence as a railroad executive, was born in the city of American Fork in what was then the Territory of Utah. McCarthy worked in various settings as a cowboy (boots and western wear became his lifelong standard attire), attorney, judge, and banker before his deep immersion in the... Continue Reading →
June 5, 1935 The New York, New Haven & Hartford (NH) Railroad officially introduced its double-ended diesel electric passenger train Comet for service between Boston, Massachusetts, and Providence, Rhode Island. This streamliner -- a high-speed railway vehicle designed to provide reduced air resistance and also the precursor to a later era’s “bullet train” -- had... Continue Reading →
April 12, 1890 Nearly three decades after becoming the first streetcar company to operate in Washington, D.C., the Washington and Georgetown Railroad achieved a new milestone by switching from horse-drawn streetcars to cable cars. “CABLE CARS RUNNING,” proclaimed a headline in that day’s edition of the Washington Critic. This change took placed due to a... Continue Reading →
In 1993, President Bill Clinton appointed Rodney E. Slater as administrator of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). This appointment made Slater the first African American to serve in that role. He remained FHWA administrator until 1997, when Clinton appointed him to serve as U.S. secretary of transportation. Slater was only the second African American to... Continue Reading →
January 23, 1912 Regular service began on the Overseas Railroad, a 156-mile (251.1-kilometer)-long extension of the Florida East Coast Railway to Key West (located beyond the end of the Florida peninsula). This service was launched the day after Henry Flagler, a founder of Standard Oil and the developer of Florida East Coast Railway (FEC), arrived in... Continue Reading →
November 21, 1913 A major technological breakthrough in transportation took place when wireless messages -- sent in Morse code without any direct electrical connections involved -- from two railroad stations to a train crew on the move were successfully transmitted. This pioneering test in wireless telegraphy specifically occurred in the northeastern United States between a... Continue Reading →
July 29, 1959 A pioneering public bus line in Nepal was inaugurated. This line was part of the operations of Nepal Transport Service. This company had started out only four months earlier as a trucking company that, via the Tribhuvan Highway, hauled cargo for a distance of 118.1 miles (190 kilometers) in each direction between... Continue Reading →
June 15, 2013 The final section of the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP), a rail trail spanning 150 miles (240 kilometers) between Pittsburgh and the city of Cumberland in western Maryland, was opened to the public. The GAP is heavily used by both bicyclists and hikers, and it connects with the towpath for the Chesapeake and... Continue Reading →
June 13, 1888 Construction on a swing-span railroad bridge spanning the body of water known as the Arthur Kill and linking Staten Island, New York, with mainland New Jersey was completed at 3:00 p.m. At the time, the 800-foot (240-meter)-long Arthur Kill Bridge was the world’s largest drawbridge. It was also the only land connection to Staten... Continue Reading →
March 21, 1937 Southern Pacific (SP) Railroad’s two newest Daylight streamliner trains made their first regular runs between San Francisco and Los Angeles. These passenger trains were both originally known as the Daylight Limited. On the day of their shared debut, both trains each consisted of a dozen Pullman passenger cars that were pulled along by... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 