Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
October 4, 2012 Bernard Holden, whose long life was devoted to railroads in a variety of contexts, died at the age of 104 in the English village and civil parish of Ditchling. Fittingly enough, he had been born in 1908 in the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway station house in the village of Barcombe... Continue Reading →
June 21, 1954 NBC Radio presented the final broadcast of The Railroad Hour. This program, which had been on the air for 16 years, was sponsored by the American Association of Railroads (AAR). The program had a music-and-drama format, and Jeannette MacDonald (1903-1965) and Adolphe Menjou (1893-1963) were among the performers who graced those broadcasts.... Continue Reading →
April 30, 1939 The 1939 New York World’s Fair at Flushing-Meadows Corona Park was formally opened. This world’s fair ranks second only to the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis as the largest event of its kind to be held in the United States. With its opening slogan of “Dawn of a New Day,”... Continue Reading →
Maria E. Beasley (c. 1836-1913), a pioneering female inventor who was born in North Carolina, is best known for creating machines and other industrial processes for the more efficient production of barrels. She also obtained patents for various other types of inventions, however, and some of those patents involved key improvements to transportation safety. ... Continue Reading →
November 28, 2005 In south-central Connecticut, a newly built train station in the town of Guilford was opened for use. Guilford station, which is maintained by the Connecticut Department of Transportation (CTDOT), is part of the regional commuter rail service formally known as Shore Line East (SLE). SLE operates in southern Connecticut along a segment... Continue Reading →
November 21, 1925 The deluxe passenger train “Orange Blossom Special” made its first regular run between New York and Florida. The Orange Blossom Special, which was characterized at that time by the North Carolina-based News and Observer as “one of the finest of trains,” came about thanks to Seaboard Air Line (SAL) Railroad President S.... Continue Reading →
August 9, 1831 The first regular steam engine train run in the United States took place in New York. The small four-wheeled steam engine DeWitt Clinton, which had been constructed in the Empire State earlier that year and was among the first steam engines to debut in the United States, successfully completed the trip of approximately... Continue Reading →
May 18, 1947 The streamlined passenger train Silver Comet was inaugurated with a great deal of fanfare by the Seaboard Air Line Railroad (SAL) at Penn Station in New York City. Prior to its first-time run between New York City and Birmingham, Alabama, this newly built train was christened by film and stage actress Jean... Continue Reading →
On January 12, 2022, Amitabha “Amit” Bose was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA). This Senate confirmation by a vote of 68-29 made Bose the first person of South Asian descent to lead FRA, which is an agency within the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT). Bose was born... Continue Reading →
March 30, 1968 The last regularly scheduled passenger train service at a railroad station in northern Alabama’s city of Huntsville took place at a time in which that longtime facility was marked for permanent closure. The train making this final run at the Huntsville Depot was the Tennessean, which had been operated by Southern Railway... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 