Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
August 19, 2011 In southeastern Virginia’s Hampton Roads metropolitan area, operations began for the light rail system based in the city of Norfolk and named the Tide. This light rail system was the first one to go into service in the Old Dominion. The Tide, which took a little over three years to build, is... Continue Reading →
August 5, 2012 Operations began for a railbus service in the Indonesian province of Central Java. Batara Kresna Railbus was formally inaugurated on that Sunday by Bambang Susanto (born in 1963), who was Indonesia’s deputy minister of transportation from 2009 to 2014. This railbus service, which is operated by PT Kereta Api Indonesia (the country’s... Continue Reading →
July 17, 2006 A light rail system serving Newark, New Jersey, and surrounding communities was inaugurated. The Newark Light Rail (NLR) is owned and operated by NJ Transit Bus Operations, a division of the state-owned New Jersey Transit Corporation. NLR was developed from a combination of Newark City Subway, which had been launched in 1935,... Continue Reading →
July 1, 1977 The Blue Line of the Washington Metro first went into service. This line’s inaugural stretch between National Airport station in Arlington County, Virginia, and Stadium-Armory station in southeast Washington, D.C., joined the Red Line (introduced the previous year) in forming what was then the world’s newest major rapid transit system. The Orange... Continue Reading →
June 23, 2015 More than three weeks after it first went into operation, the cable car system Skyway Monte Bianco within northwestern Italy’s Autonomous Region of Aosta Valley was formally inaugurated. This system serves as a link between its base station in the frazione (subdivision) of Entrèves in the town and comune of Courmayeur; and... Continue Reading →
May 11, 1991 The first segment of the Green Line of the Washington Metro rapid transit system was formally opened. The next day’s edition of the Washington Post highlighted the fanfare surrounding this public transportation milestone in the nation’s capital. “The politicians were there,” reported Washington Post staff writer. Stephen C. Fehr. “So were clergy... Continue Reading →
February 25, 1908 The first tube of the McAdoo rapid transit tunnel system allowing electric trolleys to travel between Hoboken, New Jersey, and Manhattan was formally opened amid great fanfare. This structure made history as the first transportation tunnel beneath a major river. “It is the first tunnel for passenger traffic under the Hudson River and... Continue Reading →
February 20, 2020 Operations began for the first two sets of four-car 8100 class trains that had been recently acquired by the Philippine National Railways (PNR) as part of its efforts to improve commuter services in Metro Manila (the National Capital Region), the largest metropolitan area of that Southeast Asian archipelagic country. These diesel multiple... Continue Reading →
February 18, 2019 An infrastructure milestone took place for City Railway Station in the city of Bengaluru (also called Bangalore), which is the capital of the state of Karnataka in southern India. This underground station on the East-West corridor of Namma Metro rapid transit system’s Purple Line had been opened on April 30, 2016. Nearly... Continue Reading →
February 10, 2023 In northern Taiwan, the Ankeng light rail transit line in New Taipei City’s Xindian District was formally opened. This event was marked by celebrations that involved everything from music to commemorative bottles of beer. Hou Yu-ih (born in 1957), who has been mayor of New Taipei City since 2018, was among those... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 