Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
January 7, 1946 On New Zealand’s North Island, a railway station in the city of Lower Hutt was officially opened. (At the time, New Zealand was still a dominion of the British Empire; it achieved full autonomy the following year.) This station serves Lower Hutt’s suburbs of Naenae and Avalon. The Naenae railway station, as... Continue Reading →
January 6, 1854 William Nelson Page, a civil engineer and industrialist who proved to be instrumental in the development of key railway routes within both Virginia and West Virginia, was born in Campbell County, Virginia. Page received his education in engineering at the University of Virginia and leveraged both that expertise and his considerable energies into... Continue Reading →
December 8, 1890 Chicago’s Grand Central Station was opened. This passenger railroad terminal, which had been designed by architect Solon Spencer Beman (1853-1914) and completed by the Chicago and Northern Pacific Railroad, was specifically located downtown at 201 Harrison Street (bounded by Harrison, Wells, and Polk Streets as well as the Chicago River). On the day... Continue Reading →
December 1, 1982 Nearly nine decades after it was opened, a railway station in the town of Brevik in southeastern Norway was closed. (That town has officially been part of the municipality of Porsgrunn since 1964.) The station was built as part of the Brevik Line, a 6.2-mile (10-kilometer) railway in that region of Norway.... Continue Reading →
November 21, 1983 Regular operations began for the Baltimore Metro SubwayLink, a rapid transit line serving Maryland’s largest city and its northwestern suburbs, early that Monday morning. Rick Hirsch, reporting for the Miami Herald, highlighted both the significance of this line and the overall route it encompassed. Hirsch stated, “The Baltimore Metro -- America’s first... Continue Reading →
November 4, 2023 A light rail line in Edmonton, the, capital of the Canadian province of Alberta, was officially opened. This route is called the Valley Line and it is part of Edmonton Light Rail Transit, which is widely known in that region as the LRT. Unlike the other trains used elsewhere within the LRT,... Continue Reading →
October 1, 2005 A light rail station in the Fruitdale neighborhood of San Jose, California, made its official debut. This station, which was built near the intersection of Fruitdale Avenue and Southwest Expressway, is a link in the Santa Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) light rail system serving that region of the Golden State. Fruitdale station... Continue Reading →
September 4, 2023 Operations began for the rapid transit component of a rail system in Lagos State in southwestern Nigeria. The first portion of Lagos Rail Mass Transit to go into service was an 8.1-mile (13-kilometer) segment of the system’s Blue Line in Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city and one-time capital. (Lagos State was named for... Continue Reading →
August 27, 2018 Regular operations began for a light rail station in the German city of Köln (Cologne). This station was built as a link within the Cologne Stadtbahn, an extensive transit system serving Cologne and several surrounding cities. The station is located in Görlinger-Zentrum (Center), part of Cologne’s district of Bocklemünd. Görlinger-Zentrum contains a... Continue Reading →
August 26, 2006 Forsyth station, part of the St. Louis MetroLink system, first went into service. This station, which was one of six on that light rail station to be opened on the same day, is located underneath the intersection of Forest Park Parkway and Forsyth Boulevard in the St. Louis suburb of University City.... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 