Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
December 23, 1871 Operations began for the first railway in the present-day state of Western Australia (WA). At the time of this railway’s debut, WA was a British crown colony. The railway was a private one owned by West Australian (W.A.) Timber Company. This 4.3-mile (seven-kilometer) line ran between the localities of Yokanup (now known... Continue Reading →
December 18, 1989 A commuter rail station in southeastern Florida's city of Boynton Beach was officially opened. This station is part of Tri-Rail, an 80-mile (128.7-kilometer)-long commuter rail system serving the Miami metropolitan area and managed by the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority. The line on which Tri-Rail's trains operate is owned by the Florida... Continue Reading →
December 17, 1925 In the northern part of Sweden, a major railway station in the city of Sundsvall was first opened. The Sundsvall Central Station was designed by Folke Zettervall (1862-1955), who served from 1895 to 1930 as head architect for the government agency known as the Swedish State Railways. The Sundsvall Central Station remains... Continue Reading →
December 9, 1941 Officials at the Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) Railway accepted the first of t0 large 2-6-6-6 Allegheny steam locomotives from the longtime Ohio-based manufacturer Lima Locomotive Works. This locomotive type’s numbers are due to the fact that it had two leading wheels, two sets of six driving wheels, and six training wheels. The “Allegheny” in... Continue Reading →
November 19, 2022 Yerba Buena/Moscone station in San Francisco’s South of Market (SoMa) neighborhood was officially opened. This underground light rail station, which is a link in the T Third Street line of the San Francisco Municipal Railway’s Muni Metro system, owes its name to both Yerba Buena/Moscone Gardens and Moscone Convention Center in that... Continue Reading →
November 13, 2017 A newly completed train station in the San Francisco Bay Area’s city of Fairfield was opened. This station provides access for residents of both Fairfield and the neighboring city of Vacaville to Amtrak California’s Capitol Corridor rail line. The facility -- originally called Fairfield-Vacaville station -- is also a transfer hub for... Continue Reading →
A newly built railway station in central Portugal’s village (and present-day municipality) of Abrantes first went into service. Abrantes Station was opened by the now-defunct company originally known as Companhia dos Caminhos de Ferro Portugueses (Royal Company of Portuguese Railways), which had been established in 1860 and would serve for many years as the country’s... Continue Reading →
November 4, 1846 A railway station in the village and community of Ruabon in Wrexham County Borough in Wales was inaugurated. This structure -- the original version of Ruabon railway station -- was built in the Italianate style. It was designed by English architect and surveyor Thomas Mainwaring Penson (1818-1864). In 1860, this station was... Continue Reading →
October 9, 1980 A railway station in the town of Alice Springs in Australia’s Northern Territory (NT) was officially opened. This station replaced one that had first gone into service in 1929 as a link in the Central Australia Railway The present-day station was built as part of a segment spanning 515 miles (828 kilometers)... Continue Reading →
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 →
Transportation History 