Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
February 25, 1851 In Wisconsin, the first passenger train of the Milwaukee & Mississippi (M&M) Railroad made its inaugural trip between Milwaukee and the town (now city) of Waukesha. This railroad had actually begun operations just a little over three months earlier. The debut of passenger service on that line, however, proved to be an exuberant celebration. ... Continue Reading →
February 18, 2015 A newly built train station was officially dedicated in the city of Tukwila in Washington’s King County. (Tukwila is located just south of Seattle.) Tukwila station was constructed by Sound Transit (ST), a public agency serving the Seattle metropolitan area, as a replacement for a temporary station that had been at that... Continue Reading →
January 26, 2010 A test run was conducted for a monorail system still very much under development at the time in the city of Mumbai, the capital of western India’s state of Maharashtra. (A monorail is a railway in which the trains travel on a single track or beam.) This initial test run for Mumbai... Continue Reading →
December 17, 1983 In northern Virginia, multiple celebrations marked the opening of an extension of the Yellow Line of the Washington Metro rapid transit system. The debut of this extension, covering 4.2 miles (6.8 kilometers) between National Airport (now officially called Ronald Regan Washington National Airport) and the community of Huntington in Virginia’s Fairfax County,... Continue Reading →
November 12, 2014 In the Republic of Indonesia, a newly established commuter rail line in the Surabaya metropolitan area of the country’s province of East Java first went into service. (Surabaya is second only to Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, as that country’s largest city.) The introduction of the commuter service known as KA Jenggala... Continue Reading →
October 29, 1983 Nearly a half-century after its debut, the streamlined electric locomotive known as the GG1was retired from active service once and for all. The GG1 era formally ended when New Jersey Transit (NJ Transit) – the last operator of that class of locomotives – ran a series of farewell trips between the borough... Continue Reading →
October 13, 1881 A railway station that been constructed in the city of Larvik in southeastern Norway was formally opened. At the time, the present-day Kingdom of Norway was part of the United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway. Larvik Station was built as part of the Vestfold Line in that region of Norway. Construction on... Continue Reading →
October 7, 1826 The first train of the Massachusetts-based Granite Railway went into service. The Granite Railway was among the first railroads in the United States. This enterprise was established to carry granite from the city of Quincy to a dock on the Neponset River in the town of Milton, where that stone was transported by... Continue Reading →
July 28, 1790 James Goold, a renowned carriage-maker who manufactured everything from sleighs to stagecoaches, was born in Granby, Connecticut. He launched his own business in Albany, New York, in 1813. That firm, which became popularly known as the Albany Coach Manufactory, achieved an important milestone in 1831 when it was hired to build six coaches for... Continue Reading →
June 25, 1916 A major railway station was opened in Bangkok, the capital of the Southeast Asian country known at the time as Siam. (The name of this country was officially changed to Thailand in 1939.) Bangkok Railway Station, which is located in the Pathum Wan District in the center of the city, has also... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 