Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
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 →
October 2, 1955 Operations began in Perambur, a neighborhood of India’s city of Madras (now known as Chennai), for a newly formed manufacturer of train coaches. Integral Coach Factory (ICF) was officially inaugurated by Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964), who served as the first prime minister of India from 1947 until his death. The origins of... Continue Reading →
September 20, 2015 Operations began for the first line of a light rail system in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital and largest city. The Addis Ababa Light Rail was officially inaugurated by Hailemariam Desalegn, who served as prime minister of Ethiopia from 2012 to 2018. In an article appearing in the Ethiopian Herald a couple of... Continue Reading →
September 9, 1963 More than a century after it had first gone into service, Linley Hall station on the Severn Valley Railway line in England’s West Midlands region was permanently closed. This railway station was opened on February 1, 1862. It had been built at the behest of Thomas C. Whitmore (1807-1865), a prominent local... Continue Reading →
September 5, 1986 A new light rail public transit system in the Portland metropolitan area in Oregon was officially opened. The launch of the Metropolitan Area Express (MAX) Light Rail, which is owned and operated by the Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon (TriMet), signified the return of a type of transportation network that had been... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 