Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
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 →
July 3, 1905 In the northern part of London, an international electric tramway and railway exhibition was opened in the Royal Agricultural Hall in the inner-city area of Islington. This event, which would continue until July 14, was the third of its kind to be held at that location. The first of these exhibitions took... Continue Reading →
April 4, 1901 In Switzerland, a funicular railway in the city of Zurich first went into service. This railway was built to carry people up and down the Zürichberg, a 2,228-foot (679-meter)-high hill in the northeastern part of the city. A key destination on this hill at the time was a restaurant named Rigiblick that... Continue Reading →
February 17, 2014 In the Australian state of South Australia (SA), a railway station in Wayville was formally opened to the public. (Wayville is a suburb of the City of Unley, a government area within the metropolitan region of SA’s capital of Adelaide.) This station was built as a transit link for the Adelaide Showground,... Continue Reading →
November 21, 2022 On Norway’s west coast, the second line of a light rail system in the city and municipality of Bergen first went into service. This took place three days after the inaugural ceremony for this new route was held. The second line encompasses 5.6 miles (nine kilometers) between Kaigaten in Bergen’s borough of... Continue Reading →
October 23, 2015 A much anticipated Friday morning event in the Ecuadorian city of Cuenca occurred when a low-floor tram (railcar) was taken out for its first test run. This vehicle was the first of several railcars to be built by Alstom, a French rolling stock manufacturer, for an electric tram line coursing through both... Continue Reading →
April 1, 1928 The first four trolleybuses to serve the English town and borough of Hastings began operations. These vehicles were each decorated with flags and bunting for the occasion and they were introduced as part of the plan to ultimately replace the entire aging fleet of trams in Hastings with trolleybuses. Those trams were... Continue Reading →
March 22, 2020 The Trafford Park Line in northwestern England’s ceremonial county of Greater Manchester first went into service. This light rail line operates in the metropolitan borough of Trafford as part of the Manchester Metrolink, an extensive transit system in that region of England. The line owes its name to a particular section of... Continue Reading →
December 22, 2012 A single-track tramway line in Oranjestad, the capital city of the Caribbean island country of Aruba, was officially dedicated. Aruba is a constituent country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands and -- along with the Netherlands’ special municipalities and other constituent countries in the Caribbean Sea -- it is part of those... Continue Reading →
September 26, 2009 More than a quarter-century after its operations were halted, the trolleybus system in the city and commune (municipality) of Chieti in central Italy was brought back into service. The following month, Omar Cugini reported on this milestone was in the Rome-based magazine TheCommuter: News from the World of Mobility and Public Transport.... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 