Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
August 8, 2021 Line 2 of Mexico City’s cable car service was inaugurated. This occurred only four weeks after the opening of the system’s first line. Cablebús (the Sistema de Transporte Público Cablebús) is operated by Servicio de Transportes Eléctricos (Electric Transport Service), the public transportation agency that also runs the trolleybus and light rail... Continue Reading →
July 24, 1884Wilson McCarthy, who achieved widespread prominence as a railroad executive, was born in the city of American Fork in what was then the Territory of Utah. McCarthy worked in various settings as a cowboy (boots and western wear became his lifelong standard attire), attorney, judge, and banker before his deep immersion in the... Continue Reading →
July 21, 2015 Tren del Valle, a commuter rail service in the west-central region of Argentina, was opened. This transit line, which runs trains on tracks belonging to the General Roca Railway, connects the cities of Plottier, Neuquén, and Cipoletti. The public officials taking part in the official launch of Tren del Valle included Cristina... Continue Reading →
July 20, 1917 A major railway station was officially opened in Bogotá, the capital of the Republic of Colombia and one of South America’s largest cities. This neoclassical building, which replaced a station in existence since the 1880s, has been widely called the Bogotá La Sabana railway station and is also known in Spanish as... Continue Reading →
July 19, 2004 An inaugural ceremony was held for the first section of the current tram (streetcar) system serving Greece’s capital city of Athens and several nearby municipalities. The original version of this region’s tram system had been launched in 1882 with horse-driven vehicles. This system, which was electrified in 1908, remained in operation... Continue Reading →
July 13, 1898 The opening of a terminal for ferries traveling across San Francisco Bay was officially opened. The San Francisco Ferry Building was built as a replacement for a wooden structure that had been a ferry depot at that site since 1875. The second and current version of the terminal in that region of... Continue Reading →
June 26, 2007 Work began on a railway tunnel in the municipality of Bӕrum, a western suburb of Norway’s capital city of Oslo. A drilling and blasting method was used for creating this tunnel, which is now the major portion of the 4.2-mile (6.7-kilometer) Asker Line. The first dynamite salvo for the project was fired... Continue Reading →
June 20, 1987 In the Downtown Core of Singapore’s Central Area, a dedication ceremony was held for a bus terminal along Shenton Way. (Shenton Way is major trunk road serving that region of Singapore.) This original version of Shenton Way Bus Terminal was located under the elevated section of the East Coast Parkway. The first... Continue Reading →
June 5, 1935 The New York, New Haven & Hartford (NH) Railroad officially introduced its double-ended diesel electric passenger train Comet for service between Boston, Massachusetts, and Providence, Rhode Island. This streamliner -- a high-speed railway vehicle designed to provide reduced air resistance and also the precursor to a later era’s “bullet train” -- had... Continue Reading →
As a longtime businessman and civic leader in the city of Portland in Oregon, Bill Naito became a strong champion of public transportation initiatives in that part of the world. He was born in Portland on September 16, 1925, to Hide and Fukiye Naito, who had immigrated to the United States from Japan in 1912.... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 