Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
May 5, 1835 The first steam passenger railway in continental Europe was opened in Belgium. This section of railway, which connected the cities of Brussels and Mechelen, was the initial segment of the Belgian Railway Line 25. English civil engineer George Stephenson was among the first to travel on the new line. His company, as a... Continue Reading →
April 8, 2013 The first segment of the PHX Sky Train, a small-scale automated transit system transporting people within and also to and from Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport in Arizona’s capital and largest city, was opened to the public. Construction on this 1.7-mile (2.7-kilometer) segment of the PHX Sky Train had begun in 2008.... Continue Reading →
March 9, 1986 A newly built bus interchange first went into service in the community of Paradise in the Australian state of South Australia (SA). Paradise Interchange, which is located 3.7 miles (six kilometers) from the central section of SA’s capital city of Adelaide, had been officially dedicated a week earlier. John Bannon, who served... 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 →
February 3, 2014 A newly completed bus station in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital city of the state of Kerala in southwestern India, was opened for public use. This 7.4-acre (3-hectare) transit complex is specifically located in the neighborhood of Thampanoor in the central part of Thiruvananthapuram. Thampanoor bus station (also known as Central bus station) was... 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 →
January 18, 1857 Henry Wigram, who became a transportation pioneer in New Zealand, was born in London, England. Wigram immigrated to what was then the British colony of New Zealand in 1883. He settled in the city of Christchurch, located in the Canterbury region of New Zealand’s South Island. Wigram eventually became involved in Christchurch’s... Continue Reading →
January 4, 2005 A newly renovated railway station in the Moroccan city of Casablanca was officially reopened. This station, which dates back to 1912, is located in Casablanca’s quartier (neighborhood) of Oasis. The year-long refurbishment of the Oasis (or Casa-Oasis) railway station was carried out by ONCF, a state-owned company that is managed by Morocco’s... Continue Reading →
December 6, 1954 A different type of motor coach bus first rolled off the Mercedes-Benz assembly line in city of Mannheim in what was then West Germany. The 30-foot (9.1-meter)-long 0321H, which was equipped with nine rows of seats and could accommodate up to 37 passengers, made its debut nearly six decades after automotive pioneer... Continue Reading →
November 29, 1987 In the Republic of Singapore, the first part of a major bus station was officially opened in the planning area and residential town of Tampines in the East Region of that Southeast Asian city-state. The Tampines Bus Interchange (TBI) had been built in response to the steadily growing population in that section... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 