Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
September 10, 2009 A new and record-setting rapid transit rail network in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) city of Dubai began regular operations at 6:00 a.m. The actual debut of the Dubai Metro had taken place the previous night. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice president and prime minister of the UAE and executive... Continue Reading →
September 9, 1876 In the Great Lakes region of Ohio, a lifesaving station to rescue shipwrecked mariners and passengers was officially opened in the village of Marblehead at the tip of the Marblehead Peninsula. (This peninsula divides Lake Erie proper from Sandusky Bay.) The genesis of this station and others throughout the nation could be traced... Continue Reading →
September 6, 1919 The U.S. Army’s Cross-Country Motor Transport Train arrived in San Francisco, completing a transcontinental trip of 3,251 miles (5,232 kilometers) that began on July 7 in Washington, D.C. On the evening of September 6, convoy commander Lieutenant Charles W. McClure formally confirmed the end of this historic journey in a telegram that... Continue Reading →
September 5, 1889 In western Brazil’s province (now state) of Mato Grosso, local merchants Manoel da Silva Monteiro and Joaquim Francisco de Matos obtained a franchise to build a street railway in the city of Cuiabá. This city has long been considered by many of its residents and others to be the geographical center of... Continue Reading →
September 3, 1930 Nearly eight decades after first coming into existence, the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western (DL&W) Railroad – covering about 400 miles (643.7 kilometers) between Hoboken, New Jersey, and Buffalo, New York – introduced electric suburban trains along its line. These trains were inaugurated for use within New Jersey between Hoboken and the communities... Continue Reading →
August 30, 1925 Two officials of the American Automobile Association (AAA) headed out of Washington, D.C., for an ambitious transcontinental motor vehicle trip to California. AAA President Thomas P. Henry and Ernest N. Smith, general manager of that organization, undertook that long drive to participate in the festivities commemorating California’s 75th anniversary as a state. Both... Continue Reading →
August 29, 1911 Hilda Hewlett became the first British woman to earn an airplane pilot’s license. Hewlett, who was 47 at the time, received certificate number 122 from the Royal Aero Club after she completed a test flight at Brooklands Aerodrome near the town of Weybridge in southeastern England. Hewlett had been born in Central... Continue Reading →
August 28, 1946 Ricardo De Lara Paras and his brother-in-law Florencio P. Buan established a pioneering bus service in the post-World War II Philippines. Philippine Rabbit Bus Company, Ltd., which was incorporated as Philippine Rabbit Bus Lines exactly 11 years later, came into existence less than two years after the liberation of the Philippines from... Continue Reading →
August 27, 1943 In the midst of World War II, the ship Cape Leeuwin was commissioned into the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) to assist with Australia’s efforts on behalf of the Allies in their fight against Japan. A lighthouse tender, HMAS Cape Leeuwin had been designed and built nearly two decades earlier to provide supplies and... Continue Reading →
August 26, 1919 The U.S. Army’s Cross-Country Motor Transport Train, having crossed over into Nevada from Utah just a couple of days earlier, spent much of August 26 continuing to slog through what would be the toughest section of the entire transcontinental journey. “U.S. TRUCK TRAIN MIRED IN NEVADA DESERT,” proclaimed a headline in the... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 