Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
June 18, 1817 A granite bridge crossing the River Thames in London was formally opened by the Prince of Wales and future King George IV (1762-1830), who had assumed the role of Prince Regent and taken over the royal responsibilities of his incapacitated father King George III (1738-1820) six years earlier. This bridge was built... Continue Reading →
June 12, 2005 Passenger rail service returned after a hiatus of 41 years to the Vale of Glamorgan, a county borough in southeastern Wales. This service began on a regular basis two days after the Vale of Glamorgan Line was formally dedicated. The festivities that day included a train breaking through an inaugural banner at... Continue Reading →
May 12, 1937 Beryl Burton, who became a prominent racing cyclist, was born Beryl Charnock in the Halton district of the English city of Leeds. She would spend most of her life in Morley, a market town and civil parish within Leeds. It was her husband Charles Burton who introduced her to the world of... Continue Reading →
April 27, 1922 Sheila Scott, who would break more than 100 aviation records, was born in the cathedral city of Worcester in central England. Prior to her pursuit of flying, she worked in such varied fields as nursing and acting. Scott learned how to fly in 1958. After nine months of training, she began to... Continue Reading →
April 6, 1956 An arch bridge in what was then known as the Federation of Malaya was officially opened. At the time, this country in Southeast Asia was a self-governing colony of the United Kingdom. The steadily gathering momentum for a fully independent Federation of Malaya was reflected in the name of the new bridge.... Continue Reading →
March 10, 1906 SS Viper was launched at the shipyard of Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company (widely known as Fairfields) in the Scottish burgh of Govan. (Six years later, Govan was annexed as part of the city of Glasgow.) This steel, triple-screw, turbine-driven was built at Govan by Fairfields for use by the maritime transportation... Continue Reading →
March 4, 1937 After five weeks of crew training at a depot in the Scottish city of Glasgow, the prototype of the Class K4 locomotive of the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) made its public debut as a self-propelled vehicle for passenger trains. This prototype constituted what became a new class of 2-6-0 steam... Continue Reading →
January 27, 1909 Garlandstone, a ketch (two-masted sailboat), was launched in southwestern England. In a 1996 edition of the London-based Guardian, author Virginia Spiers highlighted Garlandstone in the daily column A Country Diary. “This handsome merchant vessel was built on the [River Tamar], built by James Goss in his yard on the Devon bank opposite... Continue Reading →
January 26, 1830 On Scotland’s northeastern coast, a lighthouse on the Tarbat Ness headland first went into service. (Tarbat is derived from “tairbeart,” a Gaelic word for “isthmus”; “ness” is an Old Norse term for “headland.”) This structure was designed by the renowned civil engineer Robert Stevenson for the Northern Lighthouse Board (the general lighthouse... Continue Reading →
October 14, 1971 In northwestern England’s ceremonial county of Lancashire, a motorway service area (MSA) in the civil parish of Anderton was opened to the public. This MSA is specifically located between the junctions 6 and 8 for the motorway M61. MSAs are facilities in the United Kingdom and Ireland where drivers and their passengers... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 