59 Fun Facts About Transportation

The Wright Flyer made the first sustained powered, controlled flight in December of which year?

On 17 December 1903 the Wrights flew the Flyer four times near Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, the longest flight lasting 59 seconds; the aircraft now hangs in the National Air and Space Museum.

What was the nickname of the Ford Model T?

The Model T earned the nickname Tin Lizzie; over 15 million were built between 1908 and 1927, and Henry Ford watched the 15 millionth roll off the line at Highland Park, Michigan.

Which car overtook the Model T as the best-selling car in history in 1972?

The Volkswagen Beetle passed the Model T's total on 17 February 1972; production of the Type 1 finally ended at the Puebla plant in Mexico on 30 July 2003, after 21,529,464 cars.

Japan's first Shinkansen line opened in 1964, shortly before which event?

The Tōkaidō Shinkansen began service on 1 October 1964, nine days before the Tokyo Summer Olympics opened, linking Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya and Osaka.

How many passengers died in Shinkansen derailments or collisions during its first 50 years?

Zero: from the 1964 opening through 2014 the Shinkansen carried billions of passengers without a single passenger death from a derailment or collision, despite a 2004 earthquake derailment near Niigata.

The world's first underground passenger railway opened in London in which year?

The Metropolitan Railway opened on 10 January 1863 between Paddington and Farringdon, using gas-lit wooden carriages hauled by steam locomotives.

The Johnston typeface used across the London Underground was created in which year?

Edward Johnston completed his sans-serif alphabet in 1916, three years after Frank Pick of the Underground Group commissioned it; the lettering and the roundel became the network's lasting branding.

Which country began building the Panama Canal in 1881 before abandoning the project?

France started digging in 1881 through a private company; engineering problems, malaria and yellow fever ended the effort in 1889, and the United States took over in 1904 and opened the canal in 1914.

Ships transiting the Panama Canal are lifted by locks 26 metres up into which artificial reservoir?

Gatun Lake sits 26 metres above sea level; it was created by damming the Chagres River so ships could cross much of the isthmus afloat instead of through a dug channel.

Which two airlines owned and operated Concorde fleets in scheduled service?

British Airways and Air France each bought their own Concorde fleets and flew them from 1976 to 2003; Braniff only leased the jets for a subsonic Dallas-Washington interchange in 1979-80.

Concorde's regular service speed was capped at what to extend the life of its airframe?

Concorde cruised at Mach 2.02, about 2,180 km/h; flying faster would have pushed the aluminium alloy skin beyond roughly 127°C at the nose, shortening the airframe's fatigue life.

Which former bicycle-maker's company, founded by J. K. Starley, later became a British car brand?

J. K. Starley's Rover safety bicycle of 1885 set the modern bicycle pattern; his firm took the Rover name and built its first car in 1904, becoming a long-lived British marque.

The Segway self-balancing transporter was invented by whom?

Dean Kamen, the inventor also known for the iBOT stair-climbing wheelchair, unveiled the Segway on Good Morning America in Bryant Park on 3 December 2001 after months of breathless speculation.

The Hindenburg burst into flames in 1937 while docking at a naval air station in which US state?

Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey was the landing site on 6 May 1937; Herbert Morrison's anguished radio report, recorded there, was broadcast the next day and became one of the century's most famous recordings.

What gas filled the Hindenburg?

Hydrogen filled the Hindenburg's 16 gas cells because the United States, the only large helium producer, would not export helium to Nazi Germany; the flammable gas made the 1937 fire catastrophic.

Which airline put the Boeing 747 into commercial service in January 1970?

Pan Am, which had pushed Boeing to build the jumbo and ordered 25 in 1966, flew the first scheduled 747 service from New York to London on 22 January 1970.

Who led the design team for the Boeing 747?

Joe Sutter, pulled off the 737 programme in 1965, led the roughly 4,500 engineers nicknamed 'the Incredibles' who took the 747 from design to first flight in under three years.

The Channel Tunnel connects Folkestone in England with which French town?

The French terminal is at Coquelles, just outside Calais; Queen Elizabeth II and President Mitterrand opened the 50.45 km tunnel on 6 May 1994, about a year behind schedule.

The Trans-Siberian Railway runs from Moscow to which Pacific port?

The line ends at Vladivostok on Russia's Pacific coast, 9,289 km and about six days by train from Moscow; the route was completed entirely on Russian soil when the Amur bridge at Khabarovsk opened.

The world's first traffic lights, installed in December 1868, stood outside which building?

Railway engineer J. P. Knight's signal outside the Houses of Parliament in London used semaphore arms by day and red and green gas lamps by night, worked by a policeman; it exploded within a month, injuring its operator.

Which policeman developed the first electric traffic light in Salt Lake City in 1912?

Lester Wire, a Salt Lake City police officer, built a two-colour electric signal in 1912; two years later the American Traffic Signal Company installed a version at East 105th and Euclid in Cleveland, Ohio.

Nils Bohlin developed the modern three-point seat belt for which car maker, which made it standard in 1959?

Volvo fitted Bohlin's three-point belt as standard on the Amazon and PV544 in 1959 and opened the patent to rival makers free of charge, so the design spread across the industry.

Which US president signed the 1956 act that created the Interstate Highway System?

Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act on 29 June 1956, having been impressed by German autobahns in the war; construction later displaced roughly a million people and sparked 'freeway revolts'.

In 1956 Malcom McLean loaded 58 containers onto which converted tanker?

The SS Ideal X, a converted Second World War T2 tanker, sailed from Newark to Houston on 26 April 1956 with 58 containers on deck; by 2009 roughly 90% of non-bulk cargo moved in containers.

Which crossing took the Golden Gate's title as the world's longest suspension span in 1964?

The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, opened on 21 November 1964 between Staten Island and Brooklyn, had a 1,298 m main span, 18 m longer than the Golden Gate's; it held the record until the Humber Bridge in 1981.

Which French diplomat formed the company that built the Suez Canal, opened in 1869?

Ferdinand de Lesseps, a former French consul in Egypt, founded the Suez Canal Company in 1858 and saw the canal opened in November 1869; unlike Panama, Suez is a lock-free sea-level waterway.

Stephenson's Rocket won which 1829 locomotive competition?

The Rainhill Trials of October 1829 were staged by the Liverpool and Manchester Railway to settle whether moving locomotives or rope-hauling stationary engines should work the line; Rocket won the £500 prize.

In which year was Karl Benz's Patent-Motorwagen, considered the first practical car, patented?

Karl Benz received German patent 37435 for his three-wheeled Patent-Motorwagen on 29 January 1886; his firm Benz & Cie. in Mannheim grew into the world's largest car maker by 1900.

The Montgolfier brothers made their living making what?

The Montgolfiers ran the family paper mill at Annonay; their first public balloon, flown there on 4 June 1783, was sackcloth lined with three thin layers of their own paper.

Which airline took the first delivery of the Airbus A380 in October 2007?

Singapore Airlines took delivery of the first A380 on 15 October 2007 and flew it from Singapore to Sydney ten days later; the double-decker is certified for up to 853 passengers.

How many lifeboats did the Titanic actually carry on her maiden voyage?

Titanic carried 20 lifeboats — 14 standard boats, two cutters and four collapsibles — with room for 1,178 people, about a third of her full capacity, though that exceeded the Board of Trade's outdated minimum of 16.

In which city was the Titanic built?

Harland and Wolff built her at its Queen's Island yard in Belfast as the second of three Olympic-class liners, between RMS Olympic and HMHS Britannic; she was launched on 31 May 1911.

The Vespa scooter's name is Italian for which insect?

Vespa is Italian for wasp, a name Enrico Piaggio reportedly gave the 1946 scooter for its narrow waist and buzzing engine; Roman Holiday (1953) later gave it a global boost in sales.

What advisory speed did Germany introduce for unrestricted Autobahn stretches in 1978?

The 130 km/h Richtgeschwindigkeit was introduced in 1978; driving faster is legal on unrestricted stretches, but courts treat exceeding it as a factor raising a driver's share of liability in a crash.

Which entrepreneur published the 2013 white paper describing the Hyperloop?

Elon Musk published the Hyperloop Alpha proposal in August 2013, proposing low-pressure tubes and capsules riding on air bearings between Los Angeles and the Bay Area; he had teased a 'fifth mode of transport' in 2012.

The word "rickshaw" comes from a term in which language?

The word comes from the Japanese jinrikisha, literally 'human-powered vehicle', built from jin (person), riki (power) and sha (vehicle); the carts appeared in Tokyo around 1869.

What is unusual about the shape of a Venetian gondola's hull?

It is asymmetrical along its length: the left side is about 24 cm wider than the right, so the boat runs straight under a single oar worked from the right side instead of turning.

Jesse Reno's first working escalator was installed in 1896 as a ride at which amusement spot?

Jesse Reno's 'inclined elevator', a moving belt with cleats, ran for two weeks at Coney Island's Old Iron Pier in September 1896 and carried some 75,000 riders; Harrods installed a Piat version in 1898.

Who staged a death-defying demonstration of his safety elevator at New York's Crystal Palace in 1854?

Elisha Otis had the hoist rope cut while he stood on the platform and his safety brake held; the first passenger elevator with it went into the Haughwout store at 488 Broadway in 1857.

The first practical hovercraft famously crossed which body of water in July 1959?

Christopher Cockerell's first practical hovercraft crossed the English Channel from Calais to Dover on 25 July 1959, the 50th anniversary of Blériot's flight; he joked the Navy called it a plane, the RAF a boat.

The 603 km/h rail speed record set in 2015 belongs to an experimental maglev from which country?

Japan's L0 Series maglev reached 603 km/h on the Yamanashi test track on 21 April 2015, a record for a crewed rail vehicle; the superconducting maglev was built for the planned Tokyo–Nagoya Chuo Shinkansen.

Uber's ride-hailing service first launched publicly in 2010 in which city?

UberCab, as it was first called, launched in San Francisco in mid-2010 as a black-car hailing app; co-founder Garrett Camp had been inspired by an $800 private-driver bill one New Year's Eve.

Ferdinand von Zeppelin's first airship made its maiden flight in 1900 over which body of water?

LZ 1 rose from a floating hangar on Lake Constance near Friedrichshafen on 2 July 1900 and stayed aloft about 18 minutes; the later Graf Zeppelin flew scheduled transatlantic services to Brazil.

Fulton's 1807 North River Steamboat carried passengers between New York City and which city?

The North River Steamboat, later known as the Clermont, ran the 150 miles up the Hudson from New York City to Albany in 32 hours in August 1807, proving commercial steam navigation viable.

The Magic Roundabout, five mini-roundabouts around one island, is in which English town?

Swindon's Magic Roundabout opened in 1972 near the County Ground football stadium; Frank Blackmore, inventor of the mini-roundabout, designed it so traffic can circulate in both directions around the central island.

The world's first passenger railway service, horse-drawn, began in 1807 in which country?

The Oystermouth Railway, later the Swansea and Mumbles Railway, began carrying fare-paying passengers in horse-drawn carriages along Swansea Bay in Wales on 25 March 1807; it later ran steam and electric trams.

The penny-farthing bicycle takes its name from what?

Seen from the side, the big front wheel and small rear wheel resembled a large penny leading a tiny farthing.

The Heinkel He 178, the world's first jet plane, first flew in August of which year?

Test pilot Erich Warsitz flew the He 178 on 27 August 1939, days before the war began; Hans von Ohain built its HeS 3 engine unaware of Frank Whittle's parallel work in Britain.

An aircraft's "black box" flight recorder is actually required to be painted which colour?

Australian scientist David Warren conceived the cockpit voice recorder in 1953 while working in Port Melbourne.

The first Express d'Orient of June 1883 ran from Paris to which city?

The Express d'Orient's first run on 5 June 1883 went only as far as Vienna; from October it continued to Giurgiu on the Danube, and through service reached Constantinople in 1889.

Grand Central Terminal in New York has 44 of what, spread over two levels?

Grand Central has 44 platforms serving 67 tracks on two levels, more than any other railway station in the world as of its centenary in 2013; the four-faced brass clock on the information booth is a famous meeting spot.

How long did Charles Lindbergh's 1927 solo flight from New York to Paris take?

The Spirit of St. Louis took off from Roosevelt Field on Long Island on 20 May 1927 and landed at Le Bourget about 33 and a half hours later, winning the $25,000 Orteig Prize.

US Route 66 ran from Chicago to which Californian city?

Route 66 ended at Santa Monica on the Pacific coast, its western terminus from 1936; established in 1926 and decommissioned in 1985, it was dubbed the 'Mother Road' in Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.

Stanislas Baudry's 1820s horse-drawn service, which gave the bus its name, ran in which French city?

Baudry's carriages in Nantes ran from the city centre to his bathhouse in the suburb of Richebourg; they stopped outside a hatter named Omnès whose sign read 'Omnes Omnibus', and the name stuck.

Which 1936 aircraft is regarded as the first successful, practical, fully controllable helicopter?

The Focke-Wulf Fw 61, with twin side-by-side rotors, first flew on 26 June 1936 and was demonstrated indoors by Hanna Reitsch in 1938; Sikorsky's R-4 later became the first helicopter in full production.

London's first hackney-coach rank of the 1630s stood outside the Maypole Inn on which street?

Captain John Bailey stationed four hackney coaches for hire at the Maypole in the Strand in 1634, the first such rank in London; coaches for hire had been documented in the city since 1605.

The hansom cab was patented in 1834 by Joseph Hansom, who worked as what?

Joseph Hansom was an architect, designer of Birmingham Town Hall and founder of The Builder magazine; his 1834 two-wheeled cab was light enough for one horse and nimble in London traffic.

Christopher Cockerell tested his hovercraft concept using a hairdryer and two tin cans that had held what?

Cockerell used tins that had held coffee and cat food, one nested inside the other, and blew air down the gap between them; the ring of fast-moving air formed the peripheral jet that kept the cushion in.

Which company originally owned 'Hovercraft' as a trademark?

Saunders-Roe, the Isle of Wight flying-boat builder that constructed the first hovercraft in 1959, registered 'Hovercraft' as a trademark, so rivals used names such as air-cushion vehicle; its hovercraft work passed to the British Hovercraft Corporation in 1966.