traffic in Bülowstrasse, Berlin, pre-WW1

With the elevated U-Bahn train tracks in the central view. See earlier posts.

1959 Imperial LeBaron 4-door Silvercrest Landau

"Does this dress show off my figure?"
"No. It looks like a sack for potatoes."

Ural Airlines Airbus A321 crash lands in a field after birds get into jet engines

Moscow — A passenger jet made an emergency landing in a field outside of one of Moscow's airports Thursday after colliding with a flock of birds, injuring dozens of people, Russian officials said. The Ural Airlines A321 carrying 226 passengers and a crew of seven hit the birds as it took off Thursday from Moscow's Zhukovsky airport en route for Simferopol, in Crimea.

The airline said in a statement that the birds got into both of the plane's engines, causing them to malfunction. The pilot then made an emergency landing in a cornfield about half a mile from the airport.

Russia's Ministry of Health said 55 people received medical assistance on the scene and 29 were taken to an area hospital, including 10 children and one pregnant woman. Only one woman was kept hospitalized, however, and her condition was assessed as moderate.

full CBS News story

It recalls the emergency in New York when the same thing happened to a US Airways flight on 15 January 2009 requiring the plane's pilots to 'land' on the Hudson River -- details

1920 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost

$806 million contract will bring L.A.'s Metro Gold Line to Pomona

Metro’s Gold Line is on its way to Pomona, after the agency tasked with constructing an extension of the light rail line approved an $806 million contract with builder Kiewit-Parsons to add 9 miles [14.5 km] to the existing route.

That’s short of the 12.3-mile [19.8 km] project originally planned, which would have reached Claremont and the San Bernardino County city of Montclair. But construction costs proved higher than anticipated, forcing Metro and the Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority to break up the project into two parts.

The authority initially proposed temporarily ending the line in La Verne, near the Los Angeles County Fairplex. But last week, San Gabriel Valley leaders unanimously agreed to spend $126 million to close a funding gap for the rail project, allowing the first phase of construction to reach Pomona.

If money becomes available later, local leaders will have the option to tack an additional $381 million onto the value of the contract in order to bring the train to Montclair, as originally planned. They’ll have to act quickly though; that provision expires in two years.

“This is a crucial project for not only our residents in the San Gabriel Valley, but for all of Southern California,” Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis said in a statement last week.

More than $1 billion in Measure M funding is devoted to the project already, but the construction authority revealed last year that wouldn’t be enough to complete the project originally envisioned.

Right now, the Gold Line runs between East LA and Azusa, though the northern and southern portions of the route will be divided up once Metro’s Regional Connector project wraps up in 2022.

Full article

1949 Nash Airflyte

passenger train at Newmarket, Auckland, early 20th century

What looks like an A class 'Pacific' on the front; probably a helper has been taken off.  The number of cars suggests it is a Main Trunk express. For lots more, see our books,

1956 Austin A40

1935 Ford truck used in agricultural work, Tasman region, NZ

The date of the photo is unknown.

Henschel 5 tonne HC9TL truck

One notes the small Commer brand plate beneath the larger Henschel one.