cars in Barstow, California, circa 1960

This was during the golden era of Route 66 travel before the Interstate bypass reduced downtown traffic. The Greyhound bus terminal visible on the left was historically located at 111 East Main Street; in 1975 a new station was opened at 1611 East Main Street.

Present day view

cars in Stafford St, Timaru NZ, 1950s

In the center is a 1951 or 1952 Chevrolet Styleline (or Deluxe) four-door sedan operating as a taxi. (colorized)

mid-1920s Buicks in Gore NZ

Left: a Buick Touring/Phæton model (a multi-passenger family car). Right: a Buick Roadster model (a sporty, two-door open-top car).

Present day view

a New Zealand NAC Boeing 737-200 at night circa 1968

Probably at Christchurch airport just after these were introduced.  For lots more, get the book The Aircraft of Air New Zealand and affiliates since 1940,

'big good real books give me so much pleasure'

Sydney prison tram from 1909, Australia

This was a heavily secured electric tramcar which holds the status as arguably the world's only purpose-built prison tram from the ground up. 

Built at the Randwick Tramway Workshops in 1909, it was explicitly used by the New South Wales Police Department to transfer inmates between the Long Bay Penal Institution (Gaol) and the Darlinghurst Court House. It ran four times a day for forty years.

To keep inmates away from the public gaze, the 15-tonne tram featured a steel floor, thick drab walls, a side corridor, and six heavily secured, windowless cell compartments (four for men, two for women) capable of holding 48 prisoners total. It proudly displayed a "No Passengers" sign on the front and rear windows because prisoners were not legally classified as paying passengers. 

Despite its imposing, escape-proof reputation, it became notorious on March 4, 1946. While the tram was traveling through Kensington, a famous Sydney criminal named Darcy Dugan (along with an accomplice) used a serrated bread knife stolen from the prison kitchen to cut a hole straight through the tram's thin, canvas-covered wooden roof, climbing out while the tram was in motion. 

The tram was withdrawn from service in early 1950 when the police department transitioned to road transport. Today, the fully restored, real-world Prison Tram 948 is on permanent display at the Sydney Tramway Museum in Loftus, South Sydney, where visitors can still see the patch on the roof from Dugan's legendary escape. 

A scale model by Redfern Tramworks is about to be released (second pic above)

cars in Bermidji, Minnesota, early 1950s

The dark-colored car parked on the far left in front of the Rex Café looks like a 1951 or 1952 Kaiser Deluxe (or Manhattan) sedan. It is identifiable by its distinctive "widow's peak" dip at the top center of the windshield, unique grille profile, and rounded body lines characteristic of Kaiser-Frazer styling from that specific era. 

1948 Ford DeLuxe convertible

 

Toshiba-built Buenos Aires suburban train at Arata, Argentina

These EMUs are powered from a 600V DC third-rail system. Seen on the Urquiza Line in Parque Chas (near La Paternal and Agronomía).

Great Eastern Railway Class T26 (LNER Class E4) 2-4-0, England

British Railways/LNER/GER 2-4-0 steam locomotive #62785 at Mildenhall railway station in Suffolk. 100 of these were built between 1891 and 1902. The scene is not as old as it looks, a pic from a Cambridge University Railway Club special railtour on 28 November 1959. 

Info

Meeting d'Aviation in Nice, France poster, 1910

What today we would call an airshow.

2-8-0 'Consolidation' type steam locomotive at the highest point on Peru's railway, circa 1910

Built by the Rogers Locomotive Works. The railway pass today is operated by the private concessionaire Ferrocarril Central Andino (FCCA). While the open-air tracks right at Ticlio station are mostly bypassed by modern traffic via the nearby Galera Summit Tunnel (which pierces the mountain ridge at an altitude of 15,692 feet / 4,783 meters), the trans-Andean mainline itself remains fully operational.

fishing boats on the Danish island of Bornholm, 1959

Short S.8 Calcutta flying boat art 1928

Imperial Airways ("The Modern Way") was a British early commercial long-distance airline operating from 1924 to 1939. See earlier posts.

'I like to read a good real book with my morning coffee'

Southern Peru Copper Corporation (SPCC) Alco RS-11 locomotive

SPCC purchased 5 units new from ALCO: Delivered directly from the builder between 1956 and 1959, assigned road numbers 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8. plus 3 units acquired second-hand from the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP) in the mid-1970s, assigned road numbers 11, 12, and 13. While the SPCC roster has historically included nearly 50 different locomotives, their current active line-up has been consolidated down to roughly 24 to 26 active mainline engines. Much of their daily mine operations shifted heavily to truck hauling, which allowed them to retire older models like the original ALCO RS-11 fleets.

SPCC operates an industrial private railway network that spans approximately 133 to 149 miles (214 to 240 km) of standard-gauge track. The primary artery of the system is the Toquepala-Cuajone-Ilo line, which connects their high-altitude Andean open-pit copper mines to the coastal processing infrastructure.

1930s French Aéropostale poster with South American destinations

Perhaps a Latécoère 28 is meant to be depicted. The map shows a north to south route running from Toulouse through Casablanca and Dakar, crossing the South Atlantic to Natal, Rio de Janeiro, and Buenos Aires.

NZH Blauwe Tram (Blue Tram) interurban tram set, Netherlands, circa 1960

In Tramstraat in Katwijk. NZH stood for Noord-Zuid-Hollandsche Tramweg-Maatschappij. See earlier post.

cars in Ratibor, Germany, late 1930s

In the street (Bahnhofstrasse) is a 1935 Ford Model C Ten; the one near the streetmap could be a 1926 Buick Standard Six sedan. Ratibor has been Raciborz in Poland since 1945. (colorized)

1970s Polski Fiat 126p

Seen in Chorzow. This car was manufactured under license in Poland by FSM and became something of a cultural icon being affectionately known as the "Maluch" (meaning "The Little One" or "Toddler")