1933 - Transportation

Transportation

The Baltic-White Sea Stalin Ship Canal opens in the Soviet Union to link Povenets on Lake Onega with Belmorsk on the White Sea. Slave labor has built the 140-mile canal in 2 years at a cost of some 250,000 lives, but its shallow draft and primitive wooden locks will soon make it obsolete (see 1923; Moscow-Volga Canal, 1937).

The Illinois Waterway linking the Great Lakes with the Gulf of Mexico via the Mississippi River opens officially at Chicago June 22.

The S.S. Europa of the North German-Lloyd line crosses from Cherbourg to New York in 4 days, 16 hours, 48 minutes, breaking the transatlantic speed record set by her sister ship S.S. Bremen in 1929.

The Italian Line's new passenger liner S.S. Rex sets a new transatlantic speed record by crossing from Cherbourg to New York in 4 days, 13 hours, 58 minutes. Built at Genoa on orders from Benito Mussolini, she carries 2,100 passengers and wins the Hales Trophy, an enamel-and-gold award created by George Hales, MP, to be given to the fastest liner on the North Atlantic run.

The S.S. Queen of Bermuda goes into service for Furness, Withy & Co., whose 22,575-ton ship is slightly larger than the 2-year-old Monarch of Bermuda and will remain in service until 1966.

United Fruit Co.'s Great White Fleet grows to include 95 vessels (see 1899).

The Warsaw Convention signed by representatives of several European countries in October 1929 takes effect February 13, providing for a uniform liability code and uniform documentation on tickets and cargo for international carriers. It limits liability for loss of life or injury to $8,300 except where willful misconduct can be proved (the convention is designed to keep large damage claims from putting fledgling airlines out of business). Britain will not become a party to the convention until March 1934, the United States not until the end of July 1934.

Amelia Earhart flies from Los Angeles to Newark July 1, making the flight in 17 hours, 17 minutes.

Air France is founded August 30 by a merger of France's Aeropostale with an aircraft manufacturing company headed by Louis Breguet, 53, who built and flew his first plane in 1907.

General Motors assumes leadership in U.S. motorcar sales, with Chrysler second, Ford third, but Ford last year offered a redesigned Model A as a Model B with an optional V-8 engine and a $460 price tag (versus $410 for the four-cylinder model); it can reach a speed of 75 miles per hour (for the sedan, 80 for the roadster). Some 300,000 have been sold despite the depressed economy (see 1936).

A new Pontiac coupe sells for $585, a new Chevrolet half-ton pickup truck for $650, a 1929 Ford for $58.

Rolls-Royce cofounder Sir Henry Royce dies at West Wittering, Sussex, April 22 at age 70.

Adolf Hitler takes over Autobahn construction and claims it as a National Socialist Party effort (see 1932). "We are setting up a program the execution of which we do not want to leave to posterity," he says, and construction resumes in September with thousands of previously unemployed men working under the direction of engineer Fritz Todt (see 1935).

Raleigh bicycles are introduced in America (see 1888; Sturmey-Archer gears, 1902), but the lightweight bike costs substantially more than domestic makes.

Chicago bicycle maker Ignaz Schwinn, now 73, introduces sturdier-framed bikes with balloon tires based on motorcycle tires in an effort to revive flagging sales (see 1895). The streamlined new models attract youngsters (see 1938).

London's Underground displays a new subway diagram designed by draftsman Henry C. Beck, 29, that is geographically inaccurate but provides such a beautifully organized image of the city that it will be retained into the next century.

Osaka's first subway line opens May 20 between Umeda and Shinsaibashi with Japan's first publicly funded line, beginning a system that will grow by 1997 to be a 114-kilometer network carrying 957 million passengers per year.

New York's new Independent subway line begins the F train from 179th Street in Jamaica to Manhattan and thence to Coney Island's Stillwell Avenue. The trip takes 85 minutes. The A train goes into service on the BMT. The new express will be extended from 207th Street in Manhattan to Far Rockaway or Lefferts Boulevard—a journey of 100 minutes for 5¢ (see Popular songs, 1941). The D train goes into service on the BMT from 205th Street in the Bronx to Coney Island's Stillwell Avenue—an 85-minute journey for 5¢.