Passenger

PASSENGERS IN HISTORY

When the bubonic plague gripped Europe during the Middle Ages, ships would be isolated in the harbor for forty days before passengers could go ashore. The Italian word for 40 is quaranta, hence quarantine.

The word 'coach' derives from the name of the Hungarian town Kocs, where multi-passenger wheeled vehicles first appeared around 1500.

Fairman Rogers' Four-in-hand, by Thomas Eakins, Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, 1880

The first passengers in the history of aviation were a cockerel, a sheep and a duck, transported for five miles by hot-air balloon in 1783. All emerged unscathed, except for the cockerel which was kicked by the sheep shortly before lift-off.

The Scottish poet Robbie Burns was a passenger when Patrick Miller experimented with a steam-driven vessel on Dalswinton Loch in 1788. Though successful Miller abandoned the project due to the cost.

The world's first-ever railway passengers were Welsh. They travelled from Swansea to Mumbles in a horse-drawn converted truck along a specially-laid iron track in 1807.

The Clermont was the first steamboat to achieve commercial success. It carried passengers between New York City and Albany, New York along the Hudson River, making the 150-mile (240 km) trip in 32 hours.

The 1909 replica of the Clermont Steamboat

The first passenger-carrying steamboat in Europe was the Comet, designed by the Scottish engineer Henry Bell (1767-1830), which was launched in 1812 on the River Clyde. Bell initially advertised a three times a week passenger service travelling between Glasgow, Greenock and Helensburgh. Soon afterwards the journey was extended to Oban and Fort-William, the entire voyage taking four days.

In 1817 the Black Ball Line offered the first regular passenger service with emphasis on passenger comfort running between Liverpool, England and New York City. For the first ten years the passages of the fleet averaged 23 days outward and 40 days to the westward.

The first horse-drawn omnibus service was started by a businessman named Stanislas Baudry in the French city of Nantes in 1823 using two spring-suspended carriages, each for 16 passengers.

The Canterbury and Whitstable Railway, which opened in 1830 was the first steam hauled passenger railway to issue season tickets.

The Electromote was the world's first passenger carrying electric trolleybus, The Electromote was fed through trolley poles by overhead wires and  was presented to the public in 1882 in Halensee, Germany, but was dismantled in the same year after the demonstration.

World's first trolleybus, Berlin 1882

Provisions for the 2,229 passengers and crew on board RMS Titanic when she sailed in April 1912 included 200 barrels of flour, 40,000 fresh eggs, 2.75 tons of tomatoes and 100,000lb of fresh meat, poultry and game. Those in First and Second Class ate their main meal in the evening; Third Class passengers, were served their ‘dinner’ at midday.

Crosswords were so popular among U.S. commuters in the 1920s that the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad provided dictionaries for passengers.

The first scheduled jet airliner passenger service began in May of 1952.with the de Havilland Comet flying between London and Johannesburg, carrying 36 passengers.

NS Savannah, the first nuclear-powered cargo-passenger ship, made her maiden voyage in August 20, 1962.

NS (Nuclear Ship) Savannah, enroute to the World's Fair in Seattle.

In 1996, Venetian gondoliers stopped singing to their passengers to avoid a tax on musicians.

The RMS Queen Mary 2, the largest passenger ship ever built, was christened by her namesake's granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II in 2004.

FUN PASSENGER FACTS

The Port of Miami is recognized, and has retained its status as the number one cruise/passenger port in the world since the mid-1990s. It accommodates some of the world's largest cruise ships and operations, and is the busiest port in both passenger traffic and cruise lines.

Aerial view of the Port of Miami

Airlines are said to buy 50 per cent of the world's stock of caviar for first-class passengers.

On an average day there are 1.8 million passengers in the sky over the United States.

The Beijing Subway is the world's busiest subway in annual ridership, with 3.41 billion trips delivered in 2014.

Line 2 platform at Xizhimen. By Jucember - Wikipedia

The world’s busiest railway station is Shinjuku in Tokyo, Japan, with a reported 3.64 million passengers passing through its 200-odd exits every day.

The train schedule in Tokyo is so reliable that if they run more than five minutes late, they issue a note to passengers to prove to their employers that it was the train's fault they were late to work.

Source Daily Mail