Events
February events
- February 26 – The Somerville and Easton Railroad, a predecessor of the Central Railroad of New Jersey, is chartered.
March events
- March 9 – The Richmond and Danville Railroad is chartered in Virginia.
- March 15 – The Amiens-Boulogne line in France opens between Abbeville and Étaples.
- March 16 – The Leeds and Bradford Extension Railway opens between Shipley and Keighley in West Yorkshire, England.
- March – First ever 4-6-0 locomotive, the Chesapeake, completed by the Norris Locomotive Works for the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad.
April events
- April 19 – The Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, a predecessor of the New York Central Railroad, officially changes its name to Albany and Schenectady Railroad.
May events
- May 24 – The Dee bridge disaster: a cast iron girder bridge across the river Dee at Chester, England, designed by Robert Stephenson for the Chester and Holyhead Railway, collapses under a Shrewsbury and Chester Railway train with five fatalities.
- May 31 – The first railway connection between Rotterdam and The Hague opens in the Netherlands.
June events
- June – The first Bradshaws Continental Railway Guide timetable is published by George Bradshaw in England.
- June 26 – Opening of first railway wholly within modern-day Denmark, from Copenhagen to Roskilde.
July events
- July 9 – The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway is incorporated as an amalgamation of several important railway lines in Northern England.
- July 28 – Bristol and Exeter Railway's Clevedon branch line opens.
August events
- August 9 – Opening of first railway wholly within Switzerland, the Swiss Northern Railway from Zürich to Baden.
October events
- October – Portland Company's locomotive erecting shops opened for business.
December events
- December 1
- The London and North Western Railway opens its Trent Valley Line to give a more direct route for the West Coast Main Line to North West England, bypassing Birmingham.
- The first time zone in the world is established by British railways with GMT hand-carried on chronometers.
Unknown date events
- John Urpeth Rastrick retires from Foster, Rastrick and Company, the English firm that built the first steam locomotives for the Delaware and Hudson Railroad.
Births
October births
- October 6 – Webb C. Ball, watchmaker who introduced the first truly reliable and accurate timepieces on American railroads.
Deaths
- November 16 – Thomas Kirtley, locomotive superintendent of North Midland Railway 1843–1844, and London, Brighton and South Coast Railway in 1847, dies (b. 1811).