Events

January events

  • January – Opening throughout of first railroad in Africa and the Middle East, from Alexandria to Cairo, Egypt ().
  • January 29 – The 223-mile North Carolina Railroad is completed from Goldsboro through Raleigh and Salisbury to Charlotte.

March events

  • March 23 or 26 – Cambridge Railroad street railway opens in Boston (United States), giving the city the world's oldest continuously working streetcar system.

April events

  • April 19 – Death of American locomotive builder Thomas Rogers, following which his son, Jacob S. Rogers, reorganizes Rogers, Ketchum and Grosvenor as Rogers Locomotive and Machine Works.
  • April 21 – The first railroad bridge across the Mississippi River opens between Rock Island, Illinois, and Davenport, Iowa.

May events

  • May 1 – First section of Bombay, Baroda and Central India Railway opens, between Ankleshwar and Utran.
  • May 6 – The newly constructed sidewheeler Effie Afton runs into one of the supports for the first railroad bridge across the Mississippi River, causing a fire that destroys the bridge just two weeks after it had opened.

July events

  • July 14 – The Rome and Frascati Rail Road opens for service.
  • July 17 – The Great Train Wreck (the worst railroad calamity in the world up to this date) occurs near Philadelphia in the United States.

September events

  • September 16 – Tarragona–Reus line in Spain opens.
  • September 21 – The Illinois Central Railroad connects Chicago to Cairo, Illinois, completing 700 miles (1,126 km) of track to become the longest railway in the United States.
  • September 22 – The Oriental Railway Company is granted the concession to build the first railway in Turkey, from İzmir to Aydın.

October events

  • October 23 – The line that is now Belgian railway line 161 is completed and opened connecting Brussels-North and Namur stations.
  • October 28 – Opening of first railway in Portugal, from Lisbon to Carregado ().

Deaths

January deaths

  • January 8 – Charles "Joe" Baldwin, conductor on the Wilmington and Manchester Railroad

March deaths

  • March 11 – James Beatty, Irish engineer who was involved in building the European and North American Railway and the Grand Crimean Central Railway (b. 1820).

April deaths

  • April 19 – Thomas Rogers, American steam locomotive builder, dies in New York (b. 1792).
  • April 20 – Robert L. Stevens, president of Camden and Amboy Railroad (b. 1787).

November deaths

  • November 1 - John Urpeth Rastrick, English steam locomotive builder and partner in Foster, Rastrick and Company (b. 1780).

References

  • Rivanna Chapter National Railway Historical Society (2005), This month in railroad history: September. Retrieved September 21, 2005.