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Events

January events

  • January 20 &ndash; The Grand Trunk Western Railroad opens a passenger depot in Lansing, Michigan.
  • January 28 &ndash; Esmond Train Wreck: fourteen people are killed when the Crescent City Express (No. 8, bound for Benson, Arizona) collides head-on with the bound Pacific Coast Express (No. 7, bound for Tucson).

February events

  • February 12 &ndash; North British Locomotive Company established as a locomotive builder in Glasgow, Scotland, by merger of Dübs & Company, Neilson, Reid & Company, and Sharp, Stewart & Company. In April it receives its first new order for steam locomotives, from India.

March events

  • March 3 &ndash; Baker valve gear for steam locomotives is first patented in the United States.

April events

  • April 7 &ndash; Apalachicola Northern Railroad, later to become AN Railway, is chartered.

May events

  • May 3 &ndash; The Mersey Railway, operating between Birkenhead and Liverpool by tunnel beneath the River Mersey, England, converts from steam to electric traction.
  • May 13 &ndash; The Fremont, Elkhorn & Missouri Valley Railroad (later to become part of Chicago & North Western Railway) begins passenger train service to Casper, Wyoming.
  • May 25 &ndash; The Lackawanna & Wyoming Valley Railroad opens, becoming the first railroad in the United States to use an electrified third rail to power its trains.

July events

  • July &ndash; Regular passenger traffic from Saint Petersburg to Vladivostok over the Trans-Siberian and Chinese Eastern Railways begins.
  • July 1 &ndash; Opening of the Albula Railway portion of the Rhaetian Railway (RhB) (metre gauge) in Switzerland, passing through the Albula Tunnel, the highest of the principal Alpine tunnels at 1370 m.
  • July 13 &ndash; Danbury Union Station in Danbury, Connecticut, on the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, opens.
  • July 27
  • Construction begins on the Baghdad Railway with the segment between Konya and Bulgurlu<!--Redlinked in :de:Bagdadbahn, blacklinked in :tr:Bağdat Demiryolu--> in the Ottoman Empire (modern day Turkey).
  • Glasgow St Enoch rail accident, Scotland: sixteen killed when a train crashes into the buffers.

August events

  • August 10 &ndash; Paris Metro train fire, France: electric fire on Paris Métro at Couronnes; 84 killed.
  • August 17 &ndash; The Great Western Railway becomes the first British railway company to operate its own road motor services (i.e. buses), between Helston and The Lizard in Cornwall.

September events

thumb|Aftermath of the [[Wreck of the Old 97 a few days after the accident.]]

  • September 27 &ndash; Wreck of the Old 97, Danville, Virginia, United States: A southbound Southern Railway passenger train derails on a trestle in Danville; eleven people are killed.

October events

  • October &ndash; Experimental electric trains, built by AEG and Siemens & Halske, reach 210.2&nbsp;km/h (130.6&nbsp;mph) between Marienfelde and Zossen in Germany.
  • October 1
  • The first railway in Norway rebuilt to double track, from Bryn to Lillestrøm on the Hovedbanen, is opened.
  • The Gold Coast Government Railway is extended from Obuasi to Kumasi.
  • October 21 &ndash; Howard Elliott succeeds Charles Sanger Mellen as president of Northern Pacific Railway.
  • October 26 &ndash; The Key System begins operating their first streetcar-ferry service, the Berkeley line in Berkeley, California.
  • October 31 &ndash; The Purdue Wreck, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA: A Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis Railway football special carrying the Purdue University football team and fans to the annual game with Indiana University collides with a coal train. Fourteen of the team and three other passengers are killed.

November events

thumb|[[Kalka-Shimla Railway]]

  • November 9 &ndash; The gauge Kalka-Shimla Railway opens in India.

December events

  • December 14 &ndash; The New York, New Haven and Hartford introduces the all-parlor car Merchants Limited between Boston and New York City.

Unknown date events

  • The British Engineering Standards Committee draws up specifications for eight standard steam locomotive designs for the broad gauge Indian Railways.
  • Southern Pacific Railroad gains 50% control of the Pacific Electric system in Los Angeles, California.
  • The Wilkes-Barre & Hazleton Railway opens as the first railroad to have a guarded third rail.
  • The provisions of the Railroad Safety Appliance Act, enacted in 1893, are extended to include all railroad cars whether or not the cars themselves are used in interchange service.
  • Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway introduces the first 2-10-2 compound locomotives (built by Baldwin Locomotive Works) into service.
  • Edward Harriman becomes president of the Union Pacific.
  • George Whale succeeds Francis William Webb as Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London & North Western Railway.

Accidents

Births

April births

  • April 10 &ndash; Edward T. Reidy, last president of Chicago Great Western Railway 1957–1968.

Deaths

March deaths

  • March 29 &ndash; Gustavus Franklin Swift, founder of Swift & Company which pioneered the use of refrigerator cars in late 19th century America (born 1839)

July deaths

  • July 27 &ndash; Frederick Kimball, American civil engineer who was instrumental in the formation of Norfolk & Western (born 1844).

Unknown date deaths

  • John Elfreth Watkins, railroad civil engineer and first curator for the Smithsonian Institution's railroad artifacts including John Bull.

References