1856 in rail transport

This article lists events related to rail transport that occurred in 1856.

Events

January – Opening throughout of first railroad in Africa and the Middle East, from Alexandria to Cairo, Egypt (208 km or 129 mi).[1][2]
January 29 – The 223-mile North Carolina Railroad is completed from Goldsboro through Raleigh and Salisbury to Charlotte.[3]

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 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.[4]

May 1 – First section of Bombay, Baroda and Central India Railway opens, between Ankleshwar and Utran.[5]
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.[4]

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 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 23 – The line that is now Belgian railway line 161 is completed and opened connecting Brussels-North and Namur stations.[7]
October 28 – Opening of first railway in Portugal, from Lisbon to Carregado (37 km or 23 mi).[1]

December 1 – Opening of first steam-operated passenger railways in Sweden, from Gothenburg to Jonsered (15 km or 9.3 mi) and Malmö to Lund (17 km or 11 mi).[1]

February 2 – Frederick William Vanderbilt, director of the New York Central system (d. 1938).

December 30 – Sam Fay, General manager of the Great Central Railway of England, 1902–1922 (d. 1953).[8]

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

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 19 – Thomas Rogers, American steam locomotive builder, dies in New York (b. 1792).[9]
April 20 – Robert L. Stevens, president of Camden and Amboy Railroad (b. 1787).

Brief biographies of major mechanical engineers. Retrieved February 9, 2005.
Rivanna Chapter National Railway Historical Society (2005), This month in railroad history: September. Retrieved September 21, 2005.
White, John H. Jr. (1968). A history of the American locomotive; its development: 1830–1880. New York, NY: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-23818-0.

Marshall, John (1989). The Guinness Railway Book. Enfield: Guinness Books. ISBN 0-8511-2359-7. OCLC 24175552.
Raafat, Jordan (1998-03-05). "Desert Train Heralds Train Tourism In Egypt". Jordan Star. Archived from the original on 2006-12-07. Retrieved 2007-03-18.
"Railroads — prior to the Civil War". North Carolina Business History. 2006. Archived from the original on 26 July 2011. Retrieved 2011-08-26.
Willard, John (2006-01-31). "Dinner marks 150th birthday of the first railroad crossing on the Mississippi". Quad City Times. Retrieved 2006-01-31.
Saxena, R. P. (2008). "Indian Railway History Time Line". Archived from the original on 2012-02-29. Retrieved 2009-12-23.
Lind, Alan R. (1986). Limiteds Along the Lakefront: The Illinois Central in Chicago. Park Forest, IL: Transport History Press. pp. 5–7. OCLC 20171887.
"Ligne 161: Bruxelles-Nord – Namur". Chemins de fer Belges (in Dutch).
Dow, George (1965). Great Central, Vol. 3: Fay sets the pace 1900–1922. London: Locomotive Publishing Co.
Marshall, John (2003). Biographical Dictionary of Railway Engineers. Oxford: Railway and Canal Historical Society. ISBN 0-901461-22-9.

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