1896 in rail transport
Events
January events
- January 23 – Construction begins on the Northwestern Elevated line of the Chicago 'L' with the first structure erected at the intersection of Fullerton and Sheffield Avenues.[1]
February events
- February 14 – Northern Pacific Railway opens its Union Station in Portland, Oregon.
- February 24 – Erie Railroad purchases the New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio Railroad.[2]
March events
- March 20 – The Grand Trunk Railway purchases the Central Vermont Railway and begins operating it as a wholly owned subsidiary.
April events
- April 6 – The Snowdon Mountain Railway in North Wales, the only Abt rack system line in the British Isles, commences public operation; however, a derailment leading to one fatality causes services to be suspended for a year.[3]
- April 15 – Passenger rail service of the Henry Flagler Florida East Coast Railway arrives at its new terminus in Miami from West Palm Beach at the persuasion of Julia Tuttle; this quickly leads to incorporation of the city of Miami months later and extensive development of the Greater Miami, South Florida and the Keys.[4][5][6][7]
May events
- May 2 – Budapest Metro Line 1 (Hungary), the world's second, is opened by Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria.[8]
- May 9 – First Nord Express, Paris, France/Oostend, Belgium, to Saint Petersburg, Russia.
- May 13 – The Pretoria–Pietersburg Railway, a predecessor of the Central South African Railways, is incorporated in London.
- May 30 – Construction of the Uganda Railway starts at Mombasa.[9]
June events
- June 29 – The St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad Company (predecessor of the St. Louis–San Francisco Railway) is incorporated.
July events
- July 23 – Delivery of world's first commercially-built oil-engined locomotive, from Richard Hornsby & Sons of Grantham, England to the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, London (18 in (460 mm) gauge).[10]
- July 30 – Atlantic City rail crash: Shortly after 6:30 PM, at a crossing just west of Atlantic City, New Jersey, two trains collide, crushing five loaded passenger coaches, killing 50 and seriously injuring around 60.
September events
- September 15 – The Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad (the 'Katy') conveys 40,000 people to Crush, Texas to witness a staged train wreck as a publicity stunt arranged by its general passenger agent, William George Crush. Three spectators are accidentally killed.[11]
October events
- October 5 – Norwegian Railway Museum established at Hamar.[12]
December events
- December 14 – Glasgow Subway, the third oldest metro system in the world, begins operations in Glasgow, Scotland.
- December 25 – Japanese National Railways opens two lines out of Tabata: an extension of the Tsuchiura Line from Tsuchiura, and the Sumidagawa Line to Sumidagawa.
- December 30 – SS Pere Marquette, the first steel train ferry, makes its first voyage.
Unknown date events
- The Green Bay and Western Railroad is formed from the bankruptcy proceedings of the Green Bay, Winona and Saint Paul Railroad.
- The Loup Creek & Deepwater Railway (predecessor of the Deepwater Railway) is formed.
- Atlas Car and Manufacturing Company of Cleveland, Ohio, begins building steam locomotives.
- Beyer, Peacock and Company of Manchester, England, deliver the first five New South Wales T524 class 'Australian Consolidation' 2-8-0 type heavy goods locomotives to the New South Wales Government Railways, forerunners of the system's numerically largest class, finally totalling 280 representatives.
- Narrow gauge Ferrocarril de Tacubaya begins passenger service to Mexico City's Tacubaya amusement park.[13]
- The first narrow gauge (750 mm) railway in Estonia connecting Valga with Pärnu is opened.[14]
Deaths
January deaths
- January 23 – Ferdinand Schichau, German mechanical engineer and founder of locomotive manufacturing company Schichau-Werke, dies (b. 1814).
June deaths
- June 4 – Austin Corbin, president of Long Island Rail Road (b. 1827).
October deaths
- October 21 – James Henry Greathead, English inventor of the tunnelling shield used for the London Underground (b. 1844).[15]
References
- Chicago "L".org, Northwestern Elevated (1893–1924). Retrieved January 23, 2006.
- Western New York Railroad Archive (December 17, 2005), Erie Railroad – History Archived 2006-05-02 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved December 28, 2005.
- Kardas, Handel (April 1997). "Britain's worst railway opening day – Ladas and the Snowdon Mountain Railway". Railway World. 58 (683): 66–71.
- "The first train of Henry Flagler's Florida East Coast Railroad arrived in Miami". Florida Historical Quarterly. Cocoa, Florida: Florida Historical Society. Retrieved October 31, 2016.
- Bramson, Seth (2003). Speedway to Sunshine: The Story of the Florida East Coast Railway. Boston Mills Press. pp. 145–. ISBN 978-1-55046-358-3.
- Burke, J. Wills (2004). The Streets of Key West: A History Through Street Names. Pineapple Press Inc. pp. 176–. ISBN 978-1-56164-317-2.
- Bramson, Seth H. (2007). Miami: The Magic City. Arcadia Publishing. pp. 130–. ISBN 978-0-7385-4368-0.
- The Millennium Subway Line of Budapest
- Miller, Charles (1971). The Lunatic Express. New York: Macdonald. ISBN 978-0-02-584940-2.
- Webb, Brian (1973). The British Internal Combustion Locomotive 1894–1940. Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0-7153-6115-5.
- Hamilton, Allen Lee. "Crash at Crush". Handbook of Texas Online. University of Texas at Austin. Retrieved 2007-04-15.
- "Norwegian Railway Museum – Hamar". Retrieved 2010-01-28.
- Best, Gerald M. (1968). Mexican Narrow Gauge. Howell-North.
- "Ajalugu" (in Estonian). Eesti Raudtee. Archived from the original on 2017-09-23. Retrieved 23 April 2012.
- Marshall, John (2003). Biographical Dictionary of Railway Engineers (2nd ed.). Oxford: Railway and Canal Historical Society. ISBN 0-901461-22-9.
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