1909 in rail transport

This article lists events related to rail transport that occurred in 1909.

Events

January 1 - The Chemins de fer de l'Ouest in France is incorporated into the state-owned Chemins de fer de l'État.
January 26 - The Jamestown, Franklin and Clearfield Railroad, a predecessor of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, is formed from the merger of four smaller railroads in Pennsylvania.[1]
January 29 - The final spike is driven in the construction of the Virginian Railway at Glen Lyn, Virginia.

March 7 - The Winona Interurban Electric Railway (Indiana) is forced by its major creditor to begin operations on Sundays, a move resisted by its Sabbatarian founders, including H.J. Heinz and J. M. Studebaker.[2]

April 1 - Great Central Railway places turbine steamships on its Grimsby-Rotterdam service.
April 4 - Passenger service begins on the Chicago, Lake Shore and South Bend Railroad (predecessor of the Chicago South Shore and South Bend Railroad) between Hammond, Indiana, and Pullman, Illinois.[3]
April 12 - Gary, Indiana, United States: a westbound Chicago, Lake Shore and South Bend Railroad train runs past a meet point and causes a head-on collision with an eastbound train, killing twelve.[3]

K1, the first Garratt locomotive, photographed by its builders, Beyer, Peacock

May 17 - Firemen on the Georgia Railroad strike to protest the hiring of African-Americans.
May 26 – Los Angeles Pacific Railroad begins passenger service over the Santa Monica Air Line.[4]

June - George Whale retires as Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London and North Western Railway; he is succeeded by Charles Bowen-Cooke.
June 19 - Shadyside, Indiana, United States: an eastbound Chicago South Shore & South Bend Railroad train runs past a meet point and causes a head-on collision with a westbound train.

July 10 - The Great Northern Railway electrifies the 2.5-mile (4.0 km) original Cascade Tunnel, near the summit of Stevens Pass in the Cascade Mountains. This first system and General Electric-built boxcabs are the only three-phase AC railway electrification implementation ever to be used in North America.[5]
July 25 - Opening of Tauern Railway Line in Austria.[6]

August 30 - Great Western Railway begins using its Fishguard terminus in Wales for boat trains in connection with the Cunard steamships on Atlantic routes as a first port of call.
August - Canadian Pacific Railway opens the Spiral Tunnels to traffic on the line through Kicking Horse Pass.

September - Robert S. Lovett succeeds E. H. Harriman as president of the Southern Pacific Company, parent company of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Lovett also assumes the position of Chairman of the Executive Committee for the railroad.
September 17 - Beyer, Peacock and Company of Manchester, England, steam the first Garratt articulated steam locomotive built to the design of Herbert William Garratt, K1 for the North East Dundas Tramway.[7]

October 9 - The Alaska Northern Railroad Company (a predecessor of the Alaska Railroad) purchases the assets of the bankrupt Alaska Central Railway and subsequently extends the line northward another 34 km (21 mi).
October - Blue Nile Road and Railway Bridge completed at Khartoum in Sudan, the longest bridge in tropical Africa at this date.

November 1 - A Golden Spike ceremony is held on the Western Pacific Railroad. As no company officials were present, the local track foreman drove the last spike, the track crew shouted “Hooray!” and two women walking by with their children kissed each other.
November 3 - The Lethbridge Viaduct, one of the largest railway structures in Canada on the Canadian Pacific Railway near Lethbridge, Alberta, opens.
November 10 - Louis Brennan successfully demonstrates his gyroscopically-balanced monorail system, which he designed for military use and patented in 1903, at Gillingham, England.[8]
November 21 – Kagoshima Line, Mojiko of Kitakyushu, via Hakata of Fukuoka, Kumamoto, Hitoyoshi to Kagoshima route officially completed in Kyushu Island, Japan.

December 1 - The London, Brighton and South Coast Railway publicly inaugurates England's first suburban surface railway electrification system on its South London line, known as the "Elevated Electric" (overhead wire 6.7 kV a.c. at 25 Hz).[9]
December 20 - Henry Fowler is appointed Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Midland Railway of England, succeeding Richard Deeley.

The Nickel Plate Road begins a massive grade separation project in Cleveland, Ohio, to eliminate street grade crossings on the railroad's mainline in the city.
Albert Hunt invents the wigwag grade crossing protection signal for the Pacific Electric in Los Angeles, California.
Opening of the Jingzhang railway connecting Beijing with Zhangjiakou, first section of the Jingbao railway in northwestern China and the first railway designed and built by Chinese.
Reconstruction of Flinders Street railway station in Melbourne, Australia, is completed.

August 4 – Isabel Benham, American railroad financial expert, is born (d. 2013).

February 4 – Thomas Lowry, president of Minneapolis Street Railway 1877-1892, president of Twin City Rapid Transit, president of Soo Line Railroad 1889-1890 and 1892-1909, dies (b. 1843).

May 19 - Henry H. Rogers, American financier who helped finance and build the Virginian Railway (born 1840).

July 23 - Ernest F. Cambier, Belgian colonial pioneer who established the first Congo railway (born 1844).[10]

September 9 - E. H. Harriman, executive in charge of both the Union Pacific Railroad and the Southern Pacific Railroad (born 1848).

March 24 - Edward Entwistle, first driver of the Rocket locomotive (born 1815).[11]

New York Central Railroad (1913), New York Central Railroad System: Annual Report 1913 - History of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Archived August 13, 2012, at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved January 25, 2006.
Hilton, G. W.; Due, J. F. (1960). The Electric Interurban Railways in America. Stanford University Press.
"South Shore Railroad history". Chicago Post-Tribune. 2008-06-29. Retrieved 15 July 2011.
Sherman, R.P. (25 May 1909). "Air Line Flyer Service Put On To Santa Monica". Los Angeles Herald. p. 5. Retrieved 8 September 2020.
Hidy, Ralph Willard; Hidy, Muriel E.; Scott, Roy V. (2004). The Great Northern Railway: A History. University of Minnesota Press. p. 115. ISBN 978-0-8166-4429-2.
Balkwill, Richard; Marshall, John (1993). The Guinness Book of Railway Facts and Feats (6th ed.). Enfield: Guinness Publishing. ISBN 978-0-85112-707-1.
"K1: the world's first Garratt". Archived from the original on 2007-08-06. Retrieved 2007-07-15.
The Monorail Society. "Monorails in History". Archived from the original on 9 November 2005. Retrieved 2005-11-08.
Turner, John Howard (1979). The London, Brighton and South Coast Railway, III: Completion and Maturity. London: Batsford. ISBN 978-0-7134-1389-2.
"July 23 Deaths in History". Brainymedia.com. 2005. Retrieved 2005-07-19.
Entwistle, Richard (2011-03-30). "Edward Entwistle of Rocket Fame". Entwistle Family History Association Forum. Archived from the original on 2015-06-10. Retrieved 2013-10-11.

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