1917 in rail transport
Events
Hell Gate Bridge when new
January events
- January 3 - Ratho rail crash in Scotland: North British Railway H class locomotive 874 Dunedin, in charge of an Edinburgh to Glasgow express train, collides with a light engine at Queensferry Junction near Ratho Station, leaving 12 people dead and 46 seriously injured; the cause is found to be inadequate signalling procedures.[1]
February events
- February 27 - The Milwaukee Road completes the electrification of its 440 miles (710 km) line from Harlowton, Montana, to Avery, Idaho.
March events
- March 9 - Official opening of the Hell Gate Bridge in New York City.
- March 12 - The Pere Marquette Railroad is reincorporated as the Pere Marquette Railway.
- March 19 - The United States Supreme Court upholds the eight-hour workday for railroads.
April events
Locomotive of Lenin’s train, on which he arrived at Finland Station, Petrograd in April 1917.
- April 3–16 (NS) - V. I. Lenin journeys from Switzerland across Germany by so-called "sealed train", eventually arriving to a tumultuous reception at Finland Station in Petrograd to play a leading role in the Russian Revolution.[2]
- April 21 - Colorado Midland declares bankruptcy for the second and final time.
May events
- May 9 - Completion of the 784 km-long railway line linking the port of Djibouti in French Somaliland to Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia.
July events
- July 31
- The Chesapeake and Ohio Northern Railway opens the Sciotoville Bridge across the Ohio River in the United States to rail traffic. It has a continuous truss across two 775-foot (236 m) spans, the world's longest until 1945.[3]
- Simbei Kunisawa succeeds Yujiro Nakamura as president of South Manchuria Railway.
September
- September 24 - The Bere Ferrers rail accident in England kills 10 New Zealand soldiers.
October events
- October – First North British Railway C Class steam locomotives are allocated from Scotland for loan to the British Royal Engineers' Railway Operating Division on the Western Front (World War I).
- October 22 – Opening of Trans-Australian Railway, 1051.7 miles (1692.6 km) of standard gauge between Port Augusta in South Australia and Kalgoorlie in Western Australia (heads of steel meet on 17 October).[4][5][6] In crossing of the Nullarbor Plain the line runs for 309 miles (497 km) without a curve, the world’s longest railway straight.
- October 23 - The Canadian Railway War Board (predecessor of the Railway Association of Canada) meets for the first time at Windsor Station, Montreal.[7][8]
November events
- November 1 – Takatoku station, now known as Shin-Takatoku Station on Tobu Railway's Kinugawa Line in Nikkō, Tochigi, Japan, is opened.[9]
December events
- December 3 - The longest cantilever bridge in the world, Canadian National Railway's Quebec Bridge across the St. Lawrence River near Quebec City, opens for rail traffic[10] after nearly 20 years of planning and construction including two partial collapses.
- December 12 - Saint-Michel-de-Maurienne derailment, on the Culoz–Modane railway in the French Alps, a grossly overloaded troop train jumps the tracks near the entrance of the station at Saint-Michel-de-Maurienne, after running away down a steep gradient from the entrance to the Fréjus Rail Tunnel due to inadequate brake power. At least 543 are killed, hundreds more are injured by the official count; the actual count is assumed to be considerably higher. Until 1981 this was the worst train wreck in history.[11]
- December 26 - United States President Woodrow Wilson uses the Federal Possession and Control Act to nationalize American railroads under the United States Railroad Administration during World War I.
- December 28 - The United States Railroad Administration officially takes control of American railroads.
Unknown date events
- The Tanana Valley Railroad in Fairbanks, Alaska (a predecessor of the Alaska Railroad) enters receivership.
- The Arcade and Attica Railroad is incorporated.
- Estación Constitución in Buenos Aires, Argentina, opens.
- The Hershey Electric Railway on Cuba opens.
- Russia's Railway Worker Day national holiday, established in 1886, is abolished under Bolshevik rule.[12]
Births
Unknown date births
- John Shedd Reed, president of Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway 1967-1986 (died 2008).
Deaths
October deaths
- October 2 - William Sykes, English railway signalling engineer (born 1840).[13]
References
- MacLeod, Duncan (2006-08-14). "UK train accidents in which passengers were killed 1825-1924". PureCollector. Retrieved 2017-12-06.
- Moorehead, Alan (1958). The Russian Revolution. New York: Harper. pp. 183–187.
- Middletown, William D. (2004-01-11). "Colossus on the Ohio". Portsmouth Daily Times. Archived from the original on 2007-03-11. Retrieved 2016-10-05.
- Chambers, T.F. (November 1968). "The Golden Jubilee of the Trans Australian Railway". Australian Railway History: 267–75.
- Burke, David (1991). Road through the Wilderness: the story of the transcontinental railway, the first great work of Australia’s federation. Kensington: New South Wales University Press. ISBN 0-86840-140-4.
- Ferneyhough, Frank (1975). The History of Railways in Britain. Reading: Osprey. ISBN 0-85045-060-8.
- "Significant dates in Canadian railway history". Colin Churcher's Railway Pages. 2006-09-15. Archived from the original on 23 October 2006. Retrieved 2006-10-23.
- "Historic Anniversary for the Railway Association of Canada" (Press release). Railway Association of Canada. 2007-10-23. Retrieved 2007-10-23.
- Terada, Hirokazu (July 2002). データブック日本の私鉄 [Databook: Japan's Private Railways]. Japan: Neko Publishing. p. 199. ISBN 4-87366-874-3.
- Middleton, William D. (February 2002). "Quebec lights up its big bridge". Trains: 16–17.
- "Modane, France (1917)". Danger Ahead!. Retrieved 2009-02-24.
- "Railway Worker Day marked in Russia". ITAR-TASS. 2006-08-06. Retrieved 2006-08-07.
- 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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