1879 in rail transport

Events

February events

• February 10 - The Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railway begins freight operations.Friends of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, [Railroad History Timeline]. Retrieved February 10 2006.

May events

• May - James J. Hill forms the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway from the assets of the bankrupt St. Paul and Pacific.
• May 17 - The Texas and St. Louis Railway, a predecessor of St. Louis Southwestern Railway, is organized as a way to ship cotton south to Texas.
• May 31 - The first electric railway opens at the Berlin Trades Exposition.

June events

• June 1 - Great Britain's Queen Victoria opens the Tay Rail Bridge, at the time the longest bridge in the world, across the Firth of Tay in Scotland.

July events

• July 4 - The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, building southwestward from Kansas, reaches Las Vegas, New Mexico.Santa Fe Railroad (1945), Along Your Way, Rand McNally, Chicago, Illinois.

December events

• December 28 - Scotland: The Tay Rail Bridge collapses in a violent storm while a passenger train is crossing it. 75 lives are lost. William Topaz McGonagall produces his epic poem The Tay Bridge Disaster to commemorate the event.

Unknown date events

• Southern Pacific Railroad engineers experiment with the first oil-fired steam locomotives.
• Ensign Manufacturing Company, later to become part of American Car and Foundry, is founded in Huntington, West Virginia.

Births

March births

• March 6 - Patrick H. Joyce, president Chicago Great Western Railway 1931-1946, is born (d. 1946).

April births

• April 24 - Oris Paxton Van Sweringen, American financier who, with his brother Mantis, controlled the Nickel Plate Road and other eastern railroads (d. 1936).

Unknown date births

• Ralph Budd, president of the Great Northern Railway 1919–1932 and Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad 1932–1949 (d. 1962).

Deaths

References

• (2000), [American Experience / Streamliners / People & Events / Ralph Budd]. Retrieved February 22 2005.
• President and Fellows of Harvard College (2004), [20th century great American business leaders - Ralph Budd]. Retrieved February 22 2005.
• [Today in Science History: May 31]. Retrieved May 27, 2005.