| Years in rail transport |
This article lists events related to rail transport that occurred in 1840.
Events
March events
- 9 March – The Wilmington and Raleigh Railroad is completed from Wilmington to Weldon, North Carolina. At 161.5 miles (260 km), it is the world's longest railroad at this time.[1]
April events
- April – The Raleigh and Gaston Railroad is completed from Raleigh to near Weldon, North Carolina.[2]
May events
- 11 May – The London and South Western Railway opens its original main line throughout to Southampton (England).[3]
July events
- 1 July - The Midland Counties Railway of England opens its line from Derby and Nottingham via Leicester to a junction with the London and Birmingham Railway at Rugby.
August events
- 12 August – The Glasgow, Paisley, Kilmarnock and Ayr Railway opened between Glasgow Bridge Street railway station and Ayr, the first inter-urban railroad in Scotland.
- 17 August – The first railroad built in Milan, Italy, the Milan and Monza Rail Road opens for service.
October events
- 8 October – Formal opening of first section of the Taff Vale Railway, the first steam-worked passenger railway in Wales, from Cardiff Docks to Navigation House (Abercynon).[4] Public service begins the following day.
December events
- 21 December – Manchester and Birmingham Railway in England completes Stockport Viaduct (but does not yet bring it into use).[5] It is one of the largest brick structures in Europe.
Unknown date events
- By July – August Borsig completes the first steam locomotive built in Germany.
- Mordecai W. Jackson and George Mack partner to create a farm implement manufacturing company that will eventually become Jackson and Woodin Manufacturing Company, one of the constituent companies of American Car and Foundry Company.[6][7]
Births
January births
- January 8 – William Dean, Chief Mechanical Engineer of Great Western Railway of England 1877–1902 (d. 1905).
- January 29 – Henry H. Rogers, American financier who helped finance and build the Virginian Railway (d. 1909).
February births
- February 7 – Samuel W. Fordyce, president of St. Louis, Arkansas and Texas Railway 1886–1889, St. Louis Southwestern Railway 1890–1898, Kansas City Southern Railway 1900 (d. 1919).[8]
March births
- March 31 – Benjamin Baker, British civil engineer, designer of the Forth Railway Bridge (d. 1907).[9]
April births
- April – William Sykes, English railway signalling engineer (d. 1917).[9]
June births
- June 6 – William Dudley Chipley, president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad 1873–1876 (d. 1897).
- June 14 – William F. Nast, president of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway September 1868.[10]
- June 27 – Alpheus Beede Stickney, first president of Chicago Great Western Railway 1884–1909 (d. 1916).[11]
August births
- August 23 – Brayton Ives, president of Northern Pacific Railway 1893–1896 (d. 1914).
- August 25 – George C. Magoun, Chairman of the Board of Directors for Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway in the late 1880s (d. 1893).[12]
November births
- November 17 – Edmund Morel, English-born civil engineer in Japan (d. 1871).
- November 24 – Henry Kirke Porter, American steam locomotive builder and founder of H. K. Porter, Inc (d. 1921).
Deaths
April deaths
- April 12 – Franz Anton von Gerstner, Bohemian-born railway civil engineer (b. 1796)
References
- Waters, Lawrence Leslie (1950). Steel Trails to Santa Fe. Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Press.
- ^ "Railroad — Wilmington & Raleigh (later Weldon)". North Carolina Business History. 2006. Retrieved 2011-12-02.
- ^ "Railroads — prior to the Civil War". North Carolina Business History. 2006. Archived from the original on 2011-07-26. Retrieved 2011-12-02.
- ^ Williams, R. A. (1968). The London & South Western Railway. Vol. 1: The formative years. Newton Abbot: David and Charles. ISBN 0-7153-4188-X.
- ^ Barrie, D. S. (1950). The Taff Vale Railway. Oakwood Press.
- ^ Holt, Geoffrey O. (1978). A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain. Vol. 10: The North West. Newton Abbot: David and Charles. p. 117. ISBN 0-7153-7521-0.
- ^ "Jackson & Woodin Manufacturing Company". Mid-Continent Railway Museum. 2006-04-11. Archived from the original on 11 May 2008. Retrieved 2008-04-16.
- ^ "WOODIN, Clemuel Ricketts". Columbia-Luzerne County PA Archives Biographies. USGenWeb. 2005-07-01. Archived from the original on 2008-05-24. Retrieved 2008-04-16. Extracted from Biographies of the Seventeenth Congressional District. Chicago: Biographical Publishing Company. 1899.
- ^ Fordyce, Jim (1999). "Samuel W. Fordyce". Retrieved 2005-08-15.
- ^ a b Marshall, John (2003). Biographical Dictionary of Railway Engineers (2nd ed.). Oxford: Railway and Canal Historical Society. ISBN 0-901461-22-9.
- ^ Waters (1950), p 35.
- ^ Alpheus Beede Stickney Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved February 8, 2006.
- ^ Waters (1950), p 196.