| Years in rail transport |
This article lists events related to rail transport that occurred in 1886.
Events
January events
- January 25 – The North Hudson County Railway in New Jersey opens the first elevated cable railway in the United States, the Hoboken Elevated.[1]
February events
- February 1 – The Mersey Railway opened to public traffic between Birkenhead and Liverpool by tunnel beneath the River Mersey, England.[2]
- February 18 - The Kansas City, Memphis and Birmingham Railroad is incorporated in Mississippi.[3]
March events
- March–September – Great Southwest Railroad Strike, a labor union strike against the Union Pacific and Missouri Pacific railroads involving more than 200,000 workers.[4]
- March 30 – Executives from several railroad companies operating in the southern United States meet and agree to all regauge their railroads to standard gauge, 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1&fras1;2 in), by June 1.[5]
May events
- May – The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway takes control of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway.
July events
- July 8 – Russian emperor Alexander III establishes Railway Worker Day as a national holiday on the anniversary of the name day of Nikolai I, who first commissioned Russian railroad construction.[6]
August events
- August 17 – The 7 mile (11.3 km) long Lakeside and Marblehead Railroad is incorporated in Ottawa County, Ohio.
September events
- September 1 – Regular traffic (initially freight only) begins to pass through the Great Western Railway’s Severn Tunnel linking southern Gloucestershire and Monmouthshire.[7]
- September 9 – The rail connection to Cape Tormentine, New Brunswick, is completed by a predecessor of the New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island Railway.
October events
- October 18 – Between 5:00 AM and 6:00 PM, the St. Louis, Arkansas and Texas Railroad, a predecessor of the St. Louis Southwestern Railway, converts 418 miles (673 km) of track from narrow gauge to standard gauge.
November events
- November 20 – The San Bernardino and Los Angeles Railway is incorporated as an Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad subsidiary to build a rail connection between its namesake cities in California.[8]
Unknown date events
- The first refrigerator cars on the Southern Pacific Railroad enter operation.
- The Southern Pacific Railroad wins the landmark Supreme Court case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad which establishes equal rights under the law to corporations.
- Grande Ceinture line around Paris completed.
Births
May births
- May 4 – Henry G. Ivatt, Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (d. 1976).
Unknown date births
- W. Graham Claytor, president of Southern Railway (US) (d. 1971).
Deaths
July deaths
December deaths
- December 28 - William Kimmel, director for Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (b. 1812).
Unknown date deaths
- David Levy Yulee, Florida railroad executive (b. 1810).
References
- Clowes, J. A.; Railways of Canada Archives (1999), Eastern New Brunswick's Railway History. Retrieved September 8, 2005.
- Morris, J. C., compiler (December 31, 1902), Annual report of the Commissioner of Railroads and Telegraphs; Part II, history of the railroads of Ohio. Retrieved August 16, 2005.
- Rivanna Chapter, National Railway Historical Society (2005), This Month in Railroad History: October. Retrieved October 18, 2005.
- Santa Fe Railroad (1945), Along Your Way, Rand McNally, Chicago, Illinois.
- ^ Mappen, Marc; Bilby, Joe (January 25, 2015). "Today in New Jersey history – January 25". H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online. Retrieved March 21, 2015.
- ^ Gahan, John W. (1983). The Line Beneath the Liners – a hundred years of Mersey Railway sights and sounds. Birkenhead: Countyvise. ISBN 0-907768-40-7.
- ^ "Corporate History: Kansas City, Fort Scott & Memphis Railroad Company". Truman Area Community Network, Inc. June 2, 2008. Archived from the original on 2012-07-18. Retrieved February 18, 2010.
- ^ Allen, Rith A. (1942). The Great Southwest Strike. Austin: University of Texas.
- ^ Rivanna Chapter National Railway Historical Society. "This month in railroad history: March". Archived from the original on 17 April 2006. Retrieved March 29, 2006.
- ^ "Railway Worker Day marked in Russia". ITAR-TASS. August 6, 2006. Retrieved August 7, 2006.
- ^ "The Severn Tunnel". Severn Tales. Archived from the original on January 10, 2008. Retrieved August 1, 2007.
- ^ Serpico, Philip C. (1988). Santa Fé Route to the Pacific. Palmdale, California: Omni Publications. pp. 23–24. ISBN 0-88418-000-X.
- ^ Marshall, John (2003). Biographical Dictionary of Railway Engineers. Oxford: Railway & Canal Historical Society. ISBN 0-901461-22-9.