1840 in rail transport explained

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).

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

• Book: Waters, Lawrence Leslie. 1950. Steel Trails to Santa Fe. University of Kansas Press. Lawrence, Kansas.

Notes and References

1. Web site: Railroad — Wilmington & Raleigh (later Weldon). North Carolina Business History. 2006. 2011-12-02.
2. Web site: Railroads — prior to the Civil War. North Carolina Business History. 2006. 2011-12-02. https://web.archive.org/web/20110726152211/http://historync.org/railroads.htm. 2011-07-26. dead.
3. Book: Williams, R. A.. The London & South Western Railway. Vol. 1: The formative years. 1968. David and Charles. Newton Abbot. 0-7153-4188-X.
4. Book: Barrie, D. S.. The Taff Vale Railway. Oakwood Press. 1950.
5. Book: Holt, Geoffrey O.. A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain. Vol. 10: The North West. Newton Abbot. David and Charles. 1978. 0-7153-7521-0. 117.
6. Web site: Jackson & Woodin Manufacturing Company. Mid-Continent Railway Museum. 2006-04-11. 2008-04-16. https://web.archive.org/web/20080511170122/http://www.midcontinent.org/rollingstock/builders/jacksonwoodin.htm. 11 May 2008 . live.
7. Web site: WOODIN, Clemuel Ricketts . Columbia-Luzerne County PA Archives Biographies . USGenWeb . 2005-07-01 . 2008-04-16 . https://web.archive.org/web/20080524075424/http://ftp.rootsweb.ancestry.com/pub/usgenweb/pa/columbia/bios/woodin-clemuel-r.txt . 2008-05-24 . dead . Extracted from Book: Biographies of the Seventeenth Congressional District. Biographical Publishing Company. Chicago. 1899.
8. Web site: Fordyce, Jim. 1999. Samuel W. Fordyce. 2005-08-15.
9. Book: John Marshall (railway historian)

   . Marshall, John. Biographical Dictionary of Railway Engineers. 2nd. Oxford. Railway and Canal Historical Society. 2003. 0-901461-22-9. John Marshall (railway historian).

10. Waters (1950), p 35.
11. Alpheus Beede Stickney . Retrieved February 8, 2006.
12. Waters (1950), p 196.