1847 in rail transport explained

Events

February events

• February 26 – The Somerville and Easton Railroad, a predecessor of the Central Railroad of New Jersey, is chartered.

March events

• March 9 – The Richmond and Danville Railroad is chartered in Virginia.
• March 15 – The Amiens-Boulogne line in France opens between Abbeville and Étaples.
• March 16 – The Leeds and Bradford Extension Railway opens between Shipley and Keighley in West Yorkshire, England.^[1]
• March – First ever 4-6-0 locomotive, the Chesapeake, completed by the Norris Locomotive Works for the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad.^[2]

April events

• April 19 – The Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, a predecessor of the New York Central Railroad, officially changes its name to Albany and Schenectady Railroad.

May events

• May 24 – The Dee bridge disaster: a cast iron girder bridge across the river Dee at Chester, England, designed by Robert Stephenson for the Chester and Holyhead Railway, collapses under a Shrewsbury and Chester Railway train with five fatalities.^[3]
• May 31 – The first railway connection between Rotterdam and The Hague opens in the Netherlands.^[4]

June events

• June – The first Bradshaws Continental Railway Guide timetable is published by George Bradshaw in England.
• June 26 – Opening of first railway wholly within modern-day Denmark, from Copenhagen to Roskilde.

July events

• July 9 – The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway is incorporated as an amalgamation of several important railway lines in Northern England.^[5]
• July 28 – Bristol and Exeter Railway's Clevedon branch line opens.

August events

• August 9 – Opening of first railway wholly within Switzerland, the Swiss Northern Railway from Zürich to Baden.

September events

• September 22 – The Railway Clearing House in Great Britain recommends that Greenwich Mean Time be adopted as the standard time for all railways in the United Kingdom.^[6]

October events

• October – Portland Company's locomotive erecting shops opened for business.^[7]

December events

• December 1
  • The London and North Western Railway opens its Trent Valley Line to give a more direct route for the West Coast Main Line to North West England, bypassing Birmingham.^[8]
  • The first time zone in the world is established by British railways with GMT hand-carried on chronometers.

Unknown date events

• John Urpeth Rastrick retires from Foster, Rastrick and Company, the English firm that built the first steam locomotives for the Delaware and Hudson Railroad.^[9]

Births

October births

• October 6 – Webb C. Ball, watchmaker who introduced the first truly reliable and accurate timepieces on American railroads.

Deaths

• November 16 – Thomas Kirtley, locomotive superintendent of North Midland Railway 1843–1844, and London, Brighton and South Coast Railway in 1847, dies (b. 1811).

Notes and References

1. Book: Bairstow, Martin. Railways Through Airedale & Wharfedale. Martin Bairstow. Leeds. 2004. 978-1-871944-28-0.
2. Book: Balkwill, Richard. Marshall, John. John Marshall (railway historian). The Guinness Book of Railway Facts and Feats. 6th. Enfield. Guinness Publishing. 1993. 978-0-85112-707-1.
3. Book: Lewis, Peter R.. Disaster on the Dee: Robert Stephenson's Nemesis of 1847. Tempus Publishing. Stroud. 2007. 978-0-7524-4266-2.
4. Web site: BrainyMedia.com. 2005. Rotterdam-Hague Railway opens. 2005-05-27.
5. Book: Marshall, John. The Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway, vol. 1. 1969. David & Charles. Newton Abbot. 978-0-7153-4352-4.
6. Web site: Daylight Saving Time – Standard time began with the railroads. 2005-09-22. https://web.archive.org/web/20050915001624/http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/d.html. 15 September 2005 . live.
7. Book: The Grand Trunk in New England . Holt, Jeff . Railfare . 1985 . 0-919130-43-7 . 124.
8. Book: Clinker, C. R.. Railways of the West Midlands – a chronology, 1808–1954. Stephenson Locomotive Society. London.
9. Web site: Bedwell, Carolyn. 2002. John Urpeth Rastrick. 2005-04-04 . https://web.archive.org/web/20050309145731/http://www.kylenano.demon.co.uk/rastrick/jur-summary.htm . 2005-03-09.