1849 in rail transport explained

Events

January 27 – The North Carolina General Assembly incorporates the North Carolina Railroad to complete a rail line from Goldsboro through Raleigh and Salisbury to Charlotte.^[1]

February 20 – The Scioto and Hocking Valley Railroad (which eventually was absorbed by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad) is chartered in Ohio to build a railroad from Portsmouth through Piketon and Chillicothe to Lancaster.^[2]

March 3 – The Pacific Railroad, a predecessor of the Missouri Pacific Railroad, is chartered in Missouri.^[3]
March 5 – The Blue Ridge Railroad is chartered by the Virginia General Assembly to construct a rail line over the Blue Ridge Mountains for the Louisa Railroad.^[4]
March 24 – The Pittsburg and Steubenville Railroad, which eventually became the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway after a foreclosure sale, is chartered in Pennsylvania.^[5]
March – The governments of India and England form the first agreements of the Old Guarantee System providing land grants to English companies for railroad construction in India.^[6]

June 20 – First tube of Robert Stephenson's Britannia Bridge is floated into position on the Menai Strait for the Chester and Holyhead Railway's North Wales Coast Line with many leading British railway civil engineers present.^[7]

July 5 – First part of Paris-Est–Strasbourg-Ville railway opens in France.
July 20 – The Manchester, South Junction and Altrincham Railway opens to the public in England, the first suburban railway.

August 15 – Robert Stephenson's High Level Bridge for the York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway at Newcastle upon Tyne, England is opened permanently for rail traffic.^[8]
August 17 – The Old Guarantee System providing land grants to English companies for railroad construction in India is finalised.

September 1 – The first segment of the Pennsylvania Railroad, from Lewiston to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, opens for service.
September – Train ferry PS Leviathan, designed by Thomas Grainger for the Edinburgh, Perth and Dundee Railway, is delivered for carrying freight cars across the Forth estuary in Scotland between Granton and Burntisland.

November 1 – The Caledonian Railway is opened throughout between Glasgow, Carstairs and Carlisle, completing a through rail route by the West Coast Main Line and providing the first service of through carriages between Scotland and England.^[9]

October 17 – Sir William Mackenzie, part-owner of the Toronto Street Railway, builder of Canadian Northern Railway predecessors (d. 1923).

December 12 – William Kissam Vanderbilt, heir to Cornelius Vanderbilt and president of the New York Central system (d. 1920).

Web site: Railroads — prior to the Civil War. North Carolina Business History. 2006. 2013-05-10. https://web.archive.org/web/20110726152211/http://historync.org/railroads.htm. 2011-07-26. dead.
Morris, J. C.; Commissioner of Railroads and Telegraphs, Ohio (December 31, 1902), Annual Report of the Commissioner of Railroads and Telegraphs: Part II, History of the Railroads of Ohio. Retrieved February 20, 2006.
Web site: 1960 . 100 Years of Service . 2006-04-20 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20080828060005/https://thelibrary.springfield.missouri.org/lochist/frisco/history/100years.cfm . 2008-08-28 .
Virginia General Assembly. Charter of the Louisa Railroad. 1849.
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 March 24, 2006.
Indian Railways Fan Club, IR History: Early Days – I. Retrieved August 16, 2005.
Web site: Britannia Bridge. Engineering Timelines. 2014-06-10.
Book: Addyman, John. Fawcett, Bill. The High Level Bridge and Newcastle Central Station – 150 years across the Tyne. North Eastern Railway Association. 1999. 1-873513-28-3.
Book: Awdry, Christopher. Christopher Awdry
. Christopher Awdry. Encyclopaedia of British Railway Companies. 1990. Patrick Stephens Ltd. Wellingborough. 1-85260-049-7.