1820 in rail transport
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This article lists events related to rail transport that occurred in 1820.
Events
- May 1 â The Kington Tramway, a horse-worked plateway, is opened from Eardisley to Kington, Herefordshire, England. Together with the Hay Railway it forms a continuous system 36 miles (45 km) in length, the longest in the United Kingdom at this date.[1]
- October - John Birkinshaw of Bedlington Ironworks patents improvements in the production of wrought iron rails.
- Thomas Gray publishes his first of five editions of Observations on a General Iron Railway, a book that accelerates the British debate on this means of transportation and promotes the concept of a national rail network.
- An early form of monorail in Russia is operated by Ivan Elmanov in Myachkovo, Moscow Oblast.
Births
January births
- January 21 â Egide Walschaerts, Belgian inventor of a steam locomotive valve gear (d. 1901).[2]
April births
- April 8 - John Taylor Johnston, president of the Central Railroad of New Jersey, 1848â1877 (d. 1893).
May births
- May 2 - Robert Gerwig, German civil engineer, designer of Schwarzwald Railway and the Hell Valley Railway (d. 1885).[3]
July births
- July 31 â John W. Garrett, president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad from 1858 (d. 1884).[4]
August births
- August 6 â Donald Smith, afterwards Lord Strathcona, Scottish financier, promoter of the Canadian Pacific Railway (d. 1914).
September births
- September 20 â Alfred Belpaire, Belgian inventor of the Belpaire firebox used on steam locomotives (d. 1893).[2]
December births
- December 21 â William H. Osborn, president of Illinois Central Railroad 1855â1865, president of Chicago, St. Louis and New Orleans Railroad 1875â1882, is born (d. 1894).
Unknown death dates
- James Beatty, Irish engineer who was involved in building the European and North American Railway and the Grand Crimean Central Railway (d. 1856)