1842 in rail transport
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This article lists events related to rail transport that occurred in 1842.
Events
January events
- January 1 â Boston and Maine Railroad, Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts Railroad and Boston and Portland Railroad merge with the new company keeping the Boston & Maine name.
- January 2 â Commencement of operation of the Railway Clearing House in London, established to settle the division of payments for through traffic over different railways in Britain.[1]
- January 24 â Frederick William IV of Prussia makes the first train journey by a reigning monarch.[2]
February events
- February 21 â Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway opens in Scotland.[3]
March events
- March 31 â The Middleton Junction and Oldham Branch Railway opens to Oldham Werneth railway station in northwest England.
April events
May events
- May 1 â Opening of first section of Upper Silesian Railway, between WrocÅaw and OÅawa, the first line within the borders of modern-day Poland. By August it reaches Brzeg.[4]
- May 8 â Versailles rail accident: A train traveling between Versailles and Paris derails due to a broken locomotive axle near Moudon and catches fire, killing at least 55 passengers in the locked carriages.
June events
- June 13 â Queen Victoria makes the first train journey by a reigning British monarch, on the Great Western Railway of England (Slough to Paddington).[5]
July events
- July 1 â The Bristol and Exeter Railway extension to Taunton opens in England.
September events
- September â Robert Davidson's experimental battery-electric locomotive Galvani is demonstrated on the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway.
December events
- December â William Maxwell succeeds James Bowen as president of the Erie Railroad.[6]
Births
October births
- October 12 â Robert Gillespie Reid, builder of many Canadian railway bridges as well as the Newfoundland Railway (d. 1908).
December births
- December 7 â George Whale, Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London and North Western Railway 1903â1909 (d. 1910).
Unknown date births
- George Frederick Baer, president of Reading Company (d. 1914).
- Melville E. Ingalls, president of the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad (d. 1914).[7]