1903 in rail transport
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This article lists events related to rail transport that occurred in 1903.
Events
January events
- January 20 â The Grand Trunk Western Railroad opens a passenger depot in Lansing, Michigan.
- January 28 â Esmond Train Wreck: fourteen people are killed when the Crescent City Express (No. 8, bound for Benson, Arizona) collides head-on with the bound Pacific Coast Express (No. 7, bound for Tucson).
February events
- February 12 â North British Locomotive Company established as a locomotive builder in Glasgow, Scotland, by merger of Dübs & Company, Neilson, Reid & Company, and Sharp, Stewart & Company.[1] In April it receives its first new order for steam locomotives, from India.[2]
March events
- March 3 â Baker valve gear for steam locomotives is first patented in the United States.[3]
April events
- April 7 â Apalachicola Northern Railroad, later to become AN Railway, is chartered.
May events
- May 3 â The Mersey Railway, operating between Birkenhead and Liverpool by tunnel beneath the River Mersey, England, converts from steam to electric traction.[4]
- May 13 â The Fremont, Elkhorn & Missouri Valley Railroad (later to become part of Chicago & North Western Railway) begins passenger train service to Casper, Wyoming.[5]
- May 25 â The Lackawanna & Wyoming Valley Railroad opens, becoming the first railroad in the United States to use an electrified third rail to power its trains.
July events
- July â Regular passenger traffic from Saint Petersburg to Vladivostok over the Trans-Siberian and Chinese Eastern Railways begins.
- July 1 â Opening of the Albula Railway portion of the Rhaetian Railway (RhB) (metre gauge) in Switzerland, passing through the Albula Tunnel, the highest of the principal Alpine tunnels at 1370 m.[6][page needed]
- July 13 â Danbury Union Station in Danbury, Connecticut, on the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, opens.[7]
- July 27
- Construction begins on the Baghdad Railway with the 200-kilometre (120 mi) segment between Konya and Bulgurlu in the Ottoman Empire (modern day Turkey).[8]
- Glasgow St Enoch rail accident, Scotland: sixteen killed when a train crashes into the buffers.
August events
- August 10 â Paris Metro train fire, France: electric fire on Paris Métro at Couronnes; 84 killed.
- August 17 â The Great Western Railway becomes the first British railway company to operate its own road motor services (i.e. buses), between Helston and The Lizard in Cornwall.[9]
September events
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- September 27 â Wreck of the Old 97, Danville, Virginia, United States: A southbound Southern Railway passenger train derails on a trestle in Danville; eleven people are killed.[10][11]
October events
- October â Experimental electric trains, built by AEG and Siemens & Halske, reach 210.2 km/h (130.6 mph) between Marienfelde and Zossen in Germany.
- October 1
- The first railway in Norway rebuilt to double track, from Bryn to Lillestrøm on the Hovedbanen, is opened.[12]
- The Gold Coast Government Railway is extended from Obuasi to Kumasi.
- October 21 â Howard Elliott succeeds Charles Sanger Mellen as president of Northern Pacific Railway.[13]
- October 26 â The Key System begins operating their first streetcar-ferry service, the Berkeley line in Berkeley, California.[14]
- October 31 â The Purdue Wreck, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA: A Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis Railway football special carrying the Purdue University football team and fans to the annual game with Indiana University collides with a coal train. Fourteen of the team and three other passengers are killed.
November events
- November 9 â The 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) gauge Kalka-Shimla Railway opens in India.[15]
December events
- December 14 â The New York, New Haven and Hartford introduces the all-parlor car Merchants Limited between Boston and New York City.[16]
Unknown date events
- The British Engineering Standards Committee draws up specifications for eight standard steam locomotive designs for the broad gauge Indian Railways.[17]
- Southern Pacific Railroad gains 50% control of the Pacific Electric system in Los Angeles, California.
- The Wilkes-Barre & Hazleton Railway opens as the first railroad to have a guarded third rail.
- The provisions of the Railroad Safety Appliance Act, enacted in 1893, are extended to include all railroad cars whether or not the cars themselves are used in interchange service.
- Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway introduces the first 2-10-2 compound locomotives (built by Baldwin Locomotive Works) into service.[18]
- Edward Harriman becomes president of the Union Pacific.
- George Whale succeeds Francis William Webb as Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London & North Western Railway.
Accidents
Births
April births
- April 10 â Edward T. Reidy, last president of Chicago Great Western Railway 1957â1968.
Deaths
March deaths
- March 29 â Gustavus Franklin Swift, founder of Swift & Company which pioneered the use of refrigerator cars in late 19th century America (born 1839)
July deaths
- July 27 â Frederick Kimball, American civil engineer who was instrumental in the formation of Norfolk & Western (born 1844).
Unknown date deaths
- John Elfreth Watkins, railroad civil engineer and first curator for the Smithsonian Institution's railroad artifacts including John Bull.
