1917 in rail transport
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This article lists events related to rail transport that occurred in 1917.
Events
January events
- January 3 - Ratho rail crash in Scotland: North British Railway H class locomotive 874 Dunedin, in charge of an Edinburgh to Glasgow express train, collides with a light engine at Queensferry Junction near Ratho Station, leaving 12 people dead and 46 seriously injured; the cause is found to be inadequate signalling procedures.[1]
February events
- February 27 - The Milwaukee Road completes the electrification of its 440 miles (710 km) line from Harlowton, Montana, to Avery, Idaho.
March events
- March 9 - Official opening of the Hell Gate Bridge in New York City.
- March 12 - The Pere Marquette Railroad is reincorporated as the Pere Marquette Railway.
- March 19 - The United States Supreme Court upholds the eight-hour workday for railroads.
April events
- April 3â16 (NS) - Vladimir Lenin journeys from Switzerland across Germany by so-called "sealed train", eventually arriving to a tumultuous reception at Finland Station in Petrograd to play a leading role in the Russian Revolution.[2]
- April 21 - Colorado Midland declares bankruptcy for the second and final time.
May events
- May 9 - Completion of the 784 km-long railway line linking the port of Djibouti in French Somaliland to Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia.
July events
- July 31
- The Chesapeake & Ohio Railway opens the Sciotoville Bridge across the Ohio River in the United States to rail traffic. It has a continuous truss across two 775-foot (236 m) spans, the world's longest until 1945.[3]
- Simbei Kunisawa succeeds Yujiro Nakamura as president of South Manchuria Railway.
September
- September 24 - The Bere Ferrers rail accident in England kills 10 New Zealand soldiers.
October events
- October â First North British Railway C Class steam locomotives are allocated from Scotland for loan to the British Royal Engineers' Railway Operating Division on the Western Front (World War I).
- October 22 â Opening of Trans-Australian Railway, 1051.7 miles (1692.6 km) of standard gauge between Port Augusta in South Australia and Kalgoorlie in Western Australia (heads of steel meet on 17 October).[4][5][6] In crossing of the Nullarbor Plain the line runs for 309 miles (497 km) without a curve, the worldâs longest railway straight.
- October 23 - The Canadian Railway War Board (predecessor of the Railway Association of Canada) meets for the first time at Windsor Station, Montreal.[7][8]
November events
- November 1 â Takatoku station, now known as Shin-Takatoku Station on Tobu Railway's Kinugawa Line in NikkÅ, Tochigi, Japan, is opened.[9]
December events
- December 3 - The longest cantilever bridge in the world, Canadian National's Quebec Bridge across the St. Lawrence River near Quebec City, opens for rail traffic[10] after nearly 20 years of planning and construction including two partial collapses.
- December 12 - Saint-Michel-de-Maurienne derailment, on the CulozâModane railway in the French Alps, a grossly overloaded troop train jumps the tracks near the entrance of the station at Saint-Michel-de-Maurienne, after running away down a steep gradient from the entrance to the Fréjus Rail Tunnel due to inadequate brake power. At least 543 are killed, hundreds more are injured by the official count; the actual count is assumed to be considerably higher. Until 1981 this was the worst train wreck in history.[11]
- December 26 - United States President Woodrow Wilson uses the Federal Possession and Control Act to nationalize American railroads under the United States Railroad Administration during World War I.
- December 28 - The United States Railroad Administration officially takes control of American railroads.
Unknown date events
- The Tanana Valley Railroad in Fairbanks, Alaska (a predecessor of the Alaska Railroad) enters receivership.
- The Arcade and Attica Railroad is incorporated.
- Estación Constitución in Buenos Aires, Argentina, opens.
- The Hershey Electric Railway in Cuba opens.
- Russia's Railway Worker Day national holiday, established in 1886, is abolished under Bolshevik rule.[12]
Births
Unknown date births
- John Shedd Reed, president of Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway 1967-1986 (died 2008).
Deaths
October deaths
- October 2 - William Sykes, English railway signalling engineer (born 1840).[13]