1872 in rail transport

This article lists events related to rail transport that occurred in 1872.

Events

March – John Adams Dix succeeds Jay Gould as president of the Erie Railroad.
March 1 – Jackson and Woodin Manufacturing Company, one of the constituent companies of American Car and Foundry Company, is incorporated in Pennsylvania.^[1]
March 5 – George Westinghouse receives a patent for the Westinghouse air brake.
March 11 – The 3⁄4 mile (1.2 km) long Bristol Harbour Railway opens from the junction of the Bristol and Exeter Railway and Great Western Railway at Temple Meads to the Floating Harbour in Bristol.

April 1 – The Midland Railway (Great Britain) admits Third class passengers to all trains, a move which other British railway companies follow.^[2]
April 6 – Wallkill Valley Railroad opens Rosendale Trestle, at this time the highest bridge in the United States, to rail traffic in Rosendale, New York.

June 12 – First section of railway in Japan opens, from Yokohama to Shinagawa, Tokyo.^[3]^{[page needed]}
June 17 – The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, building westward from Newton, Kansas, reaches Hutchinson.

July – Peter H. Watson succeeds John A. Dix as president of the Erie Railroad.
July 1 – Schenker, predecessor of global freight forwarder DB Schenker, is founded in Vienna.^{[page needed]}
July 2 – Baltimore and Potomac Railroad opens its line from Baltimore, Maryland, to Washington, D.C., via Huntington.^[4]

September 5 – The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, building westward from Newton, Kansas, reaches Dodge City, Kansas.
September 13 – The first section of the planned railroad connection between Vârciorova and Roman, Romania, opens, connecting Piteşti, Bucharest, Galaţi and Roman.

October 1
- The Denver, South Park and Pacific Railway is incorporated.
- The first meeting of the Time Table Conventions, an organization that later became the American Railway Association, is held in Louisville, Kentucky.^[5]
October 2 – The Kirtlebridge rail crash in Scotland kills 10 people.
October 10
- First passenger service on the Transcaucasian Railway (later Georgian Railway) in the Russian Empire, between the capital, Tbilisi, and the Black Sea port of Poti.^[6]
- Shimbashi Teishajō, the original Tokyo terminus of Japan's first railway, opens.
October 14 (September 12 in Tenpō calendar) – Official inauguration of first Japanese railway between Shimbashi, Tokyo (modern-day Shiodome) and Yokohama (modern-day Sakuragichō) (provisionally in June)

December 28 – The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, building westward from Newton, Kansas, reaches the border between Kansas and Colorado.

September 20 – Death Valley Scotty (born Walter Edward Scott), con man who chartered the Scott Special record-breaking run on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway in 1905.^[9]

January 6 – Jim Fisk, American financier who worked with Daniel Drew for control of the Erie Railroad (b. 1834).

April 9 – Erastus Corning, established railroads in New York and was instrumental in the formation of New York Central (b. 1794).

August – Asa Whitney, one of the first backers of an American Transcontinental Railway

Erie Railroad presidents. Retrieved March 15, 2005.
Rivanna Chapter, National Railway Historical Society (2005), This Month in Railroad History – May. Retrieved May 27, 2005.
Santa Fe Railroad (1945), Along Your Way, Rand McNally, Chicago, Illinois.

^ "Jackson & Woodin Manufacturing Company". Mid-Continent Railway Museum. 2006-04-11. Archived from the original on 11 May 2008. Retrieved 2008-04-16.
^ Lee, Charles E. (1946). Passenger Class Distinctions. London: Railway Gazette.
^ Marshall, John (1989). The Guinness Railway Book. Enfield: Guinness Books. ISBN 0-8511-2359-7. OCLC 24175552.
^ Susan Pearl (February 1990). "National Register of Historic Places Registration: Bowie Railroad Buildings" (PDF). Maryland Historical Trust. Retrieved 2015-08-01.
^ Adams, James Truslow (1940). Dictionary of American History. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
^ Большая Советская Энциклопедия. Гл. ред. Б. А. Введенский, 2-е изд. Т. 16. Железо — Земли. 1952. 672 стр., илл.; 51 л. илл. и карт. (in Russian)
^ "Ensign Manufacturing Company". Mid-Continent Railway Museum. 2006-04-09. Archived from the original on 11 May 2008. Retrieved 2008-04-15.
^ "Buffalo Car Company". Mid-Continent Railway Museum. 2006-04-09. Retrieved 2008-04-13.
^ Signor, John R. (Jan–Mar 2006). "Death Valley Scotty's "Coyote" Special". The Warbonnet. 12 (1): 17–29. (The Warbonnet is the official journal of the Santa Fe Railway Historical and Modeling Society)
^ "Joseph Pease". Archived from the original on 2007-08-17. Retrieved 6 September 2007.