1840 in rail transport

Years in rail transport

1839 in rail transport 1840 in rail transport 1841 in rail transport

Timeline of railway history

This article lists events related to rail transport that occurred in 1840.

Events

March events

• 9 March – The Wilmington and Raleigh Railroad is completed from Wilmington to Weldon, North Carolina. At 161.5 miles (260 km), it is the world's longest railroad at this time. ^[1]

April events

• April – The Raleigh and Gaston Railroad is completed from Raleigh to near Weldon, North Carolina. ^[2]

May events

• 11 May – The London and South Western Railway opens its original main line throughout to Southampton (England). ^[3]

July events

• 1 July - The Midland Counties Railway of England opens its line from Derby and Nottingham via Leicester to a junction with the London and Birmingham Railway at Rugby.

August events

• 12 August – The Glasgow, Paisley, Kilmarnock and Ayr Railway opened between Glasgow Bridge Street railway station and Ayr, the first inter-urban railroad in Scotland.
• 17 August – The first railroad built in Milan, Italy, the Milan and Monza Rail Road opens for service.

October events

• 8 October – Formal opening of first section of the Taff Vale Railway, the first steam-worked passenger railway in Wales, from Cardiff Docks to Navigation House (Abercynon). ^[4] Public service begins the following day.

December events

• 21 December – Manchester and Birmingham Railway in England completes Stockport Viaduct (but does not yet bring it into use). ^[5] It is one of the largest brick structures in Europe.

Unknown date events

• By July – August Borsig completes the first steam locomotive built in Germany.
• Mordecai W. Jackson and George Mack partner to create a farm implement manufacturing company that will eventually become Jackson and Woodin Manufacturing Company, one of the constituent companies of American Car and Foundry Company. ^{[6] [7]}

Births

January births

• January 8 – William Dean, Chief Mechanical Engineer of Great Western Railway of England 1877–1902 (d. 1905).
• January 29 – Henry H. Rogers, American financier who helped finance and build the Virginian Railway (d. 1909).

February births

• February 7 – Samuel W. Fordyce, president of St. Louis, Arkansas and Texas Railway 1886–1889, St. Louis Southwestern Railway 1890–1898, Kansas City Southern Railway 1900 (d. 1919). ^[8]

March births

• March 31 – Benjamin Baker, British civil engineer, designer of the Forth Railway Bridge (d. 1907). ^[9]

April births

• April – William Sykes, English railway signalling engineer (d. 1917). ^[9]

June births

• June 6 – William Dudley Chipley, president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad 1873–1876 (d. 1897).
• June 14 – William F. Nast, president of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway September 1868. ^[10]
• June 27 – Alpheus Beede Stickney, first president of Chicago Great Western Railway 1884–1909 (d. 1916). ^[11]

August births

• August 23 – Brayton Ives, president of Northern Pacific Railway 1893–1896 (d. 1914).
• August 25 – George C. Magoun, Chairman of the Board of Directors for Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway in the late 1880s (d. 1893). ^[12]

November births

• November 17 – Edmund Morel, English-born civil engineer in Japan (d. 1871).
• November 24 – Henry Kirke Porter, American steam locomotive builder and founder of H. K. Porter, Inc (d. 1921).

Deaths

April deaths

• April 12 – Franz Anton von Gerstner, Bohemian-born railway civil engineer (b. 1796)

References

• Waters, Lawrence Leslie (1950). Steel Trails to Santa Fe. Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Press.

1. "Railroad — Wilmington & Raleigh (later Weldon)". North Carolina Business History. 2006. Retrieved 2011-12-02.
2. "Railroads — prior to the Civil War". North Carolina Business History. 2006. Archived from the original on 2011-07-26. Retrieved 2011-12-02.
3. Williams, R. A. (1968). The London & South Western Railway. Vol. 1: The formative years. Newton Abbot: David and Charles. ISBN   0-7153-4188-X.
4. Barrie, D. S. (1950). The Taff Vale Railway. Oakwood Press.
5. Holt, Geoffrey O. (1978). A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain. Vol. 10: The North West. Newton Abbot: David and Charles. p.  117. ISBN   0-7153-7521-0.
6. "Jackson & Woodin Manufacturing Company". Mid-Continent Railway Museum. 2006-04-11. Archived from the original on 11 May 2008. Retrieved 2008-04-16.
7. "WOODIN, Clemuel Ricketts". Columbia-Luzerne County PA Archives Biographies. USGenWeb. 2005-07-01. Archived from the original on 2008-05-24. Retrieved 2008-04-16. Extracted from Biographies of the Seventeenth Congressional District. Chicago: Biographical Publishing Company. 1899.
8. Fordyce, Jim (1999). "Samuel W. Fordyce" . Retrieved 2005-08-15.
9. Marshall, John (2003). Biographical Dictionary of Railway Engineers (2nd ed.). Oxford: Railway and Canal Historical Society. ISBN   0-901461-22-9.
10. Waters (1950), p 35.
11. Alpheus Beede Stickney Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine . Retrieved February 8, 2006.
12. Waters (1950), p 196.