1959 in rail transport

This article lists events related to rail transport that occurred in 1959.

Events

January events

• January 4 - Passenger service resumes on the Strasburg Rail Road in Pennsylvania for tourists.
• January 5 - Foulridge railway station closes on the Midland Railway (originally the Leeds and Bradford Extension Railway) in Lancashire, England. ^[1]

February events

• February 28 - The Eastern Region of British Railways closes most of the former Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway. ^[2]

March events

• March 28 - The Niagara, St. Catharines and Toronto Railway, the last interurban railroad in Canada, operates its last revenue service.

April events

• April 3 - Construction begins on Japanese National Railways’ Tōkaidō Shinkansen between Osaka and Tokyo.
• April 4 - Maine Central Railroad ends passenger service to Samoset destination hotel in Rockland, Maine. ^[3]
• April 25 - Opening of the Saint Lawrence Seaway encourages improved ice-breaking on the Saint Lawrence River and initiates declining winter freight volume on Canadian railways east of Montreal.
• SAFEGE test monorail built in France. ^[4]

May events

• May - The Ottawa, Arnprior and Parry Sound Railway runs its last train, ending 62 years of service.
• May 28 - A passenger train in Indonesia derails and falls into a ravine, killing 85 people and injuring 47 in the Tasikmalaya area of West Java; sabotage is suspected. ^[5]

June events

• June 9 - The Chicago, Aurora and Elgin Railroad, interurban railway serving Chicago's western suburbs, ceases freight operations, thus bringing an end to all of the railroad's operations.
• June 15 - The Disneyland Monorail System built by Alweg opens, making it the first daily operating monorail system in the Western Hemisphere.
• June 21 - Soo Line 2719 hauls the last of Soo Line Railroad's steam locomotive-powered trains in revenue service on a round-trip excursion between Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Ladysmith, Wisconsin. ^[6]

July events

• July 1 - Colorado Railroad Museum opens in Golden. ^[7]
• July 14 - Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) 0-6-0 number 5244, class B-6sb, becomes the last steam locomotive to operate on the PRR.
• July 18 - The last steam locomotive runs on the Nickel Plate Road as a pair of 0-8-0 switchers are called out to cover a traffic surge.
• July 27 - Southern Pacific Company opens new embankment replacing Lucin Cutoff trestle across Great Salt Lake, Utah. ^[8]

August events

• August 25 - Baltimore and Ohio Railroad opens Arthur Kill Vertical Lift Bridge over Staten Island Sound in the United States.
• August 30 - Streetcar service in Montreal, Quebec, Canada is discontinued.

October events

• October 6 - The Carmelit, Haifa's underground funicular railway, opens.
• October 12 - First R28 (New York City Subway car) enters service, from the last batch of passenger cars that the American Car and Foundry Company is to build.
• October 28 - The Canadian National Railway line between St. Felicien and Chibougamau, Quebec, opens.

November events

• November 2 - The Pacific Electric Watts Line, then under operation by the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority, is discontinued. The service is replaced with buses. ^[9]

December events

• December 1 - The Virginian Railway is merged into the Norfolk and Western Railroad.
• December 29 - First section of Lisbon Metro (Metropolitano de Lisboa) opens in Lisbon, Portugal, first metro (subway) system in the country.

Unknown date events

• General Electric announces that it will begin manufacturing diesel locomotives on its own.
• Israel Railways officially withdraws all steam locomotives; the last, Baldwin-built Palestine Railways H class 4-6-0 no. 901, surviving in traffic into the following year. ^[10]

Births

May births

• May 1 - Ning Bin, Chinese signalling control systems engineer (died 2019).

Deaths

August deaths

• August 26 - William Valentine Wood, President of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway 1941-8 (born 1883).

References

1. Binns, Donald (2005). Midland Lines Railway Stations Past and Present. Trackside Publications. ISBN   1-900095-26-2.
2. Wrottesley, A. J. F. (1970). The Midland & Great Northern Joint Railway. Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN   0-7153-4340-8.
3. Johnson, Ron (1985). The Best of Maine Railroads. Portland Litho. p. 112.
4. "Suspended - SAFEGE". Technical Pages. Monorail Society. Retrieved 2009-12-22.
5. "185 Believed Dead in Java Train Wreck". Oakland Tribune . 1959-05-29. p. 1.
6. Gilchinski, Steve (February 1997). "Soo Line 2-8-2 back in steam". Trains Magazine. 57 (2): 24–25.
7. "Colorado Railroad Museum". Archived from the original on 2004-01-13. Retrieved 2009-12-22.
8. Balkwill, Richard; Marshall, John (1993). The Guinness Book of Railway Facts and Feats (6th ed.). Enfield: Guinness Publishing. ISBN   0-85112-707-X.
9. "Watts Rail Line Goes to Bus" (PDF). The MTA Emblem. LAMTA. December 1959. p. 12. Retrieved 11 April 2021.
10. Cotterell, Paul (1984). The Railways of Palestine and Israel. Abingdon: Tourret Publishing. p. 29. ISBN   0-905878-04-3.

• Colin Churcher's Railway Pages (August 16, 2005), Significant dates in Canadian railway history . Retrieved August 30 and October 28, 2005.