1907 in rail transport
Encyclopedia
February events
- February - Great Western RailwayGreat Western RailwayThe Great Western Railway was a British railway company that linked London with the south-west and west of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament in 1835 and ran its first trains in 1838...
of EnglandEnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
begins production of 'Star' ClassGWR 4000 ClassA Star class locomotive was a particular type of steam locomotive of the Great Western Railway. The prototype was an experimental locomotive, North Star , constructed with the 'Atlantic' 4-4-2 wheel arrangement for comparative trials with 4-cylinder compound locomotives of the de Glehn type that...
4-6-04-6-0Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 4-6-0 represents the wheel arrangement of four leading wheels on two axles in a leading truck, six powered and coupled driving wheels on three axles, and no trailing wheels. This wheel arrangement became the second-most popular...
locomotives at its Swindon WorksSwindon WorksSwindon railway works were built by the Great Western Railway in 1841 in Swindon in the English county of Wiltshire.-History:In 1835 Parliament approved the construction of a railway between London and Bristol. Its Chief Engineer was Isambard Kingdom Brunel.From 1836, Brunel had been buying...
, beginning a series of successful 4-cylinder designs.
April events
- April 15 - William N. PageWilliam N. PageWilliam Nelson Page was an American civil engineer, entrepreneur, industrialist and capitalist. He was active in the Virginias following the U.S. Civil War...
is named president of the newly formed Virginian RailwayVirginian RailwayThe Virginian Railway was a Class I railroad located in Virginia and West Virginia in the United States. The VGN was created to transport high quality "smokeless" bituminous coal from southern West Virginia to port at Hampton Roads....
.
May events
- May 18 - The Ravenswood branch of the old Northwestern Elevated system of the Chicago 'L'Chicago 'L'The L is the rapid transit system serving the city of Chicago and some of its surrounding suburbs. It is operated by the Chicago Transit Authority...
(today's Brown LineBrown Line (Chicago Transit Authority)The Brown Line starts out in northwest Chicago, at the Kimball and Lawrence Avenue terminal in Albany Park, where there is a storage yard and servicing shop for the trains to the east of the passenger station...
), opens for service between the LoopChicago LoopThe Loop or Chicago Loop is one of 77 officially designated Chicago community areas located in the City of Chicago, Illinois. It is the historic commercial center of downtown Chicago...
and Western and Leland Avenues in Lincoln SquareLincoln Square, ChicagoLincoln Square, located on the North Side of the city of Chicago, Illinois, is one of 77 well-defined Chicago community areas. Greater Lincoln Square encompasses the smaller neighborhoods of Ravenswood Manor, Ravenswood Gardens, Ravenswood, Bowmanville, Budlong Woods and Lincoln Square...
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June events
- June 22 - Opening of the Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead RailwayCharing Cross, Euston & Hampstead RailwayThe Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway , also known as the Hampstead tube, was a railway company established in 1891 that constructed a deep-level underground "tube" railway in London. Construction of the CCE&HR was delayed for more than a decade whilst funding was sought...
in LondonLondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, a deep tube railway which now forms part of the London UndergroundLondon UndergroundThe London Underground is a rapid transit system serving a large part of Greater London and some parts of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex in England...
's Northern lineNorthern LineThe Northern line is a London Underground line. It is coloured black on the Tube map.For most of its length it is a deep-level tube line. The line carries 206,734,000 passengers per year. This is the highest number of any line on the London Underground system, but the Northern line is unique in...
. - June 26 - The Pennsylvania Tunnel and Terminal RailroadPennsylvania Tunnel and Terminal RailroadThe New York Tunnel Extension , was a major project of the Pennsylvania Railroad at the beginning of the 20th century, to improve railroad access throughout the greater New York City area...
is formed from the merger of the Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York Railroad and the Pennsylvania, New York and Long Island Railroad; the new railroad company is chartered to build the Hudson RiverHudson RiverThe Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
tunnelTunnelA tunnel is an underground passageway, completely enclosed except for openings for egress, commonly at each end.A tunnel may be for foot or vehicular road traffic, for rail traffic, or for a canal. Some tunnels are aqueducts to supply water for consumption or for hydroelectric stations or are sewers...
s that will connect the Pennsylvania RailroadPennsylvania RailroadThe Pennsylvania Railroad was an American Class I railroad, founded in 1846. Commonly referred to as the "Pennsy", the PRR was headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania....
to Pennsylvania Station in New York CityNew York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
July events
- July 1 - All New York Central RailroadNew York Central RailroadThe New York Central Railroad , known simply as the New York Central in its publicity, was a railroad operating in the Northeastern United States...
services into and out of Grand Central TerminalGrand Central TerminalGrand Central Terminal —often incorrectly called Grand Central Station, or shortened to simply Grand Central—is a terminal station at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States...
in New York CityNew York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
are electrically hauled.
August events
- August 29 - Due to faulty design, the cantilever bridgeCantilever bridgeA cantilever bridge is a bridge built using cantilevers, structures that project horizontally into space, supported on only one end. For small footbridges, the cantilevers may be simple beams; however, large cantilever bridges designed to handle road or rail traffic use trusses built from...
over the St. Lawrence River at Quebec CityQuebec CityQuebec , also Québec, Quebec City or Québec City is the capital of the Canadian province of Quebec and is located within the Capitale-Nationale region. It is the second most populous city in Quebec after Montreal, which is about to the southwest...
collapses while being built. Between 70 and 84 workers are killed. It will take 10 years to rebuild and complete the project.
October events
- October 1 - Pacific Fruit ExpressPacific Fruit ExpressPacific Fruit Express was a railroad refrigerator car leasing company that at one point was the largest refrigerator car operator in the world. The company was founded on December 7, 1906 as a joint venture between the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific railroads...
(PFE) begins operation with a fleet of 6,600 refrigerator carRefrigerator carA refrigerator car is a refrigerated boxcar , a piece of railroad rolling stock designed to carry perishable freight at specific temperatures. Refrigerator cars differ from simple insulated boxcars and ventilated boxcars , neither of which are fitted with cooling apparatus...
s. - October 1 - The Empire of JapanEmpire of JapanThe Empire of Japan is the name of the state of Japan that existed from the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868 to the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of...
completes the nationalizationRailway Nationalization ActThe brought many of Japan's private railway lines under national control. The Diet of Japan promulgated the Act on March 31, 1906. The Act was repealed by Article 110 of the Japan National Railway Reform Act of 1988, which formed the modern Japan Railways Group....
of nationwide 17 private railroads. - October 15 - 18 die as a result of the Shrewsbury rail accidentShrewsbury rail accidentThe Shrewsbury rail accident occurred on 15 October 1907. An overnight sleeping-car and mail train from Manchester to the West of England derailed on the sharply curved approach to Shrewsbury station, killing 18. Speed was estimated at 60 mph on a curve limited to 10...
on the London & North Western RailwayLondon and North Western RailwayThe London and North Western Railway was a British railway company between 1846 and 1922. It was created by the merger of three companies – the Grand Junction Railway, the London and Birmingham Railway and the Manchester and Birmingham Railway...
when a sleeping carSleeping carThe sleeping car or sleeper is a railway/railroad passenger car that can accommodate all its passengers in beds of one kind or another, primarily for the purpose of making nighttime travel more restful. The first such cars saw sporadic use on American railroads in the 1830s and could be configured...
train is derailedDerailmentA derailment is an accident on a railway or tramway in which a rail vehicle, or part or all of a train, leaves the tracks on which it is travelling, with consequent damage and in many cases injury and/or death....
passing through Shrewsbury stationShrewsbury railway stationShrewsbury railway station is the railway station serving Shrewsbury, county town of Shropshire, England. It is the only remaining railway station in the town; Shrewsbury Abbey, as well as other small stations around the town, having long closed. The station was built in 1848 and has been extended...
, EnglandEnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, at excessive speed. - October 27 - Union Station in Washington, DC, although still unfinished, opens.
November events
- November 7 - Jesús García Corona is blown up driving a burning dynamite train away from a populated area of Nacozari, Sonora.
December events
- December 14 - The Ravenswood extension on what is now the Brown LineBrown Line (Chicago Transit Authority)The Brown Line starts out in northwest Chicago, at the Kimball and Lawrence Avenue terminal in Albany Park, where there is a storage yard and servicing shop for the trains to the east of the passenger station...
opens between Western Avenue and the current terminal at KimballKimball (CTA)Kimball is the 'L' station at the terminus of the CTA's Brown Line. It is located in Chicago's Albany Park neighborhood. From Kimball trains run south and then east to Kedzie, which is about one third of a mile away...
and Lawrence Avenues in Albany ParkAlbany Park, ChicagoAlbany Park is one of 77 well-defined Chicago, Illinois, community areas on the Northwest Side of the City of Chicago. It includes the Albany Park neighborhood, one of the most ethnically diverse in the United States...
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Unknown date events
- Government of IndiaIndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
purchases most major railway companies and leases them back to private operators. - The Deepwater RailwayDeepwater RailwayThe Deepwater Railway was an intrastate short line railroad located in West Virginia in the United States which operated from 1898 to 1907.William N. Page, a civil engineer and entrepreneur, had begun a small logging railroad in Fayette County in 1896, sometimes called the Loup Creek and Deepwater...
and the Tidewater RailwayTidewater RailwayThe Tidewater Railway was formed in 1904 as an intrastate railroad in Virginia, in the United States, by William N. Page, a civil engineer and entrepreneur, and his silent partner, millionaire industrialist Henry Huttleston Rogers of Standard Oil fame...
combine to form the Virginian RailwayVirginian RailwayThe Virginian Railway was a Class I railroad located in Virginia and West Virginia in the United States. The VGN was created to transport high quality "smokeless" bituminous coal from southern West Virginia to port at Hampton Roads....
. - Stearns Manufacturing Company is reorganized as Heisler Locomotive Works.
- The Apalachicola Northern Railroad runs its first train northward from Apalachicola, FloridaApalachicola, FloridaApalachicola is a city in Franklin County, Florida, on US 98 about southwest of Tallahassee. The population was 2,334 at the 2000 census. The 2005 census estimated the city's population at 2,340...
. - E. H. HarrimanE. H. HarrimanEdward Henry Harriman was an American railroad executive.-Early years:Harriman was born in Hempstead, New York, the son of Orlando Harriman, an Episcopal clergyman, and Cornelia Neilson...
removes Stuyvesant FishStuyvesant FishStuyvesant Fish was president of the Illinois Central Railroad.Fish was born in New York City, the son of Hamilton Fish and his wife Julia Ursin Niemcewicz, née Kean. A graduate of Columbia College, he was later an executive of the Illinois Central Railroad, and as its president from 1887 to 1906...
from the presidency of the Illinois Central. - Pennsylvania RailroadPennsylvania RailroadThe Pennsylvania Railroad was an American Class I railroad, founded in 1846. Commonly referred to as the "Pennsy", the PRR was headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania....
builds its third experimental electric locomotiveElectric locomotiveAn electric locomotive is a locomotive powered by electricity from overhead lines, a third rail or an on-board energy storage device...
, number 10003PRR Odd D 10003Pennsylvania Railroad's Odd D #10003 was an experimental electric locomotive built in 1907 of 4-4-0 wheel arrangement in the Whyte notation, or 2-B in the AAR scheme. On the PRR, class D was assigned to 4-4-0 locomotives...
, the forerunner of the PRR DD1PRR DD1The Pennsylvania Railroad's class DD1 were semi-permanently coupled pairs of third rail direct current electric locomotives built for the railroad's initial New York-area electrification. They operated between Manhattan Transfer and Pennsylvania Station in New York City, and from there to the...
class of locomotives. - The Lackawanna Railroad opens its Beaux Arts station in Hoboken, NJ, which is still in use today.
May deaths
- May 19 - Benjamin Baker, BritishGreat BritainGreat Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
civil engineerCivil engineerA civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering; the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructures while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing infrastructures that have been neglected.Originally, a...
, designer of the Forth Railway Bridge (b. 1840).