1845 in rail transport

This article lists events related to rail transport that occurred in 1845.

Events[]

March 19 – Boston and Maine Railroad Extension, which was incorporated a dispute with the Boston and Lowell Railroad over trackage rights rates in Massachusetts, is merged into Boston and Maine Railroad.

July – succeeds Eleazer Lord as president of the Erie Railroad.
July 1 – Boston and Maine Railroad opens the extension over the former Boston and Maine Railroad Extension line between Wilmington and Boston.
July 21 – An unprecedented number of railway acts receive Royal Assent from Queen Victoria in the United Kingdom as the railway mania approaches its peak, Parliament having sanctioned 2,816 mi (4,532 km) of new construction.^[1]

October 8 – The Montour Iron Works of Danville rolled the first iron T-rails in Pennsylvania.^[2]
October 22 – First section of the Württemberg Central Railway opens, between Cannstatt und Untertürkheim.

William Swinburne, shop foreman for Rogers, Ketchum and Grosvenor, leaves Rogers to form his own locomotive manufacturing company, Swinburne, Smith and Company.
becomes chief mechanical engineer for the Hudson River Railroad.

June 24 – Georges Nagelmackers, Belgian founder of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits, the company known for the Orient Express trains (d. 1905).

November 18 – Edwin Winter, president of Northern Pacific Railway in 1868 and Brooklyn Rapid Transit beginning in 1902 (d. 1930).^[4]

January 14 – William F. Harnden, founder of express, first person to send an express shipment by rail (b. 1812).

Erie Railroad presidents. Retrieved March 15, 2005.
Rivanna Chapter, National Railway Historical Society (2005), This Month in Railroad History: March. Retrieved March 30, 2005.
White, John H. Jr. (Spring 1986). "America's Most Noteworthy Railroaders". Railroad History. 154: 9–15. ISSN 0090-7847. JSTOR 43523785. OCLC 1785797.
White, John H. Jr. (1968). A history of the American locomotive; its development: 1830–1880. New York, NY: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-23818-0.

^ Lewin, Henry Grote (1936). The Railway Mania and its aftermath, 1845–1852. London: Railway Gazette.
^ Explore Pennsylvania History, accessed July 2021.
^ United States Congress. "Brice, Calvin Stewart (id: B000818)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved October 30, 2008.
^ Busbey, T. Addison, ed. (1906). The Biographical Directory of the Railway Officials of America, Edition of 1906. Chicago, Illinois: Railway Age. p. 666.