1944 in rail transport

This article lists events related to rail transport that occurred in 1944.

Events[]

January 3: Torre del Bierzo rail disaster in Leon Province, Spain. More than 500 are killed.
January 28: A train of Allied prisoners of war on the Orvieto North railway bridge at Allerona in Italy is inadvertently bombed by United States Army Air Forces 320th Bombardment Group. About 450 are killed.^[1]

c. February: Charles Fairburn succeeds William Stanier as Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway upon Stanier's retirement.

March 3: Balvano train disaster, Balvano, Italy: A double-headed mixed train stalls in a tunnel. 521 are killed by carbon monoxide poisoning; five survive. 193 of the dead carrying no identification, most of them Black Marketeers, are buried in a mass grave at the site.
March 19: The last steam locomotive purchased new by Southern Pacific Railroad, cab forward class AC-12 4-8-8-2 number 4294, enters service.^[2]

April 1: Government of India takes over the Madras & Southern Mahratta and South Indian Railways.^[3]

July 6: Troop train crash near Jellico, Tennessee, United States: Passenger train derails due to excessive speed on defective track. 35 killed, 99 injured; all U.S. Army soldiers en route to deployment.
July 26: Normandy landings: Four British War Department diesel shunters are shipped by landing craft tank from England.^[5]

October 1: Government of India takes over the Bengal Nagpur Railway.^[3]
October 16: The Baltimore & Ohio's last new steam locomotive #5594, Class T-3C rolls out of Mount Clare in Baltimore.

November 7: Election day accident in Puerto Rico: a passenger train derails at Aguadilla due to excessive speed on a downhill grade; 16 are killed, 50 injured.

December: The Union Pacific Railroad takes delivery from Alco of Class FEF-3 4-8-4 #844, the road's last new steam locomotive.^[6]

United States builders begin deliveries of Russian locomotive class Ye 2-10-0s to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease. More than two thousand will be built from now until 1947 to this design, which originated during World War I.
Fred Gurley succeeds as president of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway.

June 11: Michael R. Haverty, president of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway 1989–1995, president of the Kansas City Southern Railway 1995–present.^[7]

November 7: E. Hunter Harrison, president of Illinois Central Railroad 1993–1998, Railroader of the Year 2002, president of Canadian National Railway 2003–2009, president and CEO of Canadian Pacific Railway 2012–2017, CEO of CSX Transportation in 2017 (died 2017).

January 8: William Kissam Vanderbilt II, heir to Cornelius Vanderbilt and president of the New York Central system (born 1878).

March 7: Richard Edward Lloyd Maunsell, Chief mechanical engineer of the Southern Railway (UK) 1923–1937 (born 1868).^[8]^[9]
March 21: Hugo Lentz, Austrian inventor of a valve gear for steam engines (born 1859).^[9]

June 19: Richard Deeley, Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Midland Railway 1909–1923 (born 1855).

^ Dethick, Janet Kinrade (November 2, 2012). "The Bridge at Allerona". Archived from the original on February 9, 2013. Retrieved February 22, 2013.
^ Diebert, Timothy S.; Strapac, Joseph A. (1987). Southern Pacific Company Steam Locomotive Compendium. Shade Tree Books. ISBN 0-930742-12-5.
^ ^a ^b Saxena, R. P. (2008). "Indian Railway History Time Line". Archived from the original on February 29, 2012. Retrieved December 23, 2009.
^ Organ, John (2002). Northern France Narrow Gauge. Midhurst: Middleton Press. ISBN 1-901706-75-3.
^ Tourret, R. (1976). War Department Locomotives. Allied Military Locomotives of the Second World War, Book I. Abingdon: Tourret Publishing. p. 23. ISBN 0-905878-00-0.
^ "Steam Locomotive No. 844". Union Pacific. Archived from the original on January 20, 2010. Retrieved January 14, 2010.
^ Vantuono, William C. (January 2001). "Mike Haverty, Railroader of the Year". Archived from the original on December 12, 2004. Retrieved March 25, 2005.
^ "Railway engineers – Richard Edward Lloyd Maunsell". February 26, 1999. Archived from the original on December 16, 2004. Retrieved February 10, 2005.
^ ^a ^b Marshall, John (2003). Biographical Dictionary of Railway Engineers (2nd ed.). Oxford: Railway and Canal Historical Society. ISBN 0-901461-22-9.