1959 in rail transport

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

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]

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

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 - 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.

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]

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