1977 in rail transport

This article lists events related to rail transport that occurred in 1977.

Events[]

January 10 – Passenger service on Boston and Maine Railroad's Lexington Branch ends when a train consisting of a Budd Rail Diesel Car and a switcher locomotive are stranded by a snowstorm at the Bedford, Massachusetts depot.^[1]
January 18 – The Granville railway disaster was Australia's worst ever railway disaster at Granville, a suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, when a commuter train derails and hits a bridge, causing the bridge to collapse on top of the train.

February 4 – Chicago Loop derailment Chicago, Illinois, United States: A Chicago Transit Authority elevated train motorman disregards cab signals and rear ends another train at a curve on the Loop during the evening rush hour causing four cars of the rear train derail and fall to the street below. Eleven people are killed and over 180 injured in the worst disaster in the history of Chicago's rapid transit system. The motorman was suspected of being high on marijuana.^[2]

March 13 – Shin-Nagata and Myodani route of Seishin-Yamate Line open, for first section of Kobe Municipal Subway in Hyogo Prefecture.^{[citation needed]}
March 28 – The United States Interstate Commerce Commission approves Chicago South Shore and South Bend Railroad's petition to end passenger service.^[3]

April 21 – Indiana Governor Otis R. Bowen signs into law an act forming the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District which will take over passenger service from the Chicago South Shore and South Bend Railroad.^[3]

May – Auto-Train Corporation launches a second Auto Train, this time between Louisville, Kentucky and Sanford, Florida.
May 9 – The last Paris-Istanbul train with the name Orient Express makes its final run. The name persists as a train running from Paris to Vienna.
May 21 – The Glasgow Subway shuts down for a complete system overhaul.^[4]
May 23 – A train hijack takes place at the village of De Punt, in the province of Groningen, the Netherlands. Activists aimed to endorse the Republik Maluku Selatan (RMS), a self-proclaimed republic in the Maluku Islands. At the same time a hostage situation occurred at a school in Bovensmilde. The Dutch Marines stormed the train at June 11, 1977, after six Starfighters flew over the train, creating a noise and distraction for the hostage takers. Six hostage takers and two passengers lost their lives in the operation. The activists at the school surrendered after they learned of the fate of their fellow activists in the train.

June 16 – Construction begins on the Minsk Metro in Belarus (at the time, still a part of the Soviet Union).
June 30 – Last Railway post office to run on rails in the United States, New York-Washington, D.C.^[5]

September – The second Auto Train route to Louisville, Kentucky is discontinued due to heavy financial losses.

October 26 – Locomotive number 043 903 pulls the last regularly scheduled mainline train on German tracks to be hauled by a steam locomotive.
October 29 – First run of the Maple Leaf.

November 9 – A first section of Tashkent Metro Chilonzor Line, Olmazar to Amir Temur Xiyoboni route officially regular operation service to start in Uzbekistan. (former part of Soviet Union)^[6]

December 16 – London becomes the first capital city in the world to be directly linked to its international airport by underground railway as the Queen opens Heathrow Central tube station (now Heathrow Terminals 2 & 3 tube station) on London Underground's Piccadilly line at the centre of London Heathrow Airport.^[7]

W. Graham Claytor, Jr. is succeeded by L. Stanley Crane^[8]^[9] as president of the Southern Railway.
Via Rail Canada takes over operations of the Super Continental passenger train from Canadian National.
Guilford Transportation Industries is established.

^ Friends of Bedford Depot Park, Inc. (March 18, 2000), A Chronology of Bedford's Railroad History. Retrieved January 10, 2006.
^ (Chicago-L.org)
^ Jump up to: ^a ^b "South Shore Railroad history". Chicago Post-Tribune. June 29, 2008. Retrieved June 30, 2008.^{[dead link]}
^ Wright, John; Maclean, Ian (1997). Circles Under the Clyde – a history of the Glasgow Underground. Harrow Weald: Capital Transport. ISBN 1-85414-190-2.
^ Bergman, Edwin B. (1980). 29 years to oblivion: the last years of Railway Mail Service in the United States. Omaha, Nebraska: Mobile Post Office Society.
^ Retrieved on January 11, 2017
^ Green, Oliver (1988). The London Underground - An Illustrated History. Ian Allan. p. 63. ISBN 0-7110-1720-4.
^ L. Stanley Crane, elected in 1978 as a member of the United States National Academy of Engineering
^ L. Stanley Crane (born in Cincinnati, 1915) raised in Washington, lived in McLean before moving to Philadelphia in 1981. He began his career with Southern Railway after graduating from The George Washington University with a chemical engineering degree in 1938. He worked for the railroad, except for a stint from 1959 to 1961 with the Pennsylvania Railroad, until reaching the company's mandatory retirement age in 1980. Crane went tConrail in 1981 after a distinguished career that had seen him rise to the position of CEO at the Southern Railway. He died of pneumonia on July 15, 2003 at a hospice in Boynton Beach, Fla.

hide v t Railway accidents in 1977 (1977)
Location and date	Sydney, Australia (18 January) Chicago, United States (4 February)
1976 1978