1877 in rail transport

This article lists events related to rail transport that occurred in 1877.

Events

May events

• May 1 – Opening of first railway in Burma (Myanmar), from Rangoon (Yangon) to Prome (Pyay) (257 km (160 mi) of metre gauge).^{[1][page needed]}

July events

Burning of Union Depot, Pittsburgh, July 21–22 during Great Railroad Strike

• July 14 – Baltimore railroad strike of 1877: Workers on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad walk off their jobs in an act that is seen as the start of the great railroad strike of 1877.^[2]
• July 16
  • Railroad workers on strike in Martinsburg, West Virginia, derail and loot a train; West Virginia Governor Henry M. Mathews calls on United States President Rutherford B. Hayes for Federal troops to break the strike.^[3]
  • The Nickey line, connecting Boxmoor to Harpenden in England, is officially opened.^[4]
• July 19 – The New York and Manhattan Beach Railway (later absorbed by the Long Island Rail Road) opens.^[5]
• July 20 – Baltimore and Ohio Railroad workers riot in Baltimore, Maryland. Nine railroad employees are killed as the Maryland militia attempts to quell the riot.
• July 21 – Baltimore and Ohio Railroad workers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, stage a sympathy strike for the workers killed in Baltimore, Maryland the day before. Rioting erupts throughout Pittsburgh as a result.
• July 24 – Joel Tiffany is awarded U.S. patent 193,357 for his design of the first successful refrigerator car.

August events

• August 31 – The first 2 ft (610 mm) gauge narrow gauge railroad in America, the Billerica and Bedford Railroad, begins operations.^[6]

October events

• October 28 – Replacement Budapest-Nyugati Railway Terminal, constructed by Eiffel, opened in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

November events

• November 4 – Opening of Gustave Eiffel's Maria Pia Bridge carrying the railway across the Douro into Porto, Portugal.

December events

• December 27 – The Quebec, Montreal, Ottawa and Occidental Railway opens, traversing a route from Montreal through Lachute to Hull.^[7]

Unknown date events

• Tracks of the Southern Pacific Railroad from Los Angeles, cross the Colorado River at Yuma, Arizona.
• William Henry Vanderbilt, son of Cornelius Vanderbilt, is promoted to President of the New York Central system.
• Second railway in Estonia connecting Tapa (on the Tallinn–Saint Petersburg line) with Tartu, the biggest city in Southern Estonia (at this time in the Governorate of Livonia) is opened.^[8]
• Opening of first public railway in Venezuela, the Bolivar Railway (Ferrocarril Bolívar, 2 ft (610 mm) gauge).^[9]
• Approximate date – Ephraim Shay develops the first Shay locomotive.

Births

February births

• February 7 – Edgar Alcock, general manager and chairman of Hunslet Engine Company of Leeds, England (d. 1951).^[10]

March births

• March 7 – Walter Kidde, president of New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway 1937–1943 (d. 1943).^[11]

Deaths

January deaths

• January 4 – Cornelius Vanderbilt, American financier who created the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad from the merger of several smaller New York railroads (b. 1794).^[12]

March deaths

• March 9 – Oliver Ames Jr., president of Union Pacific Railroad 1866–1871, brother of Oakes Ames (b. 1807).^[13][14]

April deaths

• April 22 – James P. Kirkwood, designer of Starrucca Viaduct (b. 1807).

May deaths

• May 19 – Matthew Baird, second owner of Baldwin Locomotive Works (b. 1817).^[15]

August deaths

• August 3 – William Butler Ogden, president of the Chicago and North Western Railway (b. 1805).

September deaths

• September 2 – Alvin Adams, founder of Adams Express, one of the first LCL freight companies in the United States, dies (b. 1804).

December events

• December 26 – Jean-Jacques Meyer, French-born steam locomotive designer (b. 1804)

References

• Rivanna Chapter, National Railway Historical Society (2005), This Month in Railroad History: July. Retrieved July 12 and July 22, 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.

1. Marshall, John (1989). The Guinness Railway Book. Enfield: Guinness Books. ISBN 0-8511-2359-7. OCLC 24175552.
2. Rivanna Chapter, National Railway Historical Society (2005). "This Month in Railroad History – July". Archived from the original on June 14, 2006. Retrieved July 14, 2006.
3. Foner, Philip S. (1977). The Great Labor Uprising of 1877. Pathfinder Press. ISBN 0-87348-828-8.
4. Woodward, Sue; Woodward, Geoff (1996). The Harpenden to Hemel Hempstead Railway – The Nickey Line. Oakwood Press. p. 31. ISBN 0-85361-502-0.
5. "The New York and Manhattan Beach Railway". Archived from the original on July 17, 2005. Retrieved July 18, 2005.
6. "A Chronology of Bedford's Railroad History". March 18, 2000. Retrieved August 31, 2005.
7. Colin Churcher's Railway Pages (December 12, 2005), Significant dates in Ottawa railway history Archived April 27, 2006, at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved December 27, 2005.
8. "Ajalugu" (in Estonian). Eesti Raudtee. Archived from the original on September 23, 2017. Retrieved April 23, 2012.
9. Baker, Allan C. (2022). The Bolivar Railway and the Aroa Copper Mines. Industrial Railway Society.
10. "Hunslet group of locomotive companies". steamindex.com. March 26, 2021. Alcock, Edgar. Retrieved April 4, 2024.
11. Robert E. Mohowski (2003). The New York Susuquehanna & Western Railroad. The Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-7222-7. OCLC 50731001.
12. "American engineers". steamindex.com. May 5, 2020. Vanderbilt, Comelius. Retrieved April 4, 2024.
13. Spencer Marks (2005), The Ames Family of North Easton, MA Archived September 30, 2015, at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved December 29, 2005.
14. Union Pacific Railroad, Union Pacific: Significant Individuals Archived September 15, 2012, at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved December 29, 2005.
15. "American engineers". steamindex.com. May 5, 2020. Baird, Matthew. Retrieved April 4, 2024.