1879 in rail transport
Events
January events
- January 28 – Construction of the Waimea Plains Railway, the first railway constructed under the District Railways Act of 1878, reaches Inverrcagill, New Zealand.
February events
- February 10 – The Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railway begins freight operations.
May events
- May – James J. Hill forms the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway from the assets of the bankrupt St. Paul and Pacific.
- May 17 – The Texas and St. Louis Railway, a predecessor of St. Louis Southwestern Railway, is organized as a way to ship cotton south to Texas.
- May 31 – The first electric railway opens at the Berlin Trades Exposition.
July events
- July 4 – The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, building southwestward from Kansas, reaches Las Vegas, New Mexico.
- July 31 – The Caledonian Railway opens the original Glasgow Central station in Scotland.
November events
- November 1 – The first British dining car service leaves Leeds for London King's Cross. This was provided by the Pullman car Princess of Wales which accommodated only 10 first-class passengers.
- November 20 – Narrow gauge Sandy River Railroad completed to Phillips, Maine.
- November 22 – The North Pennsylvania Railroad begins operating the Philadelphia, Newtown and New York Railroad, a subsidiary of Pennsylvania Railroad.
- November 25 – The Waldenburgerbahn was founded as a separate company and took over the concession for the railway from Liestal to Waldenburg, Switzerland.
December events
- December 28 – Tay Bridge disaster: The North British Railway's Tay Bridge across the Firth of Tay in Scotland collapses in a violent storm while a passenger train is crossing it. 75 lives are lost. William Topaz McGonagall produces his epic poem The Tay Bridge Disaster to commemorate the event.
Unknown date events
- Southern Pacific Railroad engineers experiment with the first oil-fired steam locomotives.
Births
March births
