| Years in rail transport |
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| Timeline of railway history |
This article lists events related to rail transport that occurred in 1842.
Events
January events
- January 1 – Boston and Maine Railroad, Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts Railroad and Boston and Portland Railroad merge with the new company keeping the Boston & Maine name.
- January 2 — Commencement of operation of the Railway Clearing House in London, established to settle the division of payments for through traffic over different railways in Britain.
- January 24 — Frederick William IV of Prussia makes the first train journey by a reigning monarch.
February events
- February 21 — Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway opens in Scotland.
March events
- March 31 — The Middleton Junction and Oldham Branch Railway opens to Oldham Werneth railway station in northwest England.
April events
- April 11 — The French government enacts the Loi relative à l'établissement des grandes lignes de chemins de fer which establishes the plan for French railroads' placement in a star pattern centered on Paris.
May events
- May 1 — Opening of first section of Upper Silesian Railway, between Wrocław and Oława, the first line within the borders of modern-day Poland. By August it reaches Brzeg.
- May 8 — Versailles rail accident: A train traveling between Versailles and Paris derails due to a broken locomotive axle near Moudon and catches fire, killing at least 55 passengers in the locked carriages.
June events
- June 13 — Queen Victoria makes the first train journey by a reigning British monarch, on the Great Western Railway of England (Slough to Paddington).
July events
- July 1 – The Bristol and Exeter Railway extension to Taunton opens in England.
September events
- September — Robert Davidson's experimental battery-electric locomotive Galvani is demonstrated on the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway.
December events
- December — William Maxwell succeeds James Bowen as president of the Erie Railroad.
Births
October births
- October 12 — Robert Gillespie Reid, builder of many Canadian railway bridges as well as the Newfoundland Railway (d. 1908).
December births
- December 7 — George Whale, Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London and North Western Railway 1903–1909 (d. 1910).
Unknown date births
- George Frederick Baer, president of Reading Company (d. 1914).
- Melville E. Ingalls, president of the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad (d. 1914).
Deaths
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References
- Bagwell, Philip S. (1968). The Railway Clearing House in the British Economy 1842–1922. London: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 0-04-331037-0.
- Balkwill, Richard; Marshall, John (1993). The Guinness Book of Railway Facts and Feats (6th ed.). Enfield: Guinness Publishing. ISBN 0-85112-707-X.
- Glasgow Constitutional (1842-02-22). "Opening Of The Edinburgh And Glasgow Railway". The Times. No. 17913. London. p. 6.
- Halor, Jakub (2006-10-12). "160 lat Kolei Górnośląskiej". WPK Katowice (in Polish). Łódź: Emipress. Retrieved 2016-08-07.
- Body, Geoffrey (1985). Western Handbook — a digest of GWR and WR data. Weston-super-Mare: British Rail (Western). ISBN 0-905466-70-5.
- Stratton, Fred. "Erie Railroad presidents". Archived from the original on 18 March 2005. Retrieved 2005-03-02.
- Indiana Historical Society. "Melville E. Ingalls Papers, 1870–1907, Collection Guide, biographical sketch" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-08-19. Retrieved 2012-10-19.