JUNE 01 1891
North America’s highest railroad (14,109 ft), the Manitou & Pike’s Peak Railway in Colorado, opens.
JUNE 01 1898
The Erdman Act, which provides for mediation of railroad disputes, is adopted.
JUNE 01 1898
The first interurban streetcar line, the Union Traction Company, begins operation between Anderson and Alexandria, Indiana.
JUNE 01 1908
Dalles, Portland & Astoria Navigation Co. transferred to the SP&S
JUNE 01 1947
Gulf Mobile & Ohio Railroad acquires Alton Railroad.
JUNE 01 1982
The Norfolk & Western Railroad merges with the Southern Railway to form the Norfolk Southern Corporation.
JUNE 02 1873
Construction begins on San Francisco’s Clay Street for world’s First cable railroad.
JUNE 02 1982
Soo Line takes control of Minneapolis, Northfield & Southern.
JUNE 07 1860
Trackwork begins on San Francisco’s Market Street Railroad.
JUNE 07 1870
The first patent for an automatic electric block signal system is issued to Thomas S. Hall of Stamford, CT.
JUNE 07 1905
The first steel mail car is placed into service on the New York, Salamanca & Chicago, Railroad.
JUNE 11 1864
Battle of Central Railroad Trevillian Station, Virginia.
JUNE 11 1905
Pennsylvania Railroad debuts fastest train in world (NY-Chicago in 18 hrs).
JUNE 11 1940
New York City’s 9th Avenue El, the oldest elevated railroad in the world, makes its last run. The youngest of New York City’s elevated lines, the 2nd Avenue El, also makes its last run.
JUNE 11 1980
San Francisco’s K-Ingleside streetcar converts to METRO service San Francisco.
JUNE 12 1832
Tuscumbia Railway begins operations.
JUNE 12 1899
Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch rob a Union Pacific train of $60,000 near Wilcox Station, Wyoming.
JUNE 12 1902
Train makes New York to Chicago run in record 20 hours.
JUNE 12 1905
Pennsylvania Railroad 's Pennsylvania Special (which later became the Broadway Limited) sets speed record of 127.2 MPH. This would stand as the all time record for steam locomotives.
JUNE 13 1928
The first rail detector car, invented by Elmer Ambrose Sperry is tested for the first time at Beacon, NY. The car made it possible to detect flaws in railroad tracks.
JUNE 13 1957
Central Railroad of New Jersey retires #1000, the first diesel-electric locomotive.
JUNE 15 1905
First run of the New York Central’s Twentieth Century Limited.
JUNE 15 1927
First two-way radio communication between a caboose and locomotive on a moving train is demonstrated by the General Electric Company.
JUNE 15 1928
First transfer of mail from a dirigible to a train. A mail sack from an Air Corps blimp was lowered by rope to an Illinois Central train near Belleville, Illinois.
JUNE 15 1938
Twentieth Century Limited uses first fluorescent tail sign.
JUNE 15 1945
19 killed in train accident at Milton, PA.
JUNE 15 1973
B & O, C & O, and Western Maryland form Chessie System.
JUNE 15 1974
Final use of Electrification on the Milwaukee Road.
If anyone else has anything to add, please feel free to post/reply.
JUNE 18 1886
Transcontinental train service begins on the Canadian Pacific Railway.
JUNE 18 1910
Congress expands the enforcement and regulatory powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission through the Mann-Elkins Act
JUNE 20 1841
Samual F. B. Morse patents the telegraph.
JUNE 20 1893
The first industrial railroad union, the American Railroad Union, is formed with Eugene Debs elected as its first president.
JUNE 21 1970
Penn Central files for bankruptcy.
FROM ARCAMAX HISTORY& QUOTES:
June 22
2009, an evening rush hour collision on Washington’s Metrorail Red Line mass transit system in which a speeding train rear ended another that had stopped left nine dead. Investigators blamed a long-standing computer problem.
FROM RAILWAYSTATION.COM:
JUNE 22 1915
Brooklyn Rapid Transit, begins subway service.
JUNE 22 1918
Circus train rammed by troop train kills 68 at Ivanhoe, Illinois.
JUNE 22 1956
Last regular run of steam; Z-8 #910 leaves Yardley on the Scribner Turn (SP&S Ry.)
JUNE 22 1957
Kansas City streetcar service ends.
JUNE 22 1972
Amtrak’s first own locomotives, SDP40F’s from EMD, debut on the Chicago to Los Angeles Super Chief.
JUNE 23 1900
A stone bridge near McDonald, Georgia on the Southern Railway is washed away in front of a work train. The train fell into the gap and caught fire, killing 35.
JUNE 23 1938
New York City Mayor LaGuardia assigns 21 police to patrol subway system.
Ivanhoe is actually in Indiana (source error, I know). I can’t remember the details of this wreck, but it evidently occurred on the Michigan Central Railroad, which crossed the EJ&E at that point.
Carl, thanks for the extra information on the circus train accident. Very much appreciated.
JUNE 24 1886
The first special train of fruit for eastern markets leaves Sacramento, California.
JUNE 24 1980
Detroit, Toledo & Ironton acquires by Grand Trunk Western.
JUNE 26 1870
The Denver & Pacific becomes the first railroad to reach Denver by completing its connection to Cheyenne, WY.
JUNE 26 1894
Eugene Deb’s American Railway Union calls on every signalman, brakeman, switchman, fireman and yardman to not handle, move or in anyway assist in running a Pullman car or any train carrying such a car in support of the Pullman Strike.
JUNE 27 1861
The Central Pacific Railroad is organized in California.
JUNE 27 1906
Gilpin Tramway sold to Colorado & Southern.
JUNE 27 1974
Amtrak’s computerized ticketing becomes operational.
JUNE 28 1834
Engine explodes on Harlem Railroad in New York City shortly after first run.
JUNE 28 1895
First electric train service in the U.S. begins on the New Haven & Hartford Railroad on the 7-mile Nantasket Branch.
JUNE 30 1947
After an anti-trust suit, the Pullman Company sells sleeping car service to 57 railroads
JUNE 30 1952
First welded rail on the system laid in the St. John’s cut (SP&S Ry.)
JUNE 30 1964
White Pass & Yukon Railroad phases out steam locomotives.
JUNE 30 1965
The Missouri-Kansas-Texas becomes freight only.
JUNE 30 1977
The last Railway Post Office in the U.S. departs Washington, DC bound for New York City.
JULY 01 1851
First refrigerated car in the U.S. carries eight tons of butter from Ogdensburg, NY to Boston on the Northern New York Railroad in a wooden boxcar insulated with sawdust.
JULY 01 1862
Transcontinental railroad from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean authorized by an act signed by President Lincoln.
JULY 01 1868
New York City’s 9th Avenue El, the oldest elevated railroad in the world, makes its first trial run.
JULY 01 1876
Boston & Maine Railroad’s Hoosac Tunnel opens in Western Massachusetts. It was the oldest of the long railroad tunnels still in use at the end of the steam era.
JULY 01 1893
Through service on the Great Northern’s line from the Great Lakes to Everett, Washington, began.
JULY 01 1901
Work begins on Pennsylvania Station.
JULY 01 1922
400,000 railroad workers go on strike to protest a 12.5% wage cut ordered by the Railroad Labor Board. The strike lasts until September 15 when a Federal Judge issued an injunction banning all strike activities against the railroads.
JULY 01 1962
Norfolk & Western ends Virginian electrification.
JULY 01 1965
Last run for Missouri-Kansas-Texas Texas Special
JULY 01 1968
Chicago Great Western is taken over by Chicago & Northwestern.
JULY 01 1988
Virginia becomes the last state to repeal law requiring cabooses on all trains.
July 1, 1876, actually marks the date the Hoosac Tunnel was accepted by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The 1st freight train had passed through the tunnel on April 5, 1875, and the 1st passenger train on August 13, 1875. When the tunnel opened it was the property of the Troy & Greenfield Railroad which was in turn owned by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The Troy & Greenfield, including the tunnel, was sold to the Fitchburg Railroad in 1887. The Fitchburg in turn was leased to the Boston & Maine Railroad in 1900.