May 10th:
In 1869, the golden spike was driven at Promontory, Utah, joining the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific lines to form America’s first transcontinental railway.
What an amazing accomplishment it was! [:)]
From WHAS.11.COM’s TODAY IN HISTORY:
May 15, 2001
A runaway freight train rolled about 70 miles through Ohio with no one on board, before a railroad employee jumped onto the locomotive and brought it to a stop.
From Arcamax History & Quotes for May 16th:
In 1995, the leader of a Japanese religious cult was charged with murder and attempted murder in the March nerve-gas attacks in a Tokyo subway that killed 12 people and injured more than 5,000.
From Arcamax History & Quotes for May 22:
In 1868, seven members of the Reno gang stole $98,000 from a railway car at Marshfield, Ind. It was the original Great Train Robbery.
For June 26th:
1894The American Railway Union, led by Eugene Debs, called a general strike in sympathy with Pullman workers.
For July 11th:
Also in 2011, more than 50 people died and around 250 were injured when 15 cars of an Indian passenger train jumped tracks and crashed on its way to New Delhi.
For July 25th, from Arcamax History & Quotes:
In 1832, one man was killed and three others injured in the first recorded railroad accident in U.S. history. The four were thrown from an otherwise vacant car on the Granite Railway near Quincy, Mass.
From Arcamax History & Quotes for 8/10/2012:
In 2001, about 250 people were killed in a train wreck in Albania, caused by a mine set on the tracks by rebels.
From WHAS11.com’s Today in History:
1885 America’s first commercially operated electric streetcar began operation in Baltimore.
From whas11.com Today in History Newsletter:
Sept. 13th:2008A commuter train engineer ran a red light while text messaging on his cell phone and struck a freight train head-on in Los Angeles, killing himself and 24 other people.
September 15, 1831. The John Bull, a British built locomotive, is first operated on The Camden and Amboy Railroad between Bordentown and South Amboy, New Jersey. The locomotive was built by Robert Stevenson and Co. for Robert Stevens, President of the C&A. It was shipped to the US in crates and assembled by Isaac Dripps who became the first engineer.
The John Bull ran in regular service until 1866. It was last operated on September 15, 1985 and is now in the Smithsonian Institute.
Earliest Metroliner! [:)]
You could think of it that way. The bottom half of New Jersey is a peninsula. To get from New York to Philadelphia coastwise ships had to go to the southern tip of New Jersey and then go back up the Delaware Bay to Philadelphia. In a sailing vessel the wind was against you so you had to tack. If you click here you will see how long the trip is:
If you go back to the map you will find Perth Amboy on the coast just beneath an un-named island. That is Staten Island. To shorten the trip people would go to Staten Island, cross the Raritan bay to Perth Amboy and take a predecessor to the Metroliner, a stagecoach, across new jersey to Bordentown which is at the bend in the state just below Trenton. Bordentown marks the beginning of tidewater on the Delaware. From Bordentown you took a riverboat down to Philadelphia.
The Camden and Amboy at first replaced the stagecoach and ran from South Amboy (close to Perth Amboy) tfirst to Bordentwon and then on down to Camden, right across from Philadelphia. It must have seemed like a Metroliner to people in those days.
For Sunday, September 16th:
Railroad magnate James Jerome J.J. Hill in 1838
Read more at http://www.arcamax.com/knowledge/quotes/s-1204080-781090#YfvLwvTOuKssE64Y.99
James J. Hill was a gilded age railroad man who was not a robber baron. In 1873 he and Norman Kittson brought the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad. Moving slowly and without Federal subsidy Hill built it along the Canadian border ultimately reaching Puget Sound. In 1893 the Northern Pacific went bankrupt for the second time but the Great Northern did not and reach the Pacific. When, because of the depression, farmers were going broke Hill lent them money. When there was no industry along the line Hill brought in industry. He said to the people who lived along his line “We will get rich together or go broke together.” And James J. Hill got very very rich. He lived until 1916 and ran a western railroad than which none was more successful.
September 22, 1851. Charles Minot telegraphs “Hold the train” to the Goshen stationmaster. Minot was the Superintendent of the Erie Railroad. Minot was on the train at Turners, New York (Now Harriman) when it stopped because the express going in the opposite direction was late. The Eire was a single track railroad. There was nothing to do but wait. Minot, an impatient man, was having none of it. He went into the station and had the telegrapher ask if the express had arrived in Goshen. Upon learning it had not he then telegraphed his order. This was the first time a train order was ever given by telegraph although it would soon be the most common way orders were given.
According to the legend when Minot returned to the train and gave the engineer an order to proceed the engineer refused to budge. Minot then got into the engine and operated the train himself while the engineer went to the last seat in the last car for the ride.
September 24, 1841. The Mohawk and Hudson Railroad began running from Albany to Schenectady, New York. The trip and circumstances are reported by Schenectady Historian Don Rittner in Railroading Began Here. http://www.donrittner.com/his310.html
September 26, 1903. Wreck of the Old 97. Southern Railroad Engineer Steve Broady was ordered to get his train, the Fast Mail, into Spencer, Virginia “on time.” That meant he had to make up an hour. Engineers were required to be on time because the United States Government imposed a penalty on the railroad for every minute the mail was late. Outside of Danville was a downgrade on a curve that ended in a trestle across a ravine. Carrying out his orders Broady descended the downgrade at about 50 mph and the train jumped the tracks and fell off the trestle into the ravine below. Of 18 people on the train 11 were killed and the rest were injured. This tragedy inspired a song, “The Wreck of the Old 97.”
September 27, 1835. Phineas Davis is killed while riding a locomotive he built, the York. Davis designed the first coal burning American locomotive, the Atlantic. His locomotives were grasshoppers with a vertical boiler. They were built for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. American locomotives would burn wood up until the Civil War era and of course the vertical boiler never became popular. Ultimately, however, coal would prove to be a better fuel for steam locomotives.
From Arcamax History & Quotes for Friday, Sept. 28th:
271 passengers were hurt, none believed seriously, when a subway train slammed into the rear of another train, in Shanghai; the latest trouble for China’s rapidly expanded transportation system, plaqued with faulty signeling, poorly trained operators and other problems.
Anyone have anything else to say regarding this: i.e. final conclusions, etc.?