Events

19th century

• 1855 – The first through train travels the entire distance from Chicago to the Ohio River at Cairo, Illinois.
• 1863 – Ground is broken by the Central Pacific Railroad in Sacramento, California, on the western half of the First Transcontinental Railroad in North America.

20th century

• 1962 – The Harmelen train disaster, the worst railway accident in the history of The Netherlands, occurs when one passenger train driver misses a warning signal and passes a red signal to collide nearly head-on with another passenger train.

21st century

Births

• 1840 – William Dean, Chief Mechanical Engineer of Great Western Railway 1877-1902 (d. 1905).

Deaths

• 1944 – William Kissam Vanderbilt II, heir to Cornelius Vanderbilt and president of the New York Central system (b. 1878).

References