1959 in rail transport

Years in rail transport

* 1958 in rail transport
* 1959 in rail transport
* 1960 in rail transport

Timeline of railway history

This article lists events related to rail transport that occurred in 1959.

## Events

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### January events

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* January 4 - Passenger service resumes on the Strasburg Rail Road in Pennsylvania for tourists.
* January 5 - Foulridge railway station closes on the Midland Railway (originally the Leeds and Bradford Extension Railway) in Lancashire, England.[1]

### February events

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* February 28 - The Eastern Region of British Railways closes most of the former Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway.[2]

### March events

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* March 28 - The Niagara, St. Catharines and Toronto Railway, the last interurban railroad in Canada, operates its last revenue service.

### April events

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* April 3 - Construction begins on Japanese National Railways’ Tōkaidō Shinkansen between Osaka and Tokyo.
* April 4 - Maine Central Railroad ends passenger service to Samoset destination hotel in Rockland, Maine.[3]
* April 25 - Opening of the Saint Lawrence Seaway encourages improved ice-breaking on the Saint Lawrence River and initiates declining winter freight volume on Canadian railways east of Montreal.
* SAFEGE test monorail built in France.[4]

### May events

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* May - The Ottawa, Arnprior and Parry Sound Railway runs its last train, ending 62 years of service.
* May 28 - A passenger train in Indonesia derails and falls into a ravine, killing 85 people and injuring 47 in the Tasikmalaya area of West Java; sabotage is suspected.[5]

### June events

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* June 9 - The Chicago, Aurora and Elgin Railroad, interurban railway serving Chicago's western suburbs, ceases freight operations, thus bringing an end to all of the railroad's operations.
* June 15 - The Disneyland Monorail System built by Alweg opens, making it the first daily operating monorail system in the western hemisphere.
* June 21 - Soo Line 2719 hauls the last of Soo Line Railroad's steam locomotive-powered trains in revenue service on a round-trip excursion between Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Ladysmith, Wisconsin.[6]

### July events

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* July 1 - Colorado Railroad Museum opens in Golden.[7]
* July 14 - Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) 0-6-0 number 5244, class B-6sb, becomes the last steam locomotive to operate on the PRR.
* July 18 - The last steam locomotive runs on the Nickel Plate Road as a pair of 0-8-0 switchers are called out to cover a traffic surge.
* July 27 - Southern Pacific Company opens new embankment replacing Lucin Cutoff trestle across Great Salt Lake, Utah.[8]

### August events

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* August 25 - Baltimore and Ohio Railroad opens Arthur Kill Vertical Lift Bridge over Staten Island Sound in the United States.
* August 30 - Streetcar service in Montreal, Quebec, Canada is discontinued.

### October events

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* October 6 - The Carmelit, Haifa's underground funicular railway, opens.
* October 12 - First R28 (New York City Subway car) enters service, from the last batch of passenger cars that the American Car and Foundry Company is to build.
* October 28 - The Canadian National Railway line between St. Felicien and Chibougamau, Quebec, opens.

### November events

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* November 2 - The Pacific Electric Watts Line, then under operation by the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority, is discontinued. The service is replaced with buses.[9]

### December events

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* December 1 - The Virginian Railway is merged into the Norfolk and Western Railroad.
* December 29 - First section of Lisbon Metro (Metropolitano de Lisboa) opens in Lisbon, Portugal, first metro (subway) system in the country.

### Unknown date events

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* General Electric announces that it will begin manufacturing diesel locomotives on its own.
* Israel Railways officially withdraws all steam locomotives; the last, Baldwin-built Palestine Railways H class 4-6-0 no. 901, surviving in traffic into the following year.[10]

## Accidents

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Railway accidents and incidents in the 1950s

1950|

* Rockville Centre, New York, US (17 February)
* Sauherad, Norway (15 November)
* Canoe River, British Columbia, Canada (21 November)
* Kew Gardens, New York, US (22 November)

1951|

* Woodbridge, New Jersey, US (6 February)
* Doncaster, United Kingdom (16 March)
* Yokohama, Japan (24 April)
* Nova Iguaçu, Brazil (7 June)
* Weedon, United Kingdom (21 September)
* Piquet Carneiro, Brazil (17 December)

1952|

* Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (4 March)
* Gibalta, Portugal (31 March)
* Rzepin, Poland (9 July)
* Harrow, United Kingdom (8 October)

1953|

* Washington, D.C., US (15 January)
* Cdoro. Rivadavia, Argentina (15 February)
* Conneaut, Ohio, US (27 March)
* London, England (8 April)
* Weesp, the Netherlands (19 June)
* Hai Van Pass, Vietnam (24 June)
* Manchester, England (15 August)
* Sydenham, Australia (19 December)
* Tangiwai, New Zealand (24 December)
* Šakvice, Czechoslovakia (24 December)

1954|

* Fabrica, Negros Occidental, Philippines (2 September)

1955|

* Sutton Coldfield, United Kingdom (23 January)
* San Bernardo, Chile (17 July)
* Milton, United Kingdom (20 November)
* London, United Kingdom (2 December)

1956|

* Los Angeles, California, US (22 January)
* Cedar, West Virginia, US (23 January)
* Santiago, Chile (14 February)
* Swampscott, Massachusetts, US (28 February)
* Mahbubnagar, India (2 September)
* Matsusaka, Japan (15 October)
* Ariyalur, India (23 November)

1957|

* Welwyn Garden City, United Kingdom (7 January)
* Staines, United Kingdom
* Gambar, Pakistan (29 September)
* Yarımburgaz, Turkey (20 October)
* Lewisham, United Kingdom (4 December)
* Codogno, Italy (9 December)

1958|

* Dagenham, United Kingdom (30 January)
* Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (8 May)
* Oslo, Norway (2 August)
* Eastbourne, United Kingdom (25 August)
* Newark, New Jersey, US (15 September)

1959|

* Lauffen bus crash, West Germany (20 June)
* Meldrim trestle disaster, United States (28 June)

## Births

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### May births

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* May 1 - Ning Bin, Chinese signalling control systems engineer (died 2019).

## Deaths

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### August deaths

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* August 26 - William Valentine Wood, President of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway 1941-8 (born 1883).

## References

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1. ^ Binns, Donald (2005). Midland Lines Railway Stations Past and Present. Trackside Publications. ISBN 1-900095-26-2.
2. ^ Wrottesley, A. J. F. (1970). The Midland & Great Northern Joint Railway. Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0-7153-4340-8.
3. ^ Johnson, Ron (1985). The Best of Maine Railroads. Portland Litho. p. 112.
4. ^ "Suspended - SAFEGE". Technical Pages. Monorail Society. Retrieved 2009-12-22.
5. ^ "185 Believed Dead in Java Train Wreck". Oakland Tribune. 1959-05-29. p. 1.
6. ^ Gilchinski, Steve (February 1997). "Soo Line 2-8-2 back in steam". Trains Magazine. 57 (2): 24–25.
7. ^ "Colorado Railroad Museum". Archived from the original on 2004-01-13. Retrieved 2009-12-22.
8. ^ Balkwill, Richard; Marshall, John (1993). The Guinness Book of Railway Facts and Feats (6th ed.). Enfield: Guinness Publishing. ISBN 0-85112-707-X.
9. ^ "Watts Rail Line Goes to Bus" (PDF). The MTA Emblem. LAMTA. December 1959. p. 12. Retrieved 11 April 2021.
10. ^ Cotterell, Paul (1984). The Railways of Palestine and Israel. Abingdon: Tourret Publishing. p. 29\. ISBN 0-905878-04-3.

* Colin Churcher's Railway Pages (August 16, 2005), Significant dates in Canadian railway history. Retrieved August 30 and October 28, 2005.

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