March 26, 1860 The first freight car (loaded with lard) leaves St. Louis for New York via Buffalo and the New York Central. The trip will take five days. This is the first car to run through without breaking bulk. Terre Haute & Indianapolis Railroad, New York Central and other railroads will establish a line of freight cars with wide-tread wheels for through freight to points east of Buffalo and Pittsburgh without transshipment between Ohio and the standard gauges.
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March 26, 1921 The Grand Rapids & Indiana is leased to the Pennsylvania Railroad for 999 years along with 11 other companies. The lease is retroactive to January 1.
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March 26, 1926 The Kankakee & Urbana Traction ends passenger operations. Freight operations are sold to the Illinois Terminal. IT will serve the three grain elevators on the line until June next year.
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March 26, 1930 After eight months of trying to make it as a freight only line, the Tyler Traction Company (WV) calls it quits.
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March 26, 1936 The Rexall Drug train, pulled by New York Central ¡°Mohawk¡± #5344 begins its tour.
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March 26, 1945 The Pennsylvania Railroad places its S2 6-8-6 steam turbine in service between Chicago and Crestline OH. Its normal assignments are "The Trail Blazer" eastbound and "The Admiral" westbound.
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March 26, 1947 Streetcar service ends in Akron OH.
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March 26, 1951 The Bangor & Aroostook and Pennsylvania railroads arrange to have PRR lease BAR diesel locomotives when they are not needed by BAR due to seasonal lulls in traffic.
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March 26, 1962 Canadian National's eastbound "Ocean Limited" becomes the first train painted entirely in CN's new passenger paint scheme. A few engines and cars started appearing in the new scheme last year.
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March 26, 2013 Hartsdale Interlocking, between Canadian National¡¯s former Elgin Joliet & Eastern and the former Pennsylvania Railroad Panhandle line in Indiana is closed and the diamond removed. CN begins service to the single customer, Midwest Pipe Coating, affected by the closing.
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March 27, 1835 A rotary steam locomotive built by Willam Avery of Syracuse NY is tested on the New Jersey Railroad & Transportation Company between Hackensack and Passaic Rivers. The first locomotive on the NJRR is not powerful enough. ?Mr. Avery proposes to build a larger version, but nothing further is heard from him.
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March 27, 1855 Secretary of War Jefferson Davis presents the report on surveys for the Pacific railroad to Congress. The surveys suggest five separate routes between the 32nd and 49th parallels.
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March 27, 1874 Kalamazoo MI's first Grand Rapids & Indiana depot burns to the ground. A new one will be built on the same location.
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March 27, 1879 The Pennsylvania Railroad locomotive "Modoc" pulls 138 loaded cars between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh.
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March 27, 1902 A new Union Station for Washington DC is proposed. The proposal would remove the railroad stations from the National Mall.
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March 27, 1918 The Pennsylvania Railroad grants a license to the Position-Light Signal Company to build and install position-light signals on the PRR. In return, the railroad will collect a $1 per light unit royalty.
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March 27, 1935 General Motors' Electro-Motive Division breaks ground in McCook IL for their new locomotive factory.
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March 27, 1953 For the second time in U.S. history, four trains are involved in a single wreck. Near Conneaut OH on the New York Central, an improperly secured 18-inch pipe slips off a gondola, damaging an adjacent track. The track damage and improper flagging will cause another freight train and 2 passenger trains to derail and collide. Twenty-one people are killed and forty-nine injured. The first 4-train wreck occurred in Connecticut in December, 1891.
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March 27, 1954 The Sylvania Central (GA) quits.
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March 27, 1960 The last regularly scheduled steam-powered passenger train on a major U.S. railroad runs from Durand to Detroit on the Grand Trunk Western.
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March 27, 1960 Missouri Pacific's last day of passenger service on its Kansas City-Ft. Smith-Little Rock line.
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March 27, 1961 Black demonstrators stage a "ride-in" on Charleston SC streetcars.
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March 27, 1963 In a report that will come to be known as the ¡°Beeching Axe¡±, Dr. Richard Beeching recommends huge cuts to the United Kingdom¡¯s rail network.
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March 27, 1964 Great Britain's "Great Train Robbers" are sentenced to a total of 307 years behind bars.
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March 27, 1967 The Great Northern runs its first taconite unit train from Nashwauk MN to Allouez WI.
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March 27, 1976 Washington D.C.'s "Metro" opens its first 4.6 miles.
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March 28, 1836 Michigan Territory charters seven railroads in a single day.
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March 28, 1846 The Central Rail Road of Michigan is sold by the state to a group of New York investors and becomes the Michigan Central.
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March 28, 1857 The Memphis & Charleston Railroad opens between Memphis and Stevenson, AL, on the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad. This completes a continuous route of uniform gauge between Charleston, SC, and Memphis. It is the first trunk line between the Atlantic and Mississippi south of the Potomac and Ohio Rivers.
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March 28, 1883 The defunct Black River & St. Lawrence Railway is reorganized as the Carthage & Adirondack Railway (later NYC).
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March 28, 1885 First use of a Leslie snowplow.
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March 28, 1888 San Francisco's Powell Street cable car line opens.
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March 28, 1905 The Paramaribo-Dam railway is opened in Suriname. It never sees a revenue train, and slowly returns to the jungle.
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March 28, 1909 The Pennsylvania Railroad begins serving complimentary tea and coffee to parlour and sleeping car passengers at any time of the day.
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March 28, 1909 Chicago Banker Frank Vanderlip hires a New York Central & Hudson River train to rush him to his dying Mother in New York. The trip takes 16 hours and 30 minutes. Regular schedules take around 24 hours.
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March 28, 1959 Last revenue run of the last interurban in Canada: The Niagara, St. Catharines & Toronto.
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March 28, 1961 Erie-Lackawanna begins New York to Chicago piggyback service.
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Mark Tomlonson
