December 15, 1859 Gas lighting is installed at the Pennsylvania's Altoona PA shops.
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December 15, 1872 The Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad opens between Clam Lake (Cadillac) and Walton Jct. MI. (Some sources say September 1872).
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December 15, 1891 Kokomo IN begins streetcar service.
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December 15, 1893 High winds topple a construction crane on the Big Four Bridge, under construction at Louisville KY. The crane, one of the through truss spans and 41 workers are thrown into the Ohio River. Twenty-one of the workers lose their lives.
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December 15, 1907 The New York Central & Hudson River Railroad extends the running time of the Twentieth Century Limited by an hour and a half to allow for delays due to snowstorms.
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December 15, 1925 Long Island RR 401 is demonstrated for the first time. It pulls a seven car freight from ALCO in Schenectady NY to Long Island, making it the first mainline freight in the U.S. pulled by diesel-electric power.
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December 15, 1926 The Denver & Interurban (CO) ends operations.
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December 15, 1930 Dayton (OH) Union Station sees its first trains.
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December 15, 1930 The Pennsylvania Railroad begins allowing passengers traveling to Florida resorts to ship their cars by freight train.
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December 15, 1937 A merger agreement is signed placing eight New York Central subsidiary lines into the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway.
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December 15, 1938 The first diesels in the southeast appear on the "Orange Blossom Special": EMD E-4's. They are also the first locomotives to be fitted with EMD's "567" diesel prime mover.
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December 15, 1953 The Osage Railroad (OK) is abandoned.
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December 15, 1969 Penn Central opens Buckeye Yard northwest of Columbus OH. The computer-controlled yard has 88 miles of track and can hold 4,550 cars. It replaces 5 smaller yards in the Columbus area. The yard will not be finished until next year.
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December 15, 1988 Chief Wawatam, the former ferry between Mackinaw City and St. Ignace MI, is towed to Sault Saint Marie, Ontario for conversion to a barge.
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December 15, 1992 The Hulett machines unload their last lake ore boat at the Cleveland docks. After this, the boat-rail transfer will be accomplished by machinery carried on each boat.
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December 15, 1994 VIA's "Atlantic", which also serves six stations in Maine, makes its last run.
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December 15, 2010 For the first time, a model train circles the National Christmas Tree. The G-Scale set, provided by Amtrak, will run as long as the tree is up.
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Mark Tomlonson
