October 22, 1866 The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad begins the "B&O Lightning Express", a fast freight line for westbound oysters and dry goods.
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October 22, 1872 The Great Epizootic strikes New York and Boston. In Boston, men will be hired to pull the horsecars to try keeping some semblance of urban transportation in place. This experiment to replace the ailing horses is not a success.
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October 22, 1895 An express train overruns the buffer at Gare Montparnasse, Paris. It crosses over 30 meters of concourse before smashing through the station wall and falling to the street below. A photograph of this accident will be a popular poster in the late Twentieth and early Twenty-first centuries.
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October 22, 1906 William Mackenzie and Donald Mann file plans with the Government of Canada to build their Canadian Northern Railway's mainline from Edmonton through the Yellowhead Pass to the Pacific coast. The greater portion of the line remains in service as Canadian National's mainline.
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October 22, 1919 The Pennsylvania Railroad agrees to present medals to all employees who have served in the armed forces during World War I.
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October 22, 1925 Central of New Jersey 1000, the first commercial Diesel-Electric locomotive enters service at the Bronx Terminal Yard.
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October 22, 1926 The Great Northern receives its first diesel locomotive.
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October 22, 1929 The Grand Trunk carferry "Milwaukee" is lost in a violent storm in Lake Michigan. Waves smash the seagate, which allows water to enter the lower decks through grates covering the coal chutes on the car deck. None of the 42 people aboard survive. The hull will be located in 1972.
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October 22, 1930 The Pennsylvania Railroad abandons the Missaukee Branch between Merritt and Michelson MI.
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October 22, 1934 Union Pacific's 900 hp M-10001 sets the current (2018) coast-to-coast speed record for an American passenger train: 57 hours from Oakland Pier to Grand Central Terminal.
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October 22, 1949 The Danzig-Warsaw express derails in Poland. More than 200 people are killed.
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October 22, 1962 Western Pacific opens its new alignment along the Feather River, necessitated by the damming of the river. Included in the new route is a spectacular concrete arch bridge over the river's North Fork.
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October 22, 1968 Candidate Richard Nixon leaves Cincinnati aboard his "Nixon Victory Special" bound for Columbus. Although the train is traveling over Penn Central, Nixon's staff have found PC's business cars too decrepit and are using cars owned by the Chesapeake & Ohio instead.
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October 22, 2017 A man enters the cab of an Amtrak train rolling through Nebraska. No harm is done, but cell phone records and other evidence will lead to the FBI charging him as a domestic terrorist in January 2018.
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October 22, 2019 The city of Eau Claire WI sells Soo Line 4-6-2 2719 and its tender to Lake Superior Railroad Museum in Duluth MN for $8. The locomotive was displayed in an Eau Claire city park from 1959-1996. Eau Claire had hoped to display the engine again, but could not afford the $100,000 + it would take to move the locomotive back to Eau Claire from the museum.
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Mark Tomlonson
