1847 in rail transport
# 1847 in rail transport

This article lists events related to rail transport that occurred in 1847.

## Events

### February events

* February 26 – The Somerville and Easton Railroad, a predecessor of the Central Railroad of New Jersey, is chartered.

### March events

* March 9 – The Richmond and Danville Railroad is chartered in Virginia.
* March 15 – The Amiens-Boulogne line in France opens between Abbeville and Étaples.
* March 16 – The Leeds and Bradford Extension Railway opens between Shipley and Keighley in West Yorkshire, England.
* March – First ever 4-6-0 locomotive, the Chesapeake, completed by the Norris Locomotive Works for the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad.

### April events

* April 19 – The Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, a predecessor of the New York Central Railroad, officially changes its name to Albany and Schenectady Railroad.

### May events

* May 24 – The Dee bridge disaster: a cast iron girder bridge across the river Dee at Chester, England, designed by Robert Stephenson for the Chester and Holyhead Railway, collapses under a Shrewsbury and Chester Railway train with five fatalities.
* May 31 – The first railway connection between Rotterdam and The Hague opens in the Netherlands.

### June events

* June – The first Bradshaws Continental Railway Guide timetable is published by George Bradshaw in England.
* June 26 – Opening of first railway wholly within modern-day Denmark, from Copenhagen to Roskilde.

### July events

* July 9 – The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway is incorporated as an amalgamation of several important railway lines in Northern England.
* July 28 – Bristol and Exeter Railway's Clevedon branch line opens.

### August events

* August 9 – Opening of first railway wholly within Switzerland, the Swiss Northern Railway from Zürich to Baden.

### September events

* September 22 – The Railway Clearing House in Great Britain recommends that Greenwich Mean Time be adopted as the standard time for all railways in the United Kingdom.

### October events

* October – Portland Company's locomotive erecting shops opened for business.

### December events

* December 1
   * The London and North Western Railway opens its Trent Valley Line to give a more direct route for the West Coast Main Line to North West England, bypassing Birmingham.
   * The first time zone in the world is established by British railways with GMT hand-carried on chronometers.

### Unknown date events

* John Urpeth Rastrick retires from Foster, Rastrick and Company, the English firm that built the first steam locomotives for the Delaware and Hudson Railroad.

## Births

### October births

* October 6 – Webb C. Ball, watchmaker who introduced the first truly reliable and accurate timepieces on American railroads.

## Deaths

* November 16 – Thomas Kirtley, locomotive superintendent of North Midland Railway 1843–1844, and London, Brighton and South Coast Railway in 1847, dies (b. 1811).
