1978 in rail transport
Encyclopedia
February events
- February 22 - The Waverly tank car explosionWaverly tank car explosionThe Waverly tank car explosion was an explosion that occurred at approximately 2:58 p.m. on Friday, February 24, 1978, in Waverly, Tennessee following a train derailment incident days earlier. A tank car containing liquefied petroleum gas exploded as a result of cleanup related to this...
was an explosion that occurred in Waverly, TennesseeWaverly, TennesseeWaverly is a city in Humphreys County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 4,028 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Humphreys County.-Geography:...
following a train derailment incident days earlier. The explosion killed 16.
March events
- March 1 - Australian National Railways CommissionAustralian National Railways CommissionThe Australian National Railways Commission was a government owned railway operator in Australia. ANRC was also known as Australian National Railways in its early years and was later rebranded as Australian National .-History:...
takes over Tasmanian Government RailwaysTasmanian Government RailwaysThe Tasmanian Government Railways was the former Government of Tasmania managed operator of mainline railways in Tasmania, Australia...
and freight and non-metropolitan operations of South Australian RailwaysSouth Australian RailwaysSouth Australian Railways built and operated railways in South Australia from 1854 to the incorporation of its non-urban railways into the Australian National Railways Commission in 1975, together with the former Commonwealth Railways and the former Tasmanian Government Railways...
. - March 1 - AmtrakAmtrakThe National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak , is a government-owned corporation that was organized on May 1, 1971, to provide intercity passenger train service in the United States. "Amtrak" is a portmanteau of the words "America" and "track". It is headquartered at Union...
opens Midway stationMidway (Amtrak station)Midway Station is the Amtrak train station in Saint Paul, Minnesota, so named after the Midway area which is roughly halfway between the downtowns of St. Paul and neighboring Minneapolis. Its Amtrak station code is MSP and serves as the only intercity train station for the Minneapolis-Saint Paul...
in Saint Paul, MinnesotaSaint Paul, MinnesotaSaint Paul is the capital and second-most populous city of the U.S. state of Minnesota. The city lies mostly on the east bank of the Mississippi River in the area surrounding its point of confluence with the Minnesota River, and adjoins Minneapolis, the state's largest city...
and closes the Minneapolis Great Northern DepotMinneapolis Great Northern DepotThe Minneapolis Great Northern Depot was a passenger train station that served Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was built in 1913 and demolished in 1978...
. The Twin Cities HiawathaTwin Cities HiawathaThe Twin Cities Hiawatha was a named passenger train operated by the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad , and traveled from Chicago to the Twin Cities in Minnesota. The original train takes its name from the epic poem The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow...
and Arrowhead trains are combined into the North StarNorth Star (Amtrak)The North Star was a passenger train operated by Amtrak along the "Hiawatha Corridor" during the late 1970s and early- to mid-1980s. It originally operated as a Chicago, Illinois–Duluth, Minnesota train via Saint Paul, Minnesota, but was soon converted to a Saint Paul–Duluth local...
. - March - Pacific Fruit ExpressPacific Fruit ExpressPacific Fruit Express was a railroad refrigerator car leasing company that at one point was the largest refrigerator car operator in the world. The company was founded on December 7, 1906 as a joint venture between the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific railroads...
dissolves its fleet of refrigerator carRefrigerator carA refrigerator car is a refrigerated boxcar , a piece of railroad rolling stock designed to carry perishable freight at specific temperatures. Refrigerator cars differ from simple insulated boxcars and ventilated boxcars , neither of which are fitted with cooling apparatus...
s, which is distributed between Southern Pacific RailroadSouthern Pacific RailroadThe Southern Pacific Transportation Company , earlier Southern Pacific Railroad and Southern Pacific Company, and usually simply called the Southern Pacific or Espee, was an American railroad....
and Union Pacific RailroadUnion Pacific RailroadThe Union Pacific Railroad , headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, is the largest railroad network in the United States. James R. Young is president, CEO and Chairman....
.
July events
- July 6 - A plastic bag of dirty linen carelessly placed against the electric heater in the vestibule of a sleeping carSleeping carThe sleeping car or sleeper is a railway/railroad passenger car that can accommodate all its passengers in beds of one kind or another, primarily for the purpose of making nighttime travel more restful. The first such cars saw sporadic use on American railroads in the 1830s and could be configured...
traveling between PenzancePenzancePenzance is a town, civil parish, and port in Cornwall, England, in the United Kingdom. It is the most westerly major town in Cornwall and is approximately 75 miles west of Plymouth and 300 miles west-southwest of London...
and London Paddington, EnglandEnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
causes the Taunton train fireTaunton train fireThe Taunton sleeping car fire occurred in a sleeping car train at Taunton, England in the early hours of 6 July 1978. It killed 12 people and had far-reaching effects for British Rail.- Background :The vehicle involved was no...
.
September events
- September 12 - The longest tunnel in New ZealandNew ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
(8896m), the KaimaiKaimai RangesThe Kaimai Range is a mountain range in the North Island of New Zealand. It is part of a series of ranges, with the Coromandel Range to the north and the Mamaku Ranges to the south. The Kaimai Range separates the Waikato in the west from the Bay of Plenty in the east.The highest point of the range...
Rail Tunnel on the East Coast Main Trunk Railway opened.
October events
- October 29 - Via RailVIA RailVia Rail Canada is an independent crown corporation offering intercity passenger rail services in Canada. It is headquartered near Montreal Central Station at 3 Place Ville-Marie in Montreal, Quebec....
assumes all passenger train operations of the Canadian Pacific RailwayCanadian Pacific RailwayThe Canadian Pacific Railway , formerly also known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996, is a historic Canadian Class I railway founded in 1881 and now operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001...
and Canadian National in CanadaCanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. - October 31 - The last passenger train departs from St. Louis Union Terminal.
November events
- November 7 - The Illinois Railway MuseumIllinois Railway MuseumThe Illinois Railway Museum is the largest railroad museum in the United States and is located in Union, Illinois, northwest of Chicago...
celebrates its 25th anniversary. - November 18 - The Merivale Bridge is officially opened, finally connecting South Brisbane Railway StationSouth Brisbane railway station, BrisbaneSouth Brisbane Station is a railway station in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It is part of the Queensland Rail City network and is located in Zone 1 of the TransLink integrated public transport system...
and Roma Street Railway StationRoma Street railway station, BrisbaneRoma Street railway station is a major railway station in the Brisbane central business district, the state capital of Queensland, Australia. It was Brisbane's first railway station, opening in 1876...
and unifying the Brisbane Suburban network. Originally designed to carry both narrow gauge and standard gaugeStandard gaugeThe standard gauge is a widely-used track gauge . Approximately 60% of the world's existing railway lines are built to this gauge...
tracksRail tracksThe track on a railway or railroad, also known as the permanent way, is the structure consisting of the rails, fasteners, sleepers and ballast , plus the underlying subgrade...
, the latter was not added until 1986.
December events
- December 4 - Union Pacific RailroadUnion Pacific RailroadThe Union Pacific Railroad , headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, is the largest railroad network in the United States. James R. Young is president, CEO and Chairman....
and Chicago and North Western RailwayChicago and North Western RailwayThe Chicago and North Western Transportation Company was a Class I railroad in the Midwest United States. It was also known as the North Western. The railroad operated more than of track as of the turn of the 20th century, and over of track in seven states before retrenchment in the late 1970s...
jointly announce an agreement to build into WyomingWyomingWyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...
's Powder River BasinPowder River BasinThe Powder River Basin is a geologic region in southeast Montana and northeast Wyoming, about east to west and north to south, known for its coal deposits. The region supplies about 40 percent of coal in the United States. It is both a topographic drainage and geologic structural basin...
to access the numerous coalCoalCoal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
mines in the area. - December 31 - The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific RailroadChicago, Rock Island and Pacific RailroadThe Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad was a Class I railroad in the United States. It was also known as the Rock Island Line, or, in its final years, The Rock.-Incorporation:...
operates its last passenger trains, the Peorian and a Chicago to Rock IslandRock Island, IllinoisRock Island is the county seat of Rock Island County, Illinois, United States. The population was 40,884 at the 2010 census. Located on the Mississippi River, it is one of the Quad Cities, along with neighboring Moline, East Moline, and the Iowa cities of Davenport and Bettendorf. The Quad Cities...
train.
Unknown date events
- The Stone Arch Bridge built by the Great Northern Railway across the Mississippi RiverMississippi RiverThe Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
in Minneapolis, MinnesotaMinneapolis, MinnesotaMinneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...
sees its final use as a railroad bridge; the bridge is later converted for pedestrian and bicycleBicycleA bicycle, also known as a bike, pushbike or cycle, is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A person who rides a bicycle is called a cyclist, or bicyclist....
use. - The Itel Corporation purchases the Green Bay and Western.
- General Motors Electro-Motive Division introduces the AEM-7EMD AEM-7The AEM-7 is a B-B electric locomotive that is used in the United States on the Northeast Corridor between Washington DC and Boston and the Keystone Corridor between Philadelphia and Harrisburg in Pennsylvania. They were built by Electro-Motive Division from 1978 to 1988...
.
May deaths
- May - Harold W. BurtnessHarold W. BurtnessHarold William Burtness was an American railroad executive. He began his career as a secretary for the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad and moved into an executive position with the Pennsylvania Railroad before coming to the Chicago Great Western Railway in 1922...
, president Chicago Great Western RailwayChicago Great Western RailwayThe Chicago Great Western Railway was a Class I railroad that linked Chicago, Minneapolis, Omaha, and Kansas City. It was founded by Alpheus Beede Stickney in 1885 as a regional line between St. Paul and the Iowa state line called the Minnesota and Northwestern Railroad...
1946-1948, dies (b. 1879).
July deaths
- July 22 - André ChapelonAndré ChapelonAndré Chapelon was a noted French mechanical engineer and designer of advanced steam locomotives. Engineer of Ecole Centrale Paris, he was one of very few locomotive designers who brought a rigorous scientific method to their design, and he sought to apply up-to-date knowledge and theories in...
, FrenchFranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
steam locomotiveSteam locomotiveA steam locomotive is a railway locomotive that produces its power through a steam engine. These locomotives are fueled by burning some combustible material, usually coal, wood or oil, to produce steam in a boiler, which drives the steam engine...
designer (b. 1892).