1886 in rail transport

Events

January events

• January 25 – The North Hudson County Railway in New Jersey opens the first elevated cable railway in the United States, the Hoboken Elevated.

February events

• February 1 – The Mersey Railway opened to public traffic between Birkenhead and Liverpool by tunnel beneath the River Mersey, England.
• February 18 - The Kansas City, Memphis and Birmingham Railroad is incorporated in Mississippi.

March events

• March–September – Great Southwest Railroad Strike, a labor union strike against the Union Pacific and Missouri Pacific railroads involving more than 200,000 workers.
• March 30 – Executives from several railroad companies operating in the southern United States meet and agree to all regauge their railroads to standard gauge,, by June 1.

May events

• May – The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway takes control of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway.

July events

• July 8 – Russian emperor Alexander III establishes Railway Worker Day as a national holiday on the anniversary of the name day of Nikolai I, who first commissioned Russian railroad construction.

August events

• August 17 – The 7 mile long Lakeside and Marblehead Railroad is incorporated in Ottawa County, Ohio.

September events

• September 1 – Regular traffic begins to pass through the Great Western Railway’s Severn Tunnel linking southern Gloucestershire and Monmouthshire.
• September 9 – The rail connection to Cape Tormentine, New Brunswick, is completed by a predecessor of the New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island Railway.

October events

• October 18 – Between 5:00 AM and 6:00 PM, the St. Louis, Arkansas and Texas Railroad, a predecessor of the St. Louis Southwestern Railway, converts 418 miles of track from narrow gauge to standard gauge.

November events

• November 20 – The San Bernardino and Los Angeles Railway is incorporated as an Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad subsidiary to build a rail connection between its namesake cities in California.

Unknown date events

• The first refrigerator cars on the Southern Pacific Railroad enter operation.
• The Southern Pacific Railroad wins the landmark Supreme Court case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad which establishes equal rights under the law to corporations.
• Grande Ceinture line around Paris completed.

Births

May births

• May 4 – Henry G. Ivatt, Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway.

Unknown date births

• W. Graham Claytor, president of Southern Railway (US).

Deaths

July deaths

• July 24 – Nathaniel Worsdell, English carriage builder.

December deaths

• December 28 - William Kimmel, director for Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.

Unknown date deaths

• David Levy Yulee, Florida railroad executive.