1938 in rail transport

Events

January 1 - Creation of the following European railway networks under government control:
* SNCF, bringing the principal railway companies of France together.
* NS, merging the Hollandsche IJzeren Spoorweg-Maatschappij and the Maatschappij tot Exploitatie van Staatsspoorwegen in the Netherlands.
January 22 - The Pacific Electric Whittier Line is truncated to Walker.

May 8 — President Manuel L. Quezon inaugurates regular services on the Main Line South of the Manila Railroad in Del Gallego, Camarines Sur. Trial runs already began five months prior.
May 15
* The Lake Shore Electric Railway in Ohio ceases operations.
* Inauguration of a major Nederlandse Spoorwegen electrification scheme in the central Netherlands, centred on Utrecht.

June 1 - Pacific Electric's Owensmouth Line and San Fernando Line are truncated to Sherman Way.
June 15 - New York Central Railroad introduces an all-streamlined consist on the 20th Century Limited and also introduces the New England States passenger train between Chicago and Boston.
June 16 - The Pike's Peak Cog Railway in Colorado operates gasoline-powered railcar number 7, the first rack railcar in the world, for the first time.
June 19 - Custer Creek train wreck kills at least 47 near Saugus, Montana. A bridge, weakened by a flash flood, collapses under the Milwaukee Road's Olympian plunging the locomotive and seven lead cars into the rain-swollen creek. It remains the worse rail disaster in Montana history.
June 30 - London Underground 1938 Stock enters public service, on Northern line.

July 3 - The London and North Eastern Railway 4-6-2 Mallard reaches a speed of 126 mph, the highest certified speed for a steam locomotive.
July 31 - The Pennsylvania Railroad, in its public timetable issued today, boasts that “19% of all passengers are carried on the Pennsylvania Railroad.”

December 13 - The Reading Railroad's Crusader passenger train is introduced.
December 15
* The first diesel locomotives in the southeast United States, EMC E4s, appear on the Orange Blossom Special.
* The second section of the Itō Line, connecting Ajiro to Itō in Japan, opens.
December 23 - Jean Renoir's film of La Bête Humaine released in France.

Pennsylvania Railroad's Broadway Limited is completely re-equipped based on an industrial design by Raymond Loewy.
Overhead wire on the Pennsylvania Railroad's mainline from New York City reaches Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Overhead wire on the newly formed SNCF system between Tours and Bordeaux in France completes electrification from Paris to the Spanish frontier.
The first passenger car equipped with fluorescent lights is operated on the New York Central Railroad.

January 11 - Alastair Morton, chief executive of Eurotunnel 1987–1996, chairman of British Strategic Rail Authority 1999-2001.

John H. Kuehl, editor of Private Varnish magazine, passenger car historian and photographer.