1845 in rail transport

• March 19 – Boston and Maine Railroad Extension, which was incorporated a dispute with the Boston and Lowell Railroad over trackage rights rates in Massachusetts, is merged into Boston and Maine Railroad.

• July – James Hooper succeeds Eleazer Lord as president of the Erie Railroad.
• July 1 – Boston and Maine Railroad opens the extension over the former Boston and Maine Railroad Extension line between Wilmington and Boston.
• July 21 – An unprecedented number of railway acts receive Royal Assent from Queen Victoria in the United Kingdom as the railway mania approaches its peak, Parliament having sanctioned {{convert|2816|mi|km|abbr=on}} of new construction.{{cite book|author =Lewin, Henry Grote|title=The Railway Mania and its aftermath, 1845–1852|year=1936|publisher=Railway Gazette|location=London}}

• August – Benjamin Loder succeeds James Hooper as president of the Erie Railroad.

• October 8 – The Montour Iron Works of Danville rolled the first iron T-rails in Pennsylvania.[https://explorepahistory.com/hmarker.php?markerId=1-A-1A8 Explore Pennsylvania History], accessed July 2021.
• October 22 – First section of the Württemberg Central Railway opens, between Cannstatt und Untertürkheim.

• William Swinburne, shop foreman for Rogers, Ketchum and Grosvenor, leaves Rogers to form his own locomotive manufacturing company, Swinburne, Smith and Company.
• Walter McQueen becomes chief mechanical engineer for the Hudson River Railroad.

• June 24 – Georges Nagelmackers, Belgian founder of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits, the company known for the Orient Express trains (d. 1905).

• September 17 – Calvin S. Brice, president of Lake Erie and Western Railroad, builder of Nickel Plate Road (d. 1898).{{CongBio|B000818|name=Brice, Calvin Stewart|date=October 30, 2008|inline=1}}

• November 18 – Edwin Winter, president of Northern Pacific Railway in 1868 and Brooklyn Rapid Transit beginning in 1902 (d. 1930).{{cite book|editor =Busbey, T. Addison|title=The Biographical Directory of the Railway Officials of America, Edition of 1906|location=Chicago, Illinois| publisher=Railway Age|year=1906|page=666}}

• January 14 – William F. Harnden, founder of Harnden and Company express, first person to send an express shipment by rail (b. 1812).

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20050318171642/http://erierr.railfan.net/eriepres.html Erie Railroad presidents]. Retrieved March 15, 2005.
• Rivanna Chapter, National Railway Historical Society (2005), [http://avenue.org/nrhs/histmar.htm This Month in Railroad History: March]. Retrieved March 30, 2005.
• {{White - America's most noteworthy railroaders}}
• {{White - History of the American locomotive}}

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