1917 in rail transport

File:Hell Gate Bridge ca 1917.png when new]]

• January 3 - Ratho rail crash in Scotland: North British Railway H class locomotive 874 Dunedin, in charge of an Edinburgh to Glasgow express train, collides with a light engine at Queensferry Junction near Ratho Station, leaving 12 people dead and 46 seriously injured; the cause is found to be inadequate signalling procedures.{{cite web|title=UK train accidents in which passengers were killed 1825-1924|url=http://www.purecollector.com/history/wilson_railway_accidents.html|first=Duncan|last=MacLeod|date=2006-08-14|work=PureCollector|accessdate=2017-12-06}}

• February 27 - The Milwaukee Road completes the electrification of its {{convert|440|mi|km}} line from Harlowton, Montana, to Avery, Idaho.

• March 9 - Official opening of the Hell Gate Bridge in New York City.
• March 12 - The Pere Marquette Railroad is reincorporated as the Pere Marquette Railway.
• March 19 - The United States Supreme Court upholds the eight-hour workday for railroads.

File:The locomotive M-293, which in August 1917 Lenin went to Finland.JPG, Petrograd in April 1917.]]

• April 3–16 (NS) - Vladimir Lenin journeys from Switzerland across Germany by so-called "sealed train", eventually arriving to a tumultuous reception at Finland Station in Petrograd to play a leading role in the Russian Revolution.{{cite book|author=Moorehead, Alan|title=The Russian Revolution|location=New York|publisher=Harper|year=1958|pages=183–187}}
• April 21 - Colorado Midland declares bankruptcy for the second and final time.

• May 9 - Completion of the 784 km-long railway line linking the port of Djibouti in French Somaliland to Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia.

• July 31
• The Chesapeake & Ohio Railway opens the Sciotoville Bridge across the Ohio River in the United States to rail traffic. It has a continuous truss across two 775-foot (236 m) spans, the world's longest until 1945.{{cite web|url=http://www.minford.k12.oh.us/mhs/history/PortsmouthHistory/SciotovilleRRBridge/Jan2004article.htm |title=Colossus on the Ohio |work=Portsmouth Daily Times |date=2004-01-11 |accessdate=2016-10-05 |first=William D. |last=Middletown |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070311235551/http://www.minford.k12.oh.us/mhs/history/PortsmouthHistory/SciotovilleRRBridge/Jan2004article.htm |archivedate=2007-03-11 |url-status=dead }}
• Simbei Kunisawa succeeds Yujiro Nakamura as president of South Manchuria Railway.

• September 24 - The Bere Ferrers rail accident in England kills 10 New Zealand soldiers.

• October – First North British Railway C Class steam locomotives are allocated from Scotland for loan to the British Royal Engineers' Railway Operating Division on the Western Front (World War I).
• October 22 – Opening of Trans-Australian Railway, 1051.7 miles (1692.6 km) of standard gauge between Port Augusta in South Australia and Kalgoorlie in Western Australia (heads of steel meet on 17 October).{{cite journal|title=The Golden Jubilee of the Trans Australian Railway|author=Chambers, T.F. |journal=Australian Railway History |pages=267–75 |date=November 1968}}{{cite book|last=Burke|first=David|year=1991|title=Road through the Wilderness: the story of the transcontinental railway, the first great work of Australia’s federation|location=Kensington|publisher=New South Wales University Press|isbn=0-86840-140-4}}{{cite book|last=Ferneyhough|first=Frank|title=The History of Railways in Britain|location=Reading|publisher=Osprey|year=1975|isbn=0-85045-060-8}} In crossing of the Nullarbor Plain the line runs for 309 miles (497 km) without a curve, the world’s longest railway straight.
• October 23 - The Canadian Railway War Board (predecessor of the Railway Association of Canada) meets for the first time at Windsor Station, Montreal.{{cite web|url=http://www.railways.incanada.net/candate/candate.htm |title=Significant dates in Canadian railway history |work=Colin Churcher's Railway Pages |date=2006-09-15 |accessdate=2006-10-23 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20061023182151/http://www.railways.incanada.net/candate/candate.htm |archivedate=23 October 2006 |url-status=dead }}{{cite press release|url=http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/October2007/23/c7258.html|title=Historic Anniversary for the Railway Association of Canada|date=2007-10-23|accessdate=2007-10-23|publisher=Railway Association of Canada|archive-date=2011-06-09|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110609200746/http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/October2007/23/c7258.html|url-status=dead}}

• November 1 – Takatoku station, now known as Shin-Takatoku Station on Tobu Railway's Kinugawa Line in Nikkō, Tochigi, Japan, is opened.{{cite book| last=Terada| first=Hirokazu| title=データブック日本の私鉄|trans-title=Databook: Japan's Private Railways| publisher=Neko Publishing| date=July 2002| location=Japan| page=199| isbn=4-87366-874-3}}

• December 3 - The longest cantilever bridge in the world, Canadian National's Quebec Bridge across the St. Lawrence River near Quebec City, opens for rail traffic{{cite journal|last=Middleton|first=William D. |title=Quebec lights up its big bridge|journal=Trains|pages=16–17 |date=February 2002}} after nearly 20 years of planning and construction including two partial collapses.
• December 12 - Saint-Michel-de-Maurienne derailment, on the Culoz–Modane railway in the French Alps, a grossly overloaded troop train jumps the tracks near the entrance of the station at Saint-Michel-de-Maurienne, after running away down a steep gradient from the entrance to the Fréjus Rail Tunnel due to inadequate brake power. At least 543 are killed, hundreds more are injured by the official count; the actual count is assumed to be considerably higher. Until 1981 this was the worst train wreck in history.{{cite web|title=Modane, France (1917)|publisher=Danger Ahead!|url=http://danger-ahead.railfan.net/accidents/modane/home.html|accessdate=2009-02-24}}
• December 26 - United States President Woodrow Wilson uses the Federal Possession and Control Act to nationalize American railroads under the United States Railroad Administration during World War I.
• December 28 - The United States Railroad Administration officially takes control of American railroads.

• The Tanana Valley Railroad in Fairbanks, Alaska (a predecessor of the Alaska Railroad) enters receivership.
• The Arcade and Attica Railroad is incorporated.
• Estación Constitución in Buenos Aires, Argentina, opens.
• The Hershey Electric Railway in Cuba opens.
• Russia's Railway Worker Day national holiday, established in 1886, is abolished under Bolshevik rule.{{cite news|url=http://www.tass.ru/eng/level2.html?NewsID=10684207&PageNum=0|title=Railway Worker Day marked in Russia|date=2006-08-06|accessdate=2006-08-07|publisher=ITAR-TASS}}{{Dead link|date=February 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}

• John Shedd Reed, president of Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway 1967-1986 (died 2008).

• October 2 - William Sykes, English railway signalling engineer (born 1840).{{cite book|author=Marshall, John|title=Biographical Dictionary of Railway Engineers|edition=2nd|location=Oxford|publisher=Railway and Canal Historical Society|year=2003|isbn=0-901461-22-9|authorlink=John Marshall (railway historian)}}

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