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1906 in rail transport

This article lists events related to rail transport that occurred in 1906.

• January 3 – At the annual stockholder's meeting, the charter for the Cleveland Short Line Railway is amended to specify Collinwood, Ohio and Rockport, Ohio as the terminals of the railroad.
• January 17 – Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway fully acquires its subsidiary Southern California Railway.^[1][2]
• January 27 – Rail line completed to the Red SeaatPort Sudan from Atbara.

• February 2 – The Cairo Electric Railways and Heliopolis Oases Company is formed.

• March 10 – The Baker Street and Waterloo Railway opens in London.^[3]

• April – The Great Western Railway of England turns out the prototype of its 4-cylinder GWR 4000 Class steam locomotive, designed by George Jackson Churchward, from its Swindon Works.
• April 18 – The great 1906 San Francisco earthquake strikes, damaging the Southern Pacific Railroad's headquarters building and destroying the mansions of the now-deceased Big Four. Also destroyed are many cable car routes, which will be replaced with electric streetcars.
• April 19 – Lygten Station opens in Copenhagen, Denmark, as the terminus of the Copenhagen–Slangerup Railway.

• May 8 – A special train carrying E.H. Harriman makes a run from Oakland CA to New York in 761 hours and 27 minutes. This record will stand until October 1934, when it will be broken by Union Pacific Streamliner M-10000.
• May 19 – The Simplon Tunnel between Italy and Switzerland, the world's longest tunnel until 1979, opens to rail traffic.

• July 1 (1:57 am) – 24 passengers and 4 railwaymen die as the result of the 1906 Salisbury rail crash on the London and South Western RailwayofEngland when an express train passes through Salisbury railway station at excessive speed.^[4]
• July 7 – Completion of the Tauern Tunnel (8.5 km (5.3 mi)) in Austria.^{[5][page needed]}
• July 22 – The State Street Line, Chicago's last cable car route, ends operations.

• August 1 – The Green Bay and Western acquires a majority interest in the Ahnapee and Western Railway in Wisconsin.

• September 8 – Ottawa's Bank Street subway is opened as streetcar number 253 of the Ottawa Electric Railway traverses the tunnel.
• September 19 – 14 die as a result of the Grantham rail accident on the Great Northern Railway (Great Britain) when a sleeping car train is derailed passing through Grantham railway station at excessive speed.^[6]
• September 21 – A Grand Trunk Railway passenger train hits a stopped freight train at a crossover in Napanee, Ontario; the engineer stays at the controls trying to slow his train as much as possible and becomes the only fatality. The train's passengers later erect a monument in the engineer's honor.

• October 1 – Karawanks Tunnel is opened to provide a through route between Klagenfurt and TriesteinAustria-Hungary.
• October 10 – Valdresbanen is completed from OslotoFagernes, Norway.

• November 13 – Shinpei Goto begins his term as the first president of South Manchuria Railway.
• November 12 – Dunedin railway station in New Zealand is officially opened.
• November 29 – Samuel Spencer, president of the Southern Railway (US), is killed in a railroad accident; he will be succeeded by William Finley.
• November – The last locomotive built by the Portland Company is completed for the Bridgton and Saco River Railroad.^[7]

• December 2 - Construction begins on Santa Fe's Rocky Ford, Colorado, station; the station is completed and occupied by the end of March 1907.
• December 7 – The Southern Pacific Railroad and Union Pacific Railroad jointly form the Pacific Fruit Express Company (PFE) refrigerator car line.^[8]
• December 14 – John D. Spreckels announces he will form the San Diego & Arizona Railway Company and build a 148-mile (238-kilometre) line between San Diego and El Centro, California. Spreckels has an agreement with the Southern Pacific Railroad to silently fund the project.
• December 15
  • The Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway opens in London.^[9]
  • The SEPTA trolley subway opens as Route 34 is routed underground in Philadelphia.^[10]
• December 28
  • Elliot Junction rail accidentinScotland: 22 killed in a collision during a blizzard.
  • After his death, Alexander J. Cassatt is succeeded as president of the Pennsylvania RailroadbyJames McRea.
• December 30 – A train wreck at Terra Cotta near modern-day Fort TotteninWashington, D.C., kills 52; the accident leads to the Interstate Commerce Commission banning future wooden body passenger car construction.

• Prussian S 6 Class 4-4-0 steam locomotives introduced; 584 are eventually built to this design.

• June 4 – Francis Webb, Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London and North Western Railway (born 1836).^[11]

• December 28 – Alexander J. Cassatt, president of the Pennsylvania Railroad 1899–1906 (born 1839).