Events
January events
- January – Maine Central Railroad predecessor Androscoggin and Kennebec Railroad is completed between Auburn, Maine and Waterville, Maine.
May events
- May 13 – The Mecklenburgische Eisenbahngesellschaft opens the Rostock-Bützow-Bad Kleinen and Güstrow-Bützow railway lines in northern Germany.
July events
- July 1 – Joseph Hamilton Beattie succeeds John Viret Gooch as locomotive engineer for London and South Western Railway.
- July 4 – Chile: The first section of the Copiapó-Caldera railway line – the second in South America – between Caldera and Monte Amargo is inaugurated today in honour of the nationality of William Wheelwright, the American businessman responsible for the project.
August events
- August 29 – Robert Stephenson's Royal Border Bridge for the York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway at Berwick-upon-Tweed, England is opened by Queen Victoria.[1]
September events
- September 20 – The land grant for construction of the Illinois Central Railroad, the first railroad land grant in the United States,[2] is approved.[3]
October events
- October 19 – Robert Stephenson's Britannia Bridge, completing the Chester and Holyhead Railway over the Menai Strait in North Wales, is opened.[4]
November events
- November 19 – Farmers around Detroit, Michigan, burn down the Michigan Central Railroad's freight house in Detroit; the farmers were angry at the railroad's policy regarding not reimbursing them for livestock killed by trains when the stock wandered onto the tracks.[5]
- November 20 – The first train operates on the Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, a predecessor of the Milwaukee Road.[6]
Unknown date events
- The Richmond and Danville Railroad begins operation in Virginia.
- Construction begins on the first transcontinental railroad to be completed, the Panama Railway.