Events
January events
- January 28 – Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad acquires a section of the McKeesport and Belle Vernon Railroad around Belle Vernon, Pennsylvania.[1]
February events
- February 22 – Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis Railway (the "Big Four Railroad") gains control of the Peoria & Eastern Railway in southern Illinois.[2]
March events
- March – Émile Zola's psychological novel with a railway setting, La Bête Humaine, is published in book form.
- March 4 – The Forth Bridge across the Firth of Forth in Scotland is officially opened and its contractor, William Arrol, is knighted.[3]
May events
- May 9 – Boston & Maine Railroad ends its lease of the Eastern Railroad of Massachusetts by purchasing it.
- May 20 – Wutach Valley Railway opened to provide a strategic route inside Germany without crossing the Swiss border.
July events
- July 23 – Narrow gauge Kennebec Central Railroad opens to Togus, Maine.[4]
August events
- August 18 – The Kansas City Suburban Belt Railroad, a predecessor of Kansas City Southern Railway, begins operations between Kansas City and Argentine.[5]
- August 19 – Pennsylvania Railroad subsidiary Ohio Valley Railway reorganized as the Pittsburg, Ohio Valley and Cincinnati Railroad.
- August 19 – In Quincy, Massachusetts, a jack used to level rails was left on the tracks. A passenger train then collided with it causing a derailment. Twenty-four people were killed due to the impact of the collision and through scalding.[6]
November events
- November 4 – Official opening of the City & South London Railway, earliest constituent of the Northern line of the London Underground and the first real deep-level electrified "tube" railway in the world.[7]
- November 9 – First section of metre gauge Chemin de fer du Vivarais in southern France opens, using Mallet locomotives.[8]
- November 10 – Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits begins to operate the Rome Express train from Calais Maritime station via Paris and the Fréjus Rail Tunnel.
- November 26 – The Mito Line in Japan operates its first freight trains.
Unknown date events
- First Class О 0-8-0 steam locomotive built for service in Russia. 9129 locomotives of this type will be built up to 1928, making it the country's most numerous.[9]
- Klien-Lindner axle patented.
- Hugh J. Chisholm forms the Portland and Rumford Falls Railway to link Androscoggin River papermills to the Maine Central Railroad.
- Leland Stanford begins his term as Chairman of the Executive Committee for Southern Pacific.
- Charles Francis Adams, Jr. steps down from the presidency of the Union Pacific.