May 9 in rail transport

Events

19th century

* 1878 – The final segment of the Romanian railway between Varciorova in the south and Roman in the north opens.

20th century

* 1904 – Great Western Railway locomotive number 3440, "City of Truro", becomes the first steam locomotive in Europe to travel at speeds over 100 mph (160 km/h) when it hauls the "Ocean Mails" special from Plymouth to London Paddington.
* 1917 – Construction is completed on the 784 km (487 mile) railway line linking the port of Djibouti in French Somaliland to Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia.

21st century

* 2004 – Construction begins on a railway tunnel under the Bosphorus strait in Turkey; the tunnel is expected to open for service in 2008.
* 2005 – In the Biaora level crossing accident an ox cart is hit by an express train at Biaora in Madhya Pradesh, India, killing 8 people.

Births

* 1875 – H. P. M. Beames, Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London and North Western Railway 1920–1922, is born (d. 1948).

Deaths

* 1979 – Cyrus S. Eaton, president of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway in the 1950s, dies (b. 1883).

References