This article lists events related to rail transport that occurred in 1844.
February 7 - The South Eastern Railway (UK) is officially opened throughout from London to Dover.
March 16 – Boston and Maine Railroad Extension is incorporated due to a dispute with the Boston and Lowell Railroad over trackage rights rates between Wilmington and Boston.
March 29 - Atmospheric railway opened between Kingstown (Dún Laoghaire) and Dalkey in Ireland.
May 1 – The Bristol and Exeter Railway extension to Exeter opens.
May 6 - J. M. W. Turner's painting Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway is first exhibited, at the Royal Academy in London.
May 10 - The Midland Railway is formed by a merger of the Midland Counties Railway, the North Midland Railway and the Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway.
June 15 - Opening of first railway in Switzerland, from Basel to St Ludwig (now Saint-Louis, Haut-Rhin) in France (6.4 km).
July 4 – South Devon Railway obtains its authorising Act of Parliament.
August 9 - In the United Kingdom, the Railway Regulation Act 1844 (officially: An Act to attach certain Conditions to the Construction of future Railways) requires every railway company to run at least one passenger train a day in both directions along the length of each of its lines, calling at every station. The maximum fare for journeys by these trains (soon to become known as Parliamentaries) is fixed at one penny per mile (1.6 km), and it is a further requirement of the Act that the carriages used on these trains be provided with seats and afford passengers protection from the weather.
October - Eleazer Lord succeeds Horatio Allen for a third term as president of the Erie Railroad.
Egide Walschaerts of the Belgian State Railways originates Walschaerts valve gear for steam locomotives.
March 6 - Frederick J. Kimball, American civil engineer who was instrumental in the formation of Norfolk and Western (d. 1903).
April 5 - R. J. Billinton, Locomotive, Carriage, Wagon and Marine Superintendent of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway 1890-1904, is born (d. 1904).
June 21 - Ernest F. Cambier, Belgian colonial pioneer who established the first Congo railway (d. 1909).
August 6 - James Henry Greathead, English inventor of the tunnelling shield used for the London Underground (d. 1896).
October 21 - Albert Alonzo Robinson, vice president and general manager of Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, is born (d. 1918).
1844 in rail transport Wikipedia (Text) CC BY-SA