This article lists events related to rail transport that occurred in 1847.
February 26 – The Somerville and Easton Railroad, a predecessor of the Central Railroad of New Jersey, is chartered.
March 9 – The Richmond and Danville Railroad is chartered in Virginia.
March 15 – The Amiens-Boulogne line in France opens between Abbeville and Étaples.
March 16 – The Leeds and Bradford Extension Railway opens between Shipley and Keighley in West Yorkshire, England.
March – First ever 4-6-0 locomotive, the Chesapeake, completed by the Norris Locomotive Works for the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad.
April 19 – The Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, a predecessor of the New York Central Railroad, officially changes its name to Albany and Schenectady Railroad.
May 24 – The Dee bridge disaster: a cast iron girder bridge across the river Dee at Chester, England, designed by Robert Stephenson for the Chester and Holyhead Railway, collapses under a Shrewsbury and Chester Railway train with five fatalities.
May 31 – The first railway connection between Rotterdam and The Hague opens in the Netherlands.
June – The first Bradshaws Continental Railway Guide timetable is published by George Bradshaw in England.
June 26 – Opening of first railway wholly within modern-day Denmark, from Copenhagen to Roskilde.
July 9 – The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway is incorporated as an amalgamation of several important railway lines in Northern England.
July 28 – Bristol and Exeter Railway's Clevedon branch line opens.
August 9 – Opening of first railway wholly within Switzerland, from Zürich to Baden.
September 22 – The Railway Clearing House in Great Britain recommends that Greenwich Mean Time be adopted as the standard time for all railways in the United Kingdom.
October – Portland Company's locomotive erecting shops opened for business.
December 1
The London and North Western Railway opens its Trent Valley Line to give a more direct route for the West Coast Main Line to North West England, bypassing Birmingham.
The first time zone in the world is established by British railways with GMT hand-carried on chronometers.
John Urpeth Rastrick retires from Foster, Rastrick and Company, the English firm that built the first steam locomotives for the Delaware and Hudson Railroad.
October 6 - Webb C. Ball, watchmaker who introduced the first truly reliable and accurate timepieces on American railroads.
November 16 - Thomas Kirtley, locomotive superintendent of North Midland Railway 1843-1844, and London, Brighton and South Coast Railway in 1847, dies (b. 1811).
1847 in rail transport Wikipedia (Text) CC BY-SA