January 1

Events

19th century

• 1857 – The Auburn and Port Clinton Railroad, in Pennsylvania, is merged into the Allentown Railroad.
• 1887 – The Boston and Lowell Railroad, in New England, leases the lines that form the Passumpsic Division.

20th century

• 1901 – The Cheadle Railway Company opens its line from Creswell to Cheadle, England.
• 1902 – The Swiss Federal Railways takes over operations of the former Aargauische Südbahn line connecting Brugg, Lenzburg, Wohlen and Bremgarten, which eventually becomes part of the Bremgarten-Dietikon-Bahn.
• 1920 – Operating control of the Valpo Local line in Indiana is returned from the Pennsylvania Company to the Pennsylvania Railroad.
• 1936 – Locaalspoorwegmaatschappij Hollands Noorderkwartier, the predecessor of Steamtrain Hoorn Medemblik, ceases operations.
• 1950 – The Atlantic and Yadkin Railway, in North Carolina, is merged into the Southern Railway.
• 1971 – The State of New York purchases and the State of Connecticut leases their sections of the New Haven Line between Woodlawn, New York, and New Haven, Connecticut, from Penn Central.
• 1985 – USG Corporation is formed as a holding company owning US Gypsum Company, the operator of the last narrow gauge industrial railway in the United States.

21st century

• 2005 – More stringent emission control regulations governing locomotive exhaust in the United States come into effect.
• 2005 – The Zentralbahn, in Switzerland, is created through the merger of the Luzern-Stans-Engelberg-Bahn (LSE) and the Brünigbahn.
• 2006 – The Portola Railroad Museum, in California, is reorganized as the Western Pacific Railroad Museum.