From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article lists events related to rail transport that occurred in 1943.

Events

January events

• January 1 – First Hunslet Austerity 0-6-0ST steamed, earliest of 377 built for war service to British Ministry of Supply order.^[1]
• January 16 – First WD Austerity 2-8-0 handed over to British Ministry of Supply, earliest of 935 built for war service.^[1]

May events

• May 5 – Pullman, retooled from passenger car construction to work for World War II, launches its first ship built for the Navy, a PCE (patrol craft).
• After a year of revenue service, Union Pacific Railroad's M-10002 streamliner trainset is removed from service; its power car is separated from its unpowered cars and the components are reused elsewhere.

June events

• June 4 – Hyde railway accident, New Zealand: Train derails at speed in a curved cutting, 21 killed, 47 injured.

July events

• July 14 – Canadian National Railway opens Central Station in Montreal.^[2]

August events

• August 25 – Denver, South Park and Pacific Railroad operates its last regular narrow gauge train on the section between Leadville and Climax.^[3]

September events

• September 6 – Seventy-nine people are killed when the Pennsylvania Railroad's Congressional Limited derails due to a burned out journal at Frankford Junction, Pennsylvania.

October events

• October 17
  • Chicago's first rapid transit subway route, Clybourn-Division-State Subway (4.9 miles/7.9 km), opens for passenger service. It contains one of the world's longest underground station platforms – 3,300 feet long.
  • Completion of the Burma Railway between Bangkok, Thailand and Rangoon, Burma (now Myanmar) (415 km (258 mi)) by the Empire of Japan to support its forces in the Burma campaign using the forced labour of Asian civilians and Allied Prisoners of war.

December events

• December 16 – Two Atlantic Coast Line passenger trains collide after a broken rail derails the first one, putting it in the path of the second. Seventy-one people are killed, most of them U.S. troops.
• The first troop sleepers enter service on U.S. railroads.

Unknown date events

• The Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel, the longest combined rail/highway tunnel in North America, opens for railroad service.
• After a few years of only producing diesel engines for the United States Navy during World War II, General Motors Electro-Motive Division returns to manufacturing railroad locomotives.
• The last PRR GG1 to be built is completed.

Births

September births

• September 7 – Chris Green, British railway manager.

Deaths

February deaths

• February 9 – Walter Kidde, president of New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway 1937–1943 (b. 1877).^[4]
• February 11 – Stuart R. Knott, president of Kansas City Southern Railway 1900–1905 (b. 1859).

June deaths

• June 2 – John Frank Stevens, chief engineer and general manager of Great Northern Railway, vice president Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad (b. 1853).

References

• Kansas City Southern Historical Society, The Kansas City Southern Lines. Retrieved August 15, 2005.

1. ^ ^{a b} Tourret, R. (1976). War Department Locomotives. Allied Military Locomotives of the Second World War, Book 1. Abingdon: Tourret. ISBN 0-905878-00-3.  
2. ^ "Significant dates in Canadian railway history". Colin Churcher's Railway Pages. 2006-03-17. http://www.railways.incanada.net/candate/candate.htm. Retrieved 2006-07-14.  
3. ^ Rivanna Chapter, National Railway Historical Society (2005). "This Month in Railroad History: August". http://avenue.org/nrhs/histaug.htm. Retrieved 2006-08-25.  
4. ^ Robert E. Mohowski (2003). The New York Susuquehanna & Western Railroad. The Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-7222-7.