Portal:Trains/Anniversaries/August 28

1830 – The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad uses Peter Cooper's Tom Thumb to push an open car carrying 18 passengers along 14 miles (22.5 km) of track. On the return trip, it raced a horse and carriage on a parallel track, a race which the horse won due to mechanical failure of the locomotive.^[1]^[2]
1864 – The United States Postal Service inaugurates the first railway post office (modern car pictured) route in the United States when Chicago Assistant Postmaster George B. Armstrong authorizes the route on the Chicago and North Western Railway between Chicago and Clinton, Iowa.
1866 – The Danville, Urbana, Bloomington and Pekin Railroad, in Illinois, is incorporated.
1897 – Construction begins on the Chinese Eastern and South Manchurian lines of the Trans-Siberian Railway.

References

^ "Peter Cooper's Locomotive". The Manufacturer and Builder. IV (2): 32. February 1872. Retrieved September 18, 2015.
^ Dudley, P.H. (February 1, 1886). "The Inception and Progress of Railways". Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences: 142. Retrieved September 18, 2015.