# 1877 in rail transport

This article lists events related to rail transport that occurred in 1877.

## Events
### May events

* May 1 – Opening of first railway in Burma (Myanmar), from Rangoon (Yangon) to Prome (Pyay) (257 km (160 mi) of metre gauge).

### July events

* July 14 – Baltimore railroad strike of 1877: Workers on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad walk off their jobs in an act that is seen as the start of the great railroad strike of 1877.
* July 16
** Railroad workers on strike in Martinsburg, West Virginia, derail and loot a train; West Virginia Governor Henry M. Mathews calls on United States President Rutherford B. Hayes for Federal troops to break the strike.
** The Nickey line, connecting Boxmoor to Harpenden in England, is officially opened.
* July 19 – The New York and Manhattan Beach Railway (later absorbed by the Long Island Rail Road) opens.
* July 20 – Baltimore and Ohio Railroad workers riot in Baltimore, Maryland. Nine railroad employees are killed as the Maryland militia attempts to quell the riot.
* July 21 – Baltimore and Ohio Railroad workers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, stage a sympathy strike for the workers killed in Baltimore, Maryland the day before. Rioting erupts throughout Pittsburgh as a result.
* July 24 – Joel Tiffany is awarded U.S. patent 193,357 for his design of the first successful refrigerator car.

### August events

* August 31 – The first 2 ft (610 mm) gauge narrow gauge railroad in America, the Billerica and Bedford Railroad, begins operations.

### October events

* October 28 – Replacement Budapest-Nyugati Railway Terminal, constructed by Eiffel, opened in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

### November events

* November 4 – Opening of Gustave Eiffel's Maria Pia Bridge carrying the railway across the Douro into Porto, Portugal.

### December events

* December 27 – The Quebec, Montreal, Ottawa and Occidental Railway opens, traversing a route from Montreal through Lachute to Hull.

### Unknown date events

* Tracks of the Southern Pacific Railroad from Los Angeles, cross the Colorado River at Yuma, Arizona.
* William Henry Vanderbilt, son of Cornelius Vanderbilt, is promoted to President of the New York Central system.
* Second railway in Estonia connecting Tapa (on the Tallinn–Saint Petersburg line) with Tartu, the biggest city in Southern Estonia (at this time in the Governorate of Livonia) is opened.
* Opening of first public railway in Venezuela, the Bolivar Railway (Ferrocarril Bolívar, 2 ft (610 mm) gauge).
* Approximate date – Ephraim Shay develops the first Shay locomotive.

## Births
### February births

* February 7 – Edgar Alcock, general manager and chairman of Hunslet Engine Company of Leeds, England (d. 1951).

### March births

* March 7 – Walter Kidde, president of New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway 1937–1943 (d. 1943).

## Deaths
### January deaths

* January 4 – Cornelius Vanderbilt, American financier who created the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad from the merger of several smaller New York railroads (b. 1794).

### March deaths

* March 9 – Oliver Ames Jr., president of Union Pacific Railroad 1866–1871, brother of Oakes Ames (b. 1807).

### April deaths

* April 22 – James P. Kirkwood, designer of Starrucca Viaduct (b. 1807).

### May deaths

* May 19 – Matthew Baird, second owner of Baldwin Locomotive Works (b. 1817).

### August deaths

* August 3 – William Butler Ogden, president of the Chicago and North Western Railway (b. 1805).

### September deaths

* September 2 – Alvin Adams, founder of Adams Express, one of the first LCL freight companies in the United States, dies (b. 1804).

### December events

* December 26 – Jean-Jacques Meyer, French-born steam locomotive designer (b. 1804)