page_title: List of rail accidents (before 1880)
section_title: 1864
hierarchical_section_title: List of rail accidents (before 1880) / 1860s / 1864
caption_attribution_description: English: Railway accident at Beloeil, June 29, 1864. Français&#160;: Catastrophe ferroviaire à Belœil, le 29 juin 1864
context_page_description: 1650, – United Kingdom – Whickham, County Durham. Two boys die when they are run down by a wagon on a wooden coal train way. While such tramway accidents are not generally listed as rail accidents this is sometimes cited as the earliest known railway accident.
context_section_description: May 5, 1864 – United Kingdom – At Colne on the Midland Railway, a 0-6-0 engine being prepared to work a goods train to Leeds suffers a boiler explosion, killing the driver and badly injuring the fireman. A woman is struck by a fragment in her home ¹⁄₄ mile (400 m) away.
  May 9, 1864 – United Kingdom – At Bishop's Road station on the Metropolitan Railway — a 0-6-0 locomotive borrowed from the Great Northern Railway suffers a boiler explosion.  Nobody is killed but the station suffers major damage and injuries extend to a passenger in another train two tracks away.
  June 29, 1864 – Canada – St-Hilaire train disaster - An immigrant train fails to stop at a danger signal and attempts to cross an open swing bridge and falls into the Richelieu River at Beloeil, Quebec. Ninety-nine people are killed and 100 are injured. As of 2019 this still stands as the rail accident with the largest death toll in Canada.
  July 15, 1864 – United States – Shohola train wreck - An Erie Railroad passenger train carrying Confederate prisoners-of-war is in a head-on collision with a coal train near Shohola Township, Pennsylvania due to a dispatcher's error. Between 60 and 72 people are killed (official toll is 65 killed).
  August 16, 1864 – United States – An Erie Railroad freight train runs into the rear of a passenger train between Turner's Station and Sloatsburg, New York. A third train runs into the wreckage. Seven people are killed.
  September 21, 1864 – United States – A Pennsylvania Railroad passenger train runs into the rear of a stopped freight train at Thompsontown, Pennsylvania. The wreckage then catches fire. At least six people are killed and thirteen are injured.
  December 16, 1864 – United Kingdom – A South Eastern Railway ballast train becomes divided inside Blackheath Tunnel, Kent. An express passenger train runs into the rear portion, killing five people.
caption: Immigrant train runs through an open swing bridge near Beloeil, Quebec.
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