Events January events January 20 – The Grand Trunk Western Railroad opens a passenger depot in Lansing, Michigan. January 28 – Esmond Train Wreck: fourteen people are killed when the Crescent City Express (No. 8, bound for Benson, Arizona) collides head-on with the bound Pacific Coast Express (No. 7, bound for Tucson). February events February 12 – North British Locomotive Company established as a locomotive builder in Glasgow, Scotland, by merger of Dübs and Company, Neilson, Reid and Company, and Sharp Stewart and Company. In April it receives its first new order for steam locomotives, from India. March events March 3 – Baker valve gear for steam locomotives is first patented in the United States. April events April 7 – Apalachicola Northern Railroad, later to become AN Railway, is chartered. May events May 3 – The Mersey Railway, operating between Birkenhead and Liverpool by tunnel beneath the River Mersey, England, converts from steam to electric traction. May 13 – The Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley Railroad (later to become part of Chicago and North Western Railway) begins passenger train service to Casper, Wyoming. May 25 – The Lackawanna and Wyoming Valley Railroad opens, becoming the first railroad in the United States to use an electrified third rail to power its trains. July events July – Regular passenger traffic from Saint Petersburg to Vladivostok over the Trans-Siberian and Chinese Eastern Railways begins. July 1 – Opening of the Albula Railway portion of the Rhaetian Railway (RhB) (metre gauge) in Switzerland, passing through the Albula Tunnel, the highest of the principal Alpine tunnels at 1370 m. July 13 – Danbury Union Station in Danbury, Connecticut, on the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, opens. July 27 Construction begins on the Baghdad Railway with the segment between Konya and Bulgurlu in the Ottoman Empire (modern day Turkey). Glasgow St Enoch rail accident, Scotland: sixteen killed when a train crashes into the buffers. August events August 10 – Paris Metro train fire, France: electric fire on Paris Métro at Couronnes; 84 killed. August 17 – The Great Western Railway becomes the first British railway company to operate its own "road motor services" (i.e. buses), between Helston and The Lizard in Cornwall. September events September 27 – Wreck of the Old 97, Danville, Virginia, United States: A southbound Southern Railway passenger train derails on a trestle in Danville; eleven people are killed. October events