1780s in rail transport

This article lists events relating to rail transport that occurred during the 1780s.

January births

 * January 26 – John Urpeth Rastrick, English steam locomotive builder and partner in Foster, Rastrick and Company (died 1856).

October births

 * October 25 – Philip Hone, first president of Delaware and Hudson Railway 1825–1826 (died 1851).

June births

 * June 9 – George Stephenson, English steam locomotive builder.

Unknown date births

 * Joseph Treffry (born Joseph Austen), railway promoter in Cornwall, England (died 1850).

Events

 * Halbeath Railway opens from the colliery at Halbeath to the harbour at Inverkeithing, Scotland.

Births

 * December 30 – Stephen H. Long, American steam locomotive mechanical engineer who helped build the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (died 1864).

Unknown date births

 * Sir William Cubitt, civil engineer on the South Eastern and Great Northern Railways of England (died 1861).

December births

 * December 22 – Timothy Hackworth, English steam locomotive builder (died 1850).

Unknown date births

 * William T. James, American inventor of the link motion and spark arrester (died 1865).

Unknown date events

 * First production of all-iron edge rail (for underground colliery use), at Plymouth Ironworks, Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales.
 * First introduction of plateway (for underground use), at Sheffield Park Colliery, Yorkshire, England, by John Curr.

October births

 * October 18 – Robert Livingston Stevens, president of the Camden and Amboy Railroad, the first railroad built in New Jersey (died 1856).

Unknown date events

 * First introduction of plateway for surface use, at Wingerworth Iron Foundry, Derbyshire, England, by Joseph Butler.

Unknown date events

 * Oliver Evans is awarded a U.S. patent for his "steam carriage," a design that is believed by some historians to have influenced Richard Trevithick's work on early steam locomotives.

October births

 * October 8 – John Ruggles, awarded for improved driving wheels (died 1874).

Unknown date births

 * Gridley Bryant, inventor of many basic railroad technologies including track and wheels (died 1867)