1827 in rail transport

February events

 * February 28 – The Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road is incorporated.

May events

 * May 5 – Mauch Chunk Switchback Railway opened by the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company in the United States.

June events

 * June 30 - the Saint-Étienne to Andrézieux Railway, the first railway line in France and continental Europe begins to operate.

September events

 * September 7 – Opening of the first railway in Austria-Hungary, a horse-worked line from České Budějovice to Trojanov (in the present-day Czech Republic).

December events

 * December 19 – The South Carolina Canal and Rail Road is chartered.

Unknown date events

 * Claudius Crozet completes surveying a route for the first railroad to be built in Virginia, the Chesterfield Railroad.
 * John B. Jervis becomes the chief engineer for the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, the forerunner of the Delaware and Hudson Railroad.

April births

 * April 1 – Thomas Seavey Hall, American inventor of railroad signalling systems (d. 1880).

July births

 * July 11 – Austin Corbin, president of Long Island Rail Road (d. 1896).

September births

 * September 27 – Aaron Augustus Sargent, American journalist, lawyer and politician; authored the first Pacific Railroad Act (d. 1887).

October births

 * October 27 – Albert Fink, German-born American civil engineer and railroad manager (d. 1897).