1831 in rail transport

February events

 * February 18 – The West Chester Railroad is chartered in Pennsylvania.

April events

 * April 23 – the Pontchartrain Rail-Road begins operation.
 * April 25
 * Matthias W. Baldwin displays a model steam locomotive at the Philadelphia City Museum a year before building his first full-size locomotive for a working railroad.
 * The New York and Harlem Railroad is incorporated as a passenger carrier.

May events

 * May – Members of a Manchester (England) Sunday School are conveyed by a special train on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway to Liverpool, the first recorded private railway excursion.

June events

 * June 17 - The first boiler explosion in the United States occurs when the engineer on the Best Friend of Charleston ties the steam safety pressure release valve shut.
 * June 18 – The John Bull is constructed by Robert Stephenson and Company in England.
 * June 21 – The Boston and Providence Rail Road is incorporated and chartered to build a railroad connection between Boston, Massachusetts, and Providence, Rhode Island.
 * June 23 – The Boston and Worcester Railroad is chartered to build a railroad between its namesake cities in Massachusetts.

July events

 * July 1 – The first railroad built in Virginia, the Chesterfield Railroad, begins operations.
 * July 4 – Opening of first section of Edinburgh and Dalkeith Railway in Scotland including St Leonards Tunnel, Scotland's earliest tunnel on a public railway.
 * July 14 – The John Bull departs Liverpool aboard the steamship Allegheny bound for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

August events

 * August 9 – The Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, the first railroad built in New York state, opens.

September events

 * September 4 – The John Bull arrives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from Liverpool.
 * September 15 – The John Bull is operated for the first time on the Camden and Amboy Railroad.
 * September 24 – The Mohawk and Hudson Railroad opens between Albany and Schenectady, New York.

November events

 * November 12 – Robert L. Stevens, president of the Camden and Amboy Railroad hosts a demonstration run of the John Bull for New Jersey politicians and dignitaries.

Unknown date events

 * First rail carriage of United States mail, by South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company, according to some sources.
 * John B. Jervis becomes the chief engineer for the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, a predecessor of the New York Central.

January births

 * January 14 – William D. Washburn, first president of Soo Line Railroad 1883–1889, is born (d. 1912).

March births

 * March 3 – George Pullman, American inventor and industrialist, founder of the Pullman Company (d. 1897)

August births

 * August 26 – T. Jefferson Coolidge, president of Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway 1880–1881 (d. 1920).

Unknown date births

 * Eli H. Janney, inventor of the knuckle coupler (d. 1912).