1847 in rail transport

February events

 * February 26 – The Somerville and Easton Railroad, a predecessor of the Central Railroad of New Jersey, is chartered.

March events

 * March 9 – The Richmond and Danville Railroad is chartered in Virginia.
 * March 15 – The Amiens-Boulogne line in France opens between Abbeville and Étaples.
 * March 16 – The Leeds and Bradford Extension Railway opens between Shipley and Keighley in West Yorkshire, England.
 * March – First ever 4-6-0 locomotive, the Chesapeake, completed by the Norris Locomotive Works for the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad.

April events

 * April 19 – The Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, a predecessor of the New York Central Railroad, officially changes its name to Albany and Schenectady Railroad.

May events

 * May 24 – The Dee bridge disaster: a cast iron girder bridge across the river Dee at Chester, England, designed by Robert Stephenson for the Chester and Holyhead Railway, collapses under a Shrewsbury and Chester Railway train with five fatalities.
 * May 31 – The first railway connection between Rotterdam and The Hague opens in the Netherlands.

June events

 * June – The first Bradshaws Continental Railway Guide timetable is published by George Bradshaw in England.
 * June 26 – Opening of first railway wholly within modern-day Denmark, from Copenhagen to Roskilde.

July events

 * July 9 – The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway is incorporated as an amalgamation of several important railway lines in Northern England.
 * July 28 – Bristol and Exeter Railway's Clevedon branch line opens.

August events

 * August 9 – Opening of first railway wholly within Switzerland, the Swiss Northern Railway from Zürich to Baden.

September events

 * September 22 – The Railway Clearing House in Great Britain recommends that Greenwich Mean Time be adopted as the standard time for all railways in the United Kingdom.

October events

 * October – Portland Company's locomotive erecting shops opened for business.

December events

 * December 1
 * The London and North Western Railway opens its Trent Valley Line to give a more direct route for the West Coast Main Line to North West England, bypassing Birmingham.
 * The first time zone in the world is established by British railways with GMT hand-carried on chronometers.

Unknown date events

 * John Urpeth Rastrick retires from Foster, Rastrick and Company, the English firm that built the first steam locomotives for the Delaware and Hudson Railroad.

October births

 * October 6 – Webb C. Ball, watchmaker who introduced the first truly reliable and accurate timepieces on American railroads.

Deaths

 * November 16 – Thomas Kirtley, locomotive superintendent of North Midland Railway 1843–1844, and London, Brighton and South Coast Railway in 1847, dies (b. 1811).