1879 in rail transport

January events

 * January 28 – Construction of the Waimea Plains Railway, the first railway constructed under the District Railways Act of 1878, reaches Inverrcagill, New Zealand.

February events

 * February 10 – The Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railway begins freight operations.

May events

 * May – James J. Hill forms the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway from the assets of the bankrupt St. Paul and Pacific.
 * May 17 – The Texas and St. Louis Railway, a predecessor of St. Louis Southwestern Railway, is organized as a way to ship cotton south to Texas.
 * May 31 – The first electric railway opens at the Berlin Trades Exposition.

July events

 * July 4 – The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, building southwestward from Kansas, reaches Las Vegas, New Mexico.
 * July 17 – Freycinet Plan enacted in France to extend rail and other transportation systems.
 * July 31 – The Caledonian Railway opens the original Glasgow Central station in Scotland.

November events

 * November 1 – The first British dining car service leaves Leeds for London King's Cross. This is provided by the Pullman car Princess of Wales which accommodates just 10 first-class passengers.
 * November 20 – Narrow gauge Sandy River Railroad completed to Phillips, Maine.
 * November 22 – The North Pennsylvania Railroad begins operating the Philadelphia, Newtown and New York Railroad, a subsidiary of Pennsylvania Railroad.
 * November 25 – The Waldenburgerbahn is founded as a separate company and takes over the concession for the railway from Liestal to Waldenburg, Switzerland.

December events

 * December 1 – Solano, the largest rail ferryboat ever constructed, is put into service in California.
 * December 28 – Tay Bridge disaster: The North British Railway's Tay Bridge across the Firth of Tay in Scotland collapses in a violent storm while a passenger train is crossing it. 75 lives are lost. William Topaz McGonagall produces his epic poem The Tay Bridge Disaster to commemorate the event.

Unknown date events

 * Southern Pacific Railroad engineers experiment with the first oil-fired steam locomotives.
 * San Francisco and North Pacific Railroad constructs the Puerto Suello Hill Tunnel in Marin County, California.

March births

 * March 6 – Patrick H. Joyce, president Chicago Great Western Railway 1931–1946 (d. 1946).

April births

 * April 24 – Oris Paxton Van Sweringen, American financier who, with his brother Mantis, controls the Nickel Plate Road and other eastern railroads (d. 1936).

August births

 * August 20 – Ralph Budd, president of the Great Northern Railway 1919–1932 and Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad 1932–1949 (d. 1962).

October births

 * October 18 – Charles Eugene Denney, president of Erie Railroad 1929–1939 and Northern Pacific Railway 1939–1950 (d. 1965).