1890 in rail transport

January events

 * January 28 – Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad acquires a section of the McKeesport and Belle Vernon Railroad around Belle Vernon, Pennsylvania.

February events

 * February 22 – Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis Railway (the "Big Four Railroad") gains control of the Peoria & Eastern Railway in southern Illinois.



March events

 * March – Émile Zola's psychological novel with a railway setting, La Bête Humaine, is published in book form.
 * March 4 – The Forth Bridge across the Firth of Forth in Scotland is officially opened and its contractor, William Arrol, is knighted.

May events

 * May 9 – Boston & Maine Railroad ends its lease of the Eastern Railroad of Massachusetts by purchasing it.
 * May 20 – Wutach Valley Railway opened to provide a strategic route inside Germany without crossing the Swiss border.

July events

 * July 23 – Narrow gauge Kennebec Central Railroad opens to Togus, Maine.

August events

 * August 18 – The Kansas City Suburban Belt Railroad, a predecessor of Kansas City Southern Railway, begins operations between Kansas City and Argentine.
 * August 19 – Pennsylvania Railroad subsidiary Ohio Valley Railway reorganized as the Pittsburg, Ohio Valley and Cincinnati Railroad.
 * August 19 – In Quincy, Massachusetts, a jack used to level rails was left on the tracks. A passenger train then collided with it causing a derailment. Twenty-four people were killed due to the impact of the collision and through scalding.

November events

 * November 4 – Official opening of the City & South London Railway, earliest constituent of the Northern line of the London Underground and the first real deep-level electrified "tube" railway in the world.
 * November 9 – First section of metre gauge Chemin de fer du Vivarais in southern France opens, using Mallet locomotives.
 * November 10 – Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits begins to operate the Rome Express train from Calais Maritime station via Paris and the Fréjus Rail Tunnel.
 * November 26 – The Mito Line in Japan operates its first freight trains.

Unknown date events

 * First Class О 0-8-0 steam locomotive built for service in Russia. 9129 locomotives of this type will be built up to 1928, making it the country's most numerous.
 * Klien-Lindner axle patented.
 * Hugh J. Chisholm forms the Portland and Rumford Falls Railway to link Androscoggin River papermills to the Maine Central Railroad.
 * Leland Stanford begins his term as Chairman of the Executive Committee for Southern Pacific.
 * Charles Francis Adams, Jr. steps down from the presidency of the Union Pacific.

August births

 * August 16 – CP Couch, president of Kansas City Southern Railway 1939–1941 (d. 1955).

July deaths

 * July 15 – Silas Seymour, chief engineer and/or consulting engineer for several railroads in New York in the mid- to late 19th century (b. 1817).

September deaths

 * September 30 – Frederick Billings, president of Northern Pacific Railway 1879–1881 (b. 1823).