1920 in rail transport

January events

 * January 28 – Groundbreaking commences to begin construction of the Cincinnati Subway.

March events

 * March 1 – Control of American railroads is returned to private ownership and administration with the disbandment of the USRA.
 * March 18 – Fruit Growers Express (FGE) is incorporated in the United States.

April events

 * April 1 – Deutsche Reichseisenbahnen merges the German state railways.

May events

 * May 15 – The Ministry of Railways of Japan is established.

June events

 * June 13 – Baltimore and Ohio Railroad inaugurates passenger service to Detroit's Fort Street Union Depot as the first passenger train departs for Washington, DC.

July events

 * July 5 – Portland–Lewiston Interurban carries its heaviest passenger load with trains to the Maine Statehood Centennial Exposition.

October events

 * October 1 – Palestine Railways established to manage lines within British Mandatory Palestine, including the Jezreel Valley railway.

November events

 * November – H. P. M. Beames succeeds Charles Bowen-Cooke as Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London and North Western Railway.
 * November 20 – Work begins on the State Railway of Thailand to convert all track to meter gauge.

December events

 * December 23 – The Kirkenes–Bjørnevatn Line in Norway takes electric traction into use.

Unknown date events

 * William Sproule succeeds Julius Kruttschnitt as president of the Southern Pacific Company, parent company of the Southern Pacific Railroad. This is Sproule's second term as president.
 * Government of India accepts recommendation of Sir William Acworth's East India Railway Committee that the government should take over management of the country's railways.
 * Partition of the Ottoman Empire leads to abandonment of the Hejaz railway.

April births

 * April 16 – Alan Pegler, British railway preservationist (died 2012).
 * April 17 – James B. McCahey, Jr., president of Chicago South Shore and South Bend Railroad (died 1998).

July deaths

 * July 22 – William Kissam Vanderbilt, heir to Cornelius Vanderbilt and president of the New York Central system (born 1849).

October deaths

 * October 18 – Charles Bowen-Cooke, Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London and North Western Railway 1909–1920 (born 1859).

November deaths

 * November 17 – T. Jefferson Coolidge, president of Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway 1880–1881 (born 1831).

December deaths

 * December 1 – Edward Ponsonby, 8th Earl of Bessborough, director of London, Brighton and South Coast Railway from 1895 and chairman of same from 1908 (born 1851).