Portal:Trains/Anniversaries/October 9


 * October 9


 * 1865 – George Hughes, Chief Mechanical Engineer for the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway 1904–1922, the London and North Western Railway 1922–1923 and the London, Midland and Scottish Railway 1925–1931, is born (d. 1945).
 * 1877 – The steam locomotive Countess of Dufferin (pictured), the first locomotive to operate in Manitoba and the first locomotive on the Canadian prairies, arrives aboard a barge in St. Boniface (now an electoral district of Winnipeg).
 * 1909 – The Alaska Northern Railroad Company (a predecessor of the Alaska Railroad) purchases the assets of the bankrupt Alaska Central Railway and subsequently extends the line northward another 34 km.
 * 2001 – Canadian National Railway (CN) purchases Wisconsin Central for $1.2 billion, giving CN a direct rail link to Chicago, Illinois.