List of rail accidents (1880–1889)

This is a list of rail accidents from 1880 to 1889.

1880 January 8 – United Kingdom – A collision near Southport killed ten people. January 15 – United Kingdom – Six people were killed when the 5:30 express from Liverpool collided with a passenger train between Ormskirk and Burscough Junction. Both trains were on the same line and a signalman was arrested. February – United Kingdom – Thirty passengers had minor injuries following a collision between a Welsh coal-train and an express from Chester, near the Birkenhead Tunnel. February 10 – France – A train from St Lazare station ran into the Paris-to-Argenteuil train near Clichy station. Seven passengers were killed and at least fifty badly injured. February 13 – United Kingdom – Two wagons and the guard's van were thrown off the viaduct over the River Almond, Scotland killing two guards and a telegraph boy. March 13 – Germany – Two passenger trains collided at Halle railway station; killing seven and injuring many. March 13 – United Kingdom – Two were killed by an accident on the Great Northern Railway, near Wakefield, Yorkshire. May 23 – United States — a South Pacific Coast Railroad excursion train from Big Trees to Santa Cruz, California derailed, throwing the passengers from overcrowded excursion-service flat cars onto the tracks. 15 died and over 50 were injured. May 30 – Canada – At Simcoe, Ontario, a Great Western Railway freight train ran through an open switch and derailed, killing the driver. The accident happened about 2:45 a.m. and the oil lamp which should have indicated the position of the switch was not burning. June 17 – United Kingdom – A bridge on the Hereford, Hay and Brecon Railway collapsed and a luggage train crashed into the river, killing the driver and severely or fatally injuring the stoker. June 24 – United Kingdom – A child riding on the engine of a mineral train died when the mineral train left the rails of a branch line, near Skinningrove Mine, Cleveland. August 10 – United Kingdom – An express passenger train derailed north of Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland due to faulty track. Three people were killed. August 11 – United Kingdom – Wennington Junction rail crash - A Midland Railway passenger train derailed at , Lancashire. Eight people are killed and 23 are injured. August 19 – United Kingdom – A Midland Railway passenger train stopped inside Blea Moor Tunnel, Yorkshire due to a faulty brake pipe. An express passenger train overran signals collided with it at low speed. September 2 – United Kingdom – A Midland Railway passenger train left the rails on a sharp curve at the Manchester Central Station at 10:00 am. Several passengers and crew were injured. September 11 – New Zealand – The Rimutaka Incline railway accident on the Rimutaka Incline. A small train left Greytown at 8.30am bound for Wellington via the Rimutaka Incline. At Cross Creek at the foot of the incline, the train was rearranged with two passenger cars and the luggage carriage in front of the Fell Engine. Behind it were two wagons of timber, and the Fell brake van last. A strong northwest wind was blowing and, at a place called Siberia, a terrific gust blew the three leading carriages off the line. The couplings held and the weight of the engine plus the grip of the drivers on the centre-rail stopped them from falling to the valley below, but the body of the first carriage was torn off its chassis. The passengers were thrown out, three children were killed instantly, another died later, and some had horrific injuries. The inquest found the deaths accidental and no blame was attached to anyone. Wind shelters were later built on dangerous parts of the incline.New Zealand Disasters and Tragedies; Rimutaka Incline Rail Accident; Saturday 11 September 1880 (Ancestry.com) September 11 – United Kingdom – A London and South Western Railway passenger train collided with a light engine at Nine Elms Locomotive Junction, London due to errors by signalmen and the fireman of the light engine. Seven people were killed. October 7 – United Kingdom – One of the carriages of an excursion train for Leamington overturned when leaving Kenilworth. October 27 – United Kingdom – A passenger train ran into a goods train near Mosesgate on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway. Several passengers were injured and about a dozen carriages and a number of wagons were damaged. October 28 – Belgium – A goods train ran down an incline, near Herstal and hit a passenger train, killing seven people with several injured. December 21 – United Kingdom – The Bristol, Derby and Sheffield express hit at Sheffield express at Holbeck Junction, near Leeds killing one and injuring forty.

1881 January 5 – Canada – A Quebec, Montreal, Ottawa and Occidental Railway freight train derailed on temporary track laid across the frozen Saint Lawrence River between Longueuil and Hochelaga. Locomotive No.31 plunged through the ice. The locomotive was salvaged five days later. March 4 – United Kingdom – At Porthmadog, a Festiniog Railway freight train coasting downhill with no locomotive — as was common practice on that narrow-gauge line — was misrouted into a shed because the points had not been returned to the normal setting. One man inside the shed was killed. April – United States – A train left the track and crashed through the side of a bridge at Albany, Illinois, drowning eight passengers. May 21 – United Kingdom – A London, Chatham and Dover Railway passenger train derailed at Crystal Palace, London killing one. June 23 – Mexico – In the Morelos railway accident near Cuautla, Morelos, a train fell into a river, killing over 200 people. July 6 – United States – Boone, Iowa: Honey Creek Bridge rail disaster: A Chicago and North Western Railway locomotive ran tender-first, westbound over the line out of Boone to check the tracks during a heavy summer rainstorm in the Des Moines River Valley and plunged into Honey Creek as the weakened bridge collapsed. Two railway employees died. August 14 – Canada – During the night Grand Trunk Railway train 4, an express from Montreal to Toronto, struck one of several cows on the track about west of Prescott. The fireman jumped clear but the engineer was killed as the locomotive and several cars derailed. Several others were injured, one of them was not expected to survive.

1882 January 13 – United States – 1882 Spuyten Duyvil train wreck: Hudson River Railroad's Tarrytown Special collided with rear of the halted Atlantic Express near Spuyten Duyvil in the New York City borough of The Bronx at night, telescoping the last two coaches which also caught fire. Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper published a full front-page engraving a week later, showing trainmen, passengers, and local farmers rolling giant snowballs in an attempt to extinguish the blaze. State Senator and sleeping car magnate Webster Wagner was among the dead. This occurred almost a mile from a 2013 derailment that killed four June 30 – United States – Little Silver, New Jersey: Five of the seven cars of the Long Branch Railroad's Lightning Express, plunged off a trestle bridge near Little Silver, killing one man outright, with two men dying of their injuries later. Ulysses S. Grant was amongst the passengers of the train that day. July 13 – Russia – In the Tcherny railway accident, seven cars of a mail train fell into a sinkhole near Tcherny after a culvert collapsed in heavy rain. At least 42 were killed. September 3 – Germany – Hugstetten: Hugstetten rail disaster - After heavy weather a washaway occurred and the train most probably was running too fast. 64 people were killed and 225 injured. September 23 – Austria–Hungary (Croatia) – Osijek rail accident: collapse of wooden railway bridge over the Drava River, damaged by flood driftwood, under the weigh of crossing train caused five of wagons to fall into the river and total loss of 28 lives. September 29 – United States – Apparently distracted by a malfunction on the steam dummy he was driving, an engineer missed a whistle signal and another danger signal and ran his passenger train onto the International Railway Bridge to cross from Black Rock (now part of Buffalo, New York, U.S.) to Victoria (now part of Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada) while one of the movable spans was open. The dummy and first car crashed into a shallow part of the Niagara River, killing the engineer and one passenger.

1883 January 1 – United Kingdom – A Cambrian Railways passenger train was struck by a landslide at Vriog, Merionethshire. The locomotive was pushed into the sea, but the carriages remained on the track. Both crew were killed. January 20 – United States – Tehachapi, California: 1883 Tehachapi train wreck - Brakes holding passenger cars on a Central Pacific train were apparently left unset during a locomotive change at Tehachapi Summit. As the runaway cars headed backward down the mountain, stoves tipped over and ignited the cars before derailment. A total of 21 people were killed in the disaster, many of whom were burned beyond recognition."A Railway Horror: Appalling Disaster at Tehachalpi: Twenty-One Killed," San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 21, 1883, pg. 8. March 8 – United Kingdom – Wotton, Brill Tramway: A lady's maid was run over and killed by a locomotive as she stood on the tracks watching it approach. This was the only fatality in the line's 64-year history."Sad Fatal Accident on the Tramway". Bucks Herald (Aylesbury). 1883-03-10

1884 April 27 – Spain – Alcudia bridge disaster: locomotive, carriages and cages derailed off from a bridge over the Alcudia river. 59 people were killed. June 7 – United Kingdom – A South Eastern Railway freight train ran into the rear of another at , Kent due to a signalman's error. Two people were killed. July 16 – United Kingdom – Bullhouse Bridge rail accident: A locomotive axle failure caused the derailment of a passenger train at Penistone. 24 passengers were killed.

1885 January 1 – United Kingdom – Penistone rail crash, Penistone: An axle failure derailed an empty wagon into the path of a passenger train. One passenger was killed immediately and two died later. January – United Kingdom – A London and North Western Railway express passenger train overran signals and collided with a North Staffordshire Railway freight train near Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. One person was killed. April 18 – United States – A Central Railroad of New Jersey locomotive falls through the Ken Lockwood Gorge Bridge into the South Branch Raritan River near High Bridge, New Jersey. September 15 – Canada – St Thomas, Ontario: An express goods train hauled by a Grand Trunk Railway locomotive hit a dwarf Asian elephant on an embankment. The elephant was thrown down the embankment by the collision; the train's engineer put the locomotive into reverse, but was unable to prevent a rear-end collision with an African elephant (the famous Jumbo), killing it and derailing the locomotive and tender.Jan Bondeson (2006), The Cat Orchestra & the Elephant Butler, pp. 132–133. Stroud: Tempus Publishing Ltd.

1886 April 7 – United States – Deerfield railway accident – A washout outside of Deerfield, Massachusetts caused a passenger train to fall 100 feet (30 m) down an embankment, killing 11. September 14 – United States – A head-on collision in Silver Creek between a freight train and a passenger train killed twenty passengers when the smoking car telescoped. December – Russia – Two trains collided near Charkow. One of the engine drivers, three conductors and nine passengers killed, over thirty injured.

1887 January 4 – United States – Republic, Ohio: A head-on collision between a passenger train and a freight caused a fire killing thirteen passengers.