Portal:Trains/Anniversaries/July 8

Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway system map as of 1914

1853 – The Northern Indiana Railroad (a predecessor of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway; map shown) is formed through the merger of several smaller railroads in Indiana and Ohio.
1881 – Mantis James Van Sweringen, American financier who, with his brother Oris, controlled the Nickel Plate Road and other eastern US railroads, is born (d. 1935).
1895 – The Delagoa Bay Railway, in South Africa, opens.
1908 – Construction begins on the Belt Line railway in Hull, Ontario.

See also