title: 1780s in rail transport
text: # 1780s in rail transport
  
  This article lists events relating to rail transport that occurred during the 1780s.
  
  ## 1780
  
  ### Births
  
  **January births**
  
  * January 26 – John Urpeth Rastrick, English steam locomotive builder and partner in Foster, Rastrick and Company (died 1856).
  
  **October births**
  
  * October 25 – Philip Hone, first president of Delaware and Hudson Railway 1825–1826 (died 1851).
  
  ## 1781
  
  ### Births
  
  **June births**
  
  * June 9 – George Stephenson, English steam locomotive builder.
  
  ## 1782
  
  ### Births
  
  **Unknown date births**
  
  * Joseph Treffry (born Joseph Austen), railway promoter in Cornwall, England (died 1850).
  
  ## 1783
  
  ### Events
  
  * Halbeath Railway opens from the colliery at Halbeath to the harbour at Inverkeithing, Scotland.
  
  ## 1784
  
  ### Births
  
  * December 30 – Stephen H. Long, American steam locomotive mechanical engineer who helped build the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (died 1864).
  
  ## 1785
  
  ### Births
  
  **Unknown date births**
  
  * Sir William Cubitt, civil engineer on the South Eastern and Great Northern Railways of England (died 1861).
  
  ## 1786
  
  ### Births
  
  **December births**
  
  * December 22 – Timothy Hackworth, English steam locomotive builder (died 1850).
  
  **Unknown date births**
  
  * William T. James, American inventor of the link motion and spark arrester (died 1865).
  
  ## 1787
  
  ### Events
  
  **Unknown date events**
  
  * First production of all-iron edge rail (for underground colliery use), at Plymouth Ironworks, Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales.
  * First introduction of plateway (for underground use), at Sheffield Park Colliery, Yorkshire, England, by John Curr.
  
  ### Births
  
  **October births**
  
  * October 18 – Robert Livingston Stevens, president of the Camden and Amboy Railroad, the first railroad built in New Jersey (died 1856).
  
  ## 1788
  
  ### Events
  
  **Unknown date events**
  
  * First introduction of plateway for surface use, at Wingerworth Iron Foundry, Derbyshire, England, by Joseph Butler.
  
  ## 1789
  
  ### Events
  
  **Unknown date events**
  
  * Oliver Evans is awarded a U.S. patent for his "steam carriage," a design that is believed by some historians to have influenced Richard Trevithick's work on early steam locomotives.
  
  ### Births
  
  **October births**
  
  * October 8 – John Ruggles, awarded U.S. Patent 1 for improved driving wheels (died 1874).
  
  **Unknown date births**
  
  * Gridley Bryant, inventor of many basic railroad technologies including track and wheels (died 1867)
  