June 9 - Chesapeake and Ohio Railway2-6-6-6 “Allegheny” number 1642 suffers a boiler explosion. All three head-end crew members are killed when the cab is blown in one piece 200 feet (60 m) in the air and 300 yards (275 m) off the mainline into the adjacent river. The boiler is blown off the running gear and flips end for end, coming to rest 600 feet (180 m) ahead of the train. The blast is blamed on a faulty feedwater injector and/or cold water pump.
December 24 - 151 people die in the Tangiwai disaster, when the Tangiwai Railway Bridge over the Whangaehu River collapses as the overnight express train between Wellington and Auckland, New Zealand, passes over it; the bridge supports had been weakened by a lahar (a volcanic ash and debris filled flash flood) a few minutes before the train passed.