April 22 - In the Ryongchon disaster, a flammable cargo explodes at the railway station in the town of Ryongchŏn, North Korea, near the border with China; the explosion occurs only a few hours after North Korean leader Kim Jong-il passed through the station en route back to the capital from a secret meeting in China.
August 1 - Iowa Interstate Railroad takes over operations of a daily freight train from Iowa City, Iowa, to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, from the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City Railroad .
August 31 - The United StatesSurface Transportation Board renews the authority of TTX Corporation to continue pooling and leasing railroad rolling stock for ten more years, over the protests of other rolling stock leasing companies.
October 14 - The CanadianTransportation Safety Board issues its final report on the CN accident of May 22002; the report blames the truck driver's fatigue as the cause of the accident and admonishes fire crews for less-than-optimal training in hazardous materials.
October 15 - Canadian National Railway announces that it is selling its locomotive remote control business unit (which produced the Beltpack control system) to Cattron Group, Inc., so the railroad can focus on operations.
October 18 - Rocky Mountain Railtours officially changes its name to Rocky Mountaineer Vacations .
November 3 - Progressive Rail leases former Wisconsin Central track in northern Wisconsin and begins operations on the line under its subsidiary railroad, Wisconsin Northern .
November 16 - The northbound high speed tilt train Spirit of Townsville from Brisbane, bound for Cairns, failed to slow down for a very sharp 60 km/h curve at Rosedale, Queensland , Australia, derailing the train; remarkably, although seven of the train's passenger cars left the tracks, no fatalities were reported from this accident. See Rosedale train crash.
Chicago Transit Authority installs a new electric third rail along the Yellow Line to replace the aging Chicago, North Shore and Milwaukee Railroad overhead wire.
