This article lists events related to rail transport that occurred in 1817.

• Approximate date – Britain's longest tramroad tunnel is opened at Pwll du near Blaenavon in South Wales. The Pwll Du Tunnel is more than a mile (2400 m) in length. Begun as a mineral adit, at this time it carries a horse-drawn double track plateway of approximately 2 ft (600 mm) gauge carrying material for Blaenavon Ironworks; next summer it will be incorporated in Thomas Hill's Tramroad.^[1]

• March 26 - Herman Haupt, United States railroad civil engineer (d. 1905).

• June 20 - Silas Seymour, chief engineer and/or consulting engineer for several railroads in New York in the mid- to late 19th century (d. 1890).

• July 1 – Hugh J. Jewett, president of the Erie Railroad 1874–1884 (d. 1898).
• July 15 – John Fowler, British civil engineer (d. 1898).

• October 2 – Webster Wagner, founder of Wagner Palace Car Company (d. 1883).
• October 17 – Alexander Mitchell, president of Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway 1864–1887 (d. 1887).^[2]

• Matthew Baird, second owner of Baldwin Locomotive Works (d. 1877)
• Walter McQueen, Chief mechanical engineer for the Albany and Schenectady Railroad 1845–1850, Hudson River Railroad 1850–1852, and superintendent of Schenectady Locomotive Works 1852–1876 (d. 1893).

• White, John H. Jr. (Spring 1986). "America's Most Noteworthy Railroaders". Railroad History. 154: 9–15. ISSN 0090-7847. JSTOR 43523785. OCLC 1785797.
• White, John H. Jr. (1968). A history of the American locomotive; its development: 1830–1880. New York, NY: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-23818-0.