This article lists anniversary events related to rail transport that occurred on October 1.

• 1835 – Promoters of the Bristol and Exeter Railway issue a prospectus for the railway's construction.
• 1853 – Bristol and Exeter Railway's Yeovil branch line is fully opened for passenger traffic.
• 1872 – The Denver, South Park and Pacific Railway is incorporated.
• 1872 – The first meeting of the Time Table Conventions, an organization that later became the American Railway Association, is held in Louisville, Kentucky.^[1]
• 1880 – The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, building southwestward from Kansas, reaches San Marcial, New Mexico.^[2]

• 1907 – The Empire of Japan completes the nationalization of nationwide 17 private railroads.
• 1910 – The Great Western Railway, in England, abolishes second-class rail fares (first- and third-class remain).
• 1911 – Hudson and Manhattan Railroad trains make their first station stops at the Pennsylvania Railroad's Manhattan Transfer station in New York City.
• 1911 – Nigel Gresley (later Sir Nigel Gresley) becomes Locomotive Engineer, Great Northern Railway.
• 1915 – Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway introduces the Navajo passenger train in San Francisco–Los Angeles–Chicago service as a replacement for the Tourist Flyer.
• 1941 – After a bankruptcy, Spokane International Railway is reorganized as Spokane International Railroad.
• 1951 – The former Blane Valley Railway line, now operated by British Railways, is closed to passenger traffic.
• 1958 – Northern Ireland's Ulster Transport Authority and the Republic of Ireland's Córas Iompair Éireann take over from the Great Northern Railway Board in running the remaining cross-border route (Dublin–Belfast) of the Irish railway system. The GNR assets are split between the two state companies.
• 1960 – Matsuchi Station on Japanese Government Railways' Uwajima Line is opened.
• 1974 – Freight operations are discontinued on the Yodo Line in Japan.
• 1996 – The Norwegian Railway Inspectorate is created.
• 1997 – JR East inaugurates the Nagano Shinkansen connecting Takasaki and Nagano in Japan.

• 2003 – M>Train (Melbourne, Australia) withdraws its fleet of Siemens trains for the second time.
• 2012 – Line 3 of the Tianjin Metro in China is opened.