This article lists events related to rail transport that occurred in 1847.

• February 26 – The Somerville and Easton Railroad, a predecessor of the Central Railroad of New Jersey, is chartered.

• March 9 – The Richmond and Danville Railroad is chartered in Virginia.
• March 15 – The Amiens-Boulogne line in France opens between Abbeville and Étaples.
• March 16 – The Leeds and Bradford Extension Railway opens between Shipley and Keighley in West Yorkshire, England.^[1]
• March – First ever 4-6-0 locomotive, the Chesapeake, completed by the Norris Locomotive Works for the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad.^[2]

• April 19 – The Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, a predecessor of the New York Central Railroad, officially changes its name to Albany and Schenectady Railroad.

• May 24 – The Dee bridge disaster: a cast iron girder bridge across the river Dee at Chester, England, designed by Robert Stephenson for the Chester and Holyhead Railway, collapses under a Shrewsbury and Chester Railway train with five fatalities.^[3]
• May 31 – The first railway connection between Rotterdam and The Hague opens in the Netherlands.^[4]

• June – The first Bradshaws Continental Railway Guide timetable is published by George Bradshaw in England.
• June 26 – Opening of first railway wholly within modern-day Denmark, from Copenhagen to Roskilde.^{[5][page needed]}

• July 9 – The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway is incorporated as an amalgamation of several important railway lines in Northern England.^[6]
• July 28 – Bristol and Exeter Railway's Clevedon branch line opens.

• August 9 – Opening of first railway wholly within Switzerland, the Swiss Northern Railway from Zürich to Baden.^{[5][page needed]}

• September 22 – The Railway Clearing House in Great Britain recommends that Greenwich Mean Time be adopted as the standard time for all railways in the United Kingdom.^[7]

• October – Portland Company's locomotive erecting shops opened for business.^[8]

• December 1
  • The London and North Western Railway opens its Trent Valley Line to give a more direct route for the West Coast Main Line to North West England, bypassing Birmingham.^[9]
  • The first time zone in the world is established by British railways with GMT hand-carried on chronometers.

• John Urpeth Rastrick retires from Foster, Rastrick and Company, the English firm that built the first steam locomotives for the Delaware and Hudson Railroad.^[10]

• October 6 – Webb C. Ball, watchmaker who introduced the first truly reliable and accurate timepieces on American railroads.

• November 16 – Thomas Kirtley, locomotive superintendent of North Midland Railway 1843–1844, and London, Brighton and South Coast Railway in 1847, dies (b. 1811).