2000 in rail transport

1999, 2000, 2001

This article lists events related to rail transport that occurred in 2000.

Events

January 4 - A northbound BM92 multiple unit and a southbound passenger train headed by a Di 3 locomotive collided on Norway's Rørosbanen line near Åsta station, killing 19 people.
January 29 - The Termini Station, in Rome, opens.

May 23 - General Motors Electro-Motive Division delivers to the Union Pacific Railroad the first five EMD SD70M diesel locomotives in the largest single order (1,000 locomotives) for diesel locomotives ever by a single railroad.

June 7 - The Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel, originally built for rail traffic in 1943, opens for combined rail/highway traffic, making it the longest combined rail/highway tunnel in North America.

July 11 - VIA Rail Canada announces that it will use five sleeper cars leased from Amtrak for runs between Winnipeg and Churchill, Manitoba.
July 14 - The United States Surface Transportation Board's temporary moratorium on railroad mergers is upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; the ruling contributes to the failure of the proposed BNSF/CN merger.
July 21 - Manchester Metrolink, in Manchester, England, is extended to Eccles.

October 2 - VIA Rail operates a funeral train for Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau between Ottawa and Montreal; the train's journey, which was frequently slowed through towns for the numerous well-wishers, was documented by a CBC news helicopter.
October 17 - The Hatfield rail crash, south of Hatfield, Hertfordshire, UK, occurs when a train traveling at 115 mph derails due to a rail that breaks under it.
October 29 - Amtrak upgrades service on the California Zephyr to daily.

November 11 - An faulty heater aboard a funicular train in Kaprun, Austria, starts a fire in the train's brake fluid while the train is in a tunnel; only four of the train's 155 passengers survived the fire in the Kaprun disaster.

Robert Krebs resigns as Chief Executive Officer of Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway
The fourth and final phase of Cairo Metro's Line Two (Yellow) opens.
Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway and Canadian National Railway file for a merger, but the merger is denied by regulatory agencies.
The Iwateichinohe Tunnel on the Morioka-Hachinohe section of Japan's Tōhoku Shinkansen is completed; at 25.8 km (16 miles) long, it is the longest land rail tunnel to date.