The 1873 financial panic that helped end the railway speculation boom was called the Panic of 1873.
The crisis began in the context of heavy investment in railways, property, and industrial expansion. In the United States, the failure of the banking firm Jay Cooke & Company in September 1873 undermined confidence and helped trigger a run on banks. The New York Stock Exchange closed temporarily as panic spread.
The shock was international. Financial failures and falling investment affected Europe and North America, contributing to a long depression commonly called the Long Depression. Railway companies were especially vulnerable because many had expanded with borrowed money and optimistic assumptions about future traffic.
The Panic of 1873 is sometimes described differently depending on the country. In much of Europe, the crisis followed the collapse of the Vienna stock market in May 1873 and is known as the Gründerkrach. These were connected episodes within a wider international financial downturn, not unrelated events with identical causes.