{"id":23236,"date":"2024-02-27T04:21:13","date_gmt":"2024-02-27T09:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/traveling-cook.com\/?p=23236"},"modified":"2024-02-27T11:26:31","modified_gmt":"2024-02-27T16:26:31","slug":"the-history-of-american-railway-travel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/traveling-cook.com\/the-history-of-american-railway-travel\/","title":{"rendered":"The History of American Railway Travel"},"content":{"rendered":"

American Railway Travel<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

The first commercial use of railroads<\/a><\/strong> to transport paying passengers came in 1830, but it was just as well to take a horse-or a horse-drawn conveyance. Stagecoaches could take you nearly anywhere, so railroads remained largely a nov- elty until 1850, by which time there were 9021 miles of rails, mostly in the Northeast.<\/span><\/p>\n

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History of American Rail Travel<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the early days, the railroads<\/a> usually followed the lines of least resistance in laying their tracks. The railroads went by rote to such an extent that, according to tradition, the standard gauge-which is the inside distance between the rails-was determined by the width between the wheels of the ancient Roman<\/a> chariots. Early English stagecoaches,<\/strong> according to the legend, were built to fit the grooves Roman<\/a> chariots had made. When the first English railroads<\/a> were constructed, the tracks were laid to the gauge of the stagecoaches, and the railroad cars and steam engines were built to fit that gauge.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Then, when the engines made in England<\/strong> were brought to America, the tracks were laid to match their gauge; and that is why, the story goes, the standard gauge in the United States is the odd figure of four feet, eight and a half inches.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Railroad building in the southern states had made little head- way in the first half of the nineteenth century, and in the Midwest only three important lines were begun. In New England, where the country was the most densely populated, the progress was greater, so that by 1850 nearly all the important trunk lines in that region had been completed.<\/span><\/p>\n

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History of American Railway Travel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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The ten years following 1850 were far more important in railroad history<\/a> than the preceding decade. The increase between 1850 and 1860 was from 9021 to 30,635 miles, a result of several factors. The southern and midwestern states were developing, thereby creating a demand for greater transportation facilities. The discovery of gold in California<\/strong> in 1848 until 1857 brought the people of the United States highly prosperous times.<\/span><\/p>\n

Business activity in all lines was keen, and railroad building shared with other enterprises in this prosperity. During the decade following 1850 many of the trunk lines of he large railroad systems of the present day were completed. The Erie Railroad joined New York with Lake Erie in 1851, and the Baltimore & Ohio<\/strong> reached the Ohio River the same year. The construction of long lines proceeded rapidly in the states east of the Mississippi River and north of the Ohio.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Atlantic seaboard to Chicago by rail<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

By 1853 it became possible to travel from the Atlantic seaboard to Chicago by rail. In the following year, the Chicago & Rock Island<\/em> connected Chicago with the Mississippi River. Land grants, state sub- sidies, and prosperous times combined to foster the rapid spread of the railroad net in the Midwest. This lasted until 1857, when the good times were interrupted by a panic. Railroad building was then so seriously interrupted that it had not regained its previous activity when the Civil War stopped nearly all indus- trial progress for half a decade.<\/span><\/p>\n

Indeed, it was not until the golden spike was driven on 1 May 1869 at Promontory, Utah,<\/strong> that the nation was truly united. With that momentous event, a rail line stretched uninterrupted from San Francisco to Omaha,<\/strong> and then from Omaha to Chicago, where it connected to the already existing American rail net- work in the Northeast, the South and the vast industrial heart- land around the Great Lakes.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Pennsylvania Railroad – Coast to Coast 48 hs 1929<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Sleeping Room in 1861<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

One of the best accounts of American rail travel in the years before the Pullman era was related by an anony- mous Englishman concerning his trip from Albany to Buffalo in 1861 on the New York Central.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The conductor, seeing him walk about the platform, eyeing the several carriages, asked with sagacious forethought, <\/span><\/p>\n