Transportation

The “age of steamships” is driven by two men in particular. First is Pennsylvania native, John Fulton, who travels to Europe in 1788, studies the steam engine technology invented by Scotsman, James Watt, and returns home to launch America’s first steamboat, The Clermont, in 1807, carrying passengers against the Hudson River current from New York City to Albany.

But it is “Commodore” Cornelius Vanderbilt who comes to dominate steamship travel in America and across the globe. He begins with his 1828 Staten Island Ferry Line using steamboats to transport passengers and goods around New York Harbor. From there he builds a fleet of steamships that operate domestically and then internationally. They are faster, cheaper and less prone to sinking than masted sailing ships, and Vanderbilt leverages their success into investments in railroads and real estate that make him a tycoon.

Next comes the “age of railroads” after Englishman Richard Trevithick introduces his “steam road locomotive” in 1801. Trains begin to appear in America around 1826, with the earliest being mostly short haul passengers lines. One example is the New York and Harlem Railroad that transports commuters some 4 miles from Grand Central Terminal north to the suburb. But this changes in 1830 when the Baltimore & Ohio (B&O) railroad company embarks on laying some 515 miles of tracks between 1830 and 1842, linking the east coast port city all the way west to Cumberland, Md. and on to the Ohio River at Moundsville, Virginia. The B&O becomes the model for other mega-line to follow.

Meanwhile the South lags far behind the North in railroad development all the way up through the Civil War. Georgia is the region’s early leader with the Central Railroad & Banking Company laying 160 miles of tracks between Savannah and Macon, Georgia in 1843. In 1846 this line is extended another 80 miles from Macon to Atlanta by the Macon & Western Railroad.

In the west, Illinois surpasses all other states in mileage in 1851, as the Illinois Central monopoly builds 490 miles of tracks between Cairo and Galena and another 215 miles from Chicago to Centralia. Both Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas prosper as lawyers for the ICRR in the 1850’s.

7.0 Railroad Milestones Prior to the Civil War

The 1849 gold rush in California fuels the drive for construction of an Intercontinental Railroad spanning the nation. In the summer of 1853, army engineers set out to evaluate four potential routes for new western lines that would link with the already developed eastern tracks. The latitudes vary from the north along the Canadian Border to the south along the Mexican boundary. However, by 1856 when the final report (which favors the south) is issued, the looming Civil War puts all construction on hold.

While records on the total miles of track laid in America are sketchy prior to the Census of 1850, the general consensus pegs the total figure around 3,000 miles as of 1840. This number will expand nearly ten-fold in the next two decades.

7.1 Miles of Railroad Tracks in the U.S. Up to 1860

As the population moves west, so too do the railroads. The biggest jump between 1850 and 1860 falls across the Northern Interior states from Ohio to Missouri.

7.2 Miles of Railroad Track (U.S. Census)

Throughout the war, consolidation replaces small railroad companies with large ones, and efforts accelerate on the Transcontinental line. Two mega lines dominate the race: the Central Pacific, heading east from the Pacific and led by the tycoon Governor of California, Leland Stanford; and the Union Pacific, driving west from Council Bluffs, Iowa, under Dr. Thomas Durant. On May 10, 1869 the “Golden Spike” joins the two lines at Promontory Point, Utah.

Some 1900 miles of track now connect America’s east and west coasts.