Free The Great Railroad Revolution by Christian Wolmar Page A

apology, but hope the reader will understand how difficult this selection has been.
    The first chapter looks at how railroads emerged and why they developed as opposed to other forms of technology. Each aspect of what constituted a railroad had to be conceived, developed, and refined: track beds, rails, cars, and locomotives. Railroads brought together the most complexset of technologies developed since the dawn of civilization. And America was a pioneer, joining the railroad age just after the first modern railroad had been opened in the United Kingdom. America was a young country, ripe for the railroad revolution, and within a few years of the first line opening, there were already a thousand miles in short separate lines laid principally on the Eastern Seaboard. Quite clearly, the railroad’s moment had arrived. It soon became obvious to its early promoters that—on grounds of efficiency and cheapness—locomotives rather than horses must be used to pull the carriages and railroad trucks. The first significant railroad had been developed in Britain in 1830, and several European countries had quickly followed suit. The United States fast caught up and was soon leading the world in railroad mileage. The railroad age had arrived, and nothing could stop it.
    The second chapter shows how America’s relationship with the railroads soon became a passionate affair. They grew symbiotically, rapidly spreading across the more economically advanced states. From harboring doubts about the railroads, suddenly everyone wanted to be connected to the railroad. The burgeoning United States adopted railroad technology faster and with more enthusiasm than any other nation, embracing the new invention that seemed to reflect the pioneering spirit of the age. Up and down the East Coast, railroad lines sprang up with amazing speed, stimulating economic growth that would change the way people lived and eventually make America the most powerful nation on earth. Of the twenty-six states that constituted the Union in 1840, only four—Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, and Vermont—had not completed their first mile of track. The beginnings of what would become the major railroad companies were established during the 1840s with the opening of the New York Central & Hudson River and Pennsylvania lines. However, for the most part in the 1830s and 1840s, the development of the railroads was a local affair. People wanted to have easy access to the local town, or possibly to the other end of the state, rather than across the nation. These early railroad companies were a true ragbag of outfits, ranging from, literally, one-horse companies carrying coal out of a mine to longer lines stretching into the outback and carrying thousands of passengers a week.
    The third chapter shows how the railroads took off as an industry in the years running up to the Civil War. The 1850s saw a massive increase inthe pace of track development, and the mileage more than tripled during the decade. This was a period of strong economic performance, both driven by the railroads and speeded up by their construction. Although most of the railroads were built by the private sector, little of this remarkable growth would have been possible without government support through various mechanisms, such as allowing companies to run lotteries, the granting of monopolistic rights, tax exemptions, and land grants. It was the start of a difficult relationship between government and the railroads.
    The American railroads were bigger in every sense than those in Europe. They covered longer distances, used larger locomotives, and hauled longer trains. The railroads seemed to be tailor-made for the huge American landmass and for the indomitable spirit of its people. European countries were constrained by reactionary governments slow to recognize the social and economic benefits of the railroads and by old-fashioned customs that those with vested interests worked hard to protect.