The United States Railroads

THE UNITED STATES RAILROADS With less than one-twelfth of the world's population and little more than one-third of its area, North America has nearly one half of the world's railway mileage and far more than one-half of the aggregate railway capacity to move passengers and freight. The United States leads the countries of North America with about five-sixths of the railway mileage of the grand division. Per I oo sq.m. of land area, the United States has 20.8 m. of railway line while the rest of North America has 1.3 m. and the world (exclusive of North America) 1.1 miles. Compared with population, the world, not including North America, has 2.7 m. of railway line per Io,000 inhabitants ; North America, excluding the United States, has 17.1 miles; the United States has 23.6 miles. The whole of Europe has 5.1 m. of railway per io,000 inhabitants and 5.6 m. per ioo sq.m. of area.

The modern railroad, wherever it exists, is a result of the progressive development and reciprocal adaptation of the road way, or track, and the motive power, under the stimulus of ex panding demand for transportation. Historically, an expanding and effective demand has been generated only by rapidly dimin ishing charges for the services sought and this diminution has been obtainable only by improvements in methods and mechanism producing commensurate reductions in unit costs of rendering service.

John Stevens (q.v.), called in the United States "the father of the railroads," and his associates, received the first American railroad charter from the State of New Jersey on February 6, 1815. At that time approximately eight-tenths of the total popu lation of 8,350,000 resided in New England and in States adjacent to the Atlantic ocean. Most of the balance were situated in Ohio, Kentucky or Tennessee, but scattering and growing settlements were to be found in the Mississippi valley. Within this last named region and in the South there were great areas occu pied solely by Indians organized in tribes which were treated as sovereign within their localities.

The War of 1812, the Napoleonic wars, and the Tariff of 1816, had given an impulse to domestic manufactures and to internal trade and had created aspirations towards an economic progress that would require transportation facilities far in excess of any then existing. The conditions creating, in the United States, an exceptional demand for transportation, as they existed on the eve of railway development, can obviously be described only in very general terms. The picture is that of a growing number of eco nomically detached communities; increasing rapidly in population and industrial importance—each possessing the foundation for profitable commercial interchanges, if only the machinery for interchange could be created; and united under one flag. Terri torial division of labor had commenced, promising an enormous expansion of internal commerce. Machinery, iron products and

textiles for use west of the Allegheny mountains were being manufactured in the Atlantic states ; western farms produced grain and food supplies for the South. The East, owing to the increased population of industrial centers following a flood of foreign immigration, had become dependent upon the West for food supplies ; the Southern states were experiencing a rapid expansion of the cotton growing industry, and their exports made up two-thirds of the total exports of the United States. The great obstacle to interstate trade and internal development with resulting prosperity was slow and costly transportation. The routes of movement had assumed sharply defined lines. At first following natural waterways, sections not served by such channels had demanded facilities to enable them to compete with their more fortunate neighbors. Turnpikes and canals had been constructed, but the services of these two agencies were sharply restricted by geographic and climatic conditions.

The First Railroads.

The Delaware and Hudson's gravity railroad, in Pennsylvania, was not only the first on which a loco motive was ever operated in the Western Hemisphere but was also the first that was constructed with locomotive operation in view. It began operation in 1829 and only a few months after, tracklaying began, in February, 1829, on the Charleston and Hamburg, later the South Carolina, railroad, the first railroad intended both for general public transportation and for locomotive operation. Prior to 1829, however, there was considerable use of tracks of wood, stone or iron over which cars were drawn by horses or stationary engines, the latter used principally in the operation of inclined planes. Probably, the first of such tram ways was an inclined plane in use in Boston in 1795, and oper ated for moving brick. The next tramway, constructed by Silas Whitney, was also in Boston. It was formerly supposed that the line built by Thomas Lieper, in Delaware county, Pennsylvania, preceded Whitney's, but investigation has disclosed that it was not until 1809 that Lieper constructed an experimental road which was soon followed by another used for transporting stone. The fourth railroad was, apparently, one constructed soon after 181o, at Fallings Creek, Virginia. It was about a mile long and extended from a powder magazine to a mill. These roads were followed by a wooden-rail tramway at Bear Creek, Pennsylvania, in 1818; a short road at Nashua, New Hampshire, in 1825, and the Quincy railroad, in Massachusetts, constructed in 1826. The latter was used to move stone for the construction of Bunker Hill monument from the quarries to the wharf on the Neponset river, about four miles.