In 1827, the Mauch Chunk railroad, in Pennsylvania, 9 mi. long, was built and used in the transportation of anthracite. It was then the longest and most important railroad operating in the United States. Another short road, half a mile long, was constructed in 1827 to connect coal mines with the Schuylkill canal. The Mill Creek Railroad, extending from Port Carbon to the present site of the town of St. Clair, a distance of 3 mi., was also built in 1829. The Delaware and Hudson Company was chartered on April 23, 1823, and its gravity railroad, from Car bondale to Honesdale, connecting its mines with its canal, was actually operated from August 8, 1829, when over it the first locomotive test ever attempted in the United States was made. The use of steam locomotives on this railroad was first advocated by John B. Jervis. Except for the Charleston and Hamburg, none of these early railroads was intended for passenger traffic. The other railways were built to transport freight and natural prod ucts in a single direction to a place of trans-shipment, manufac ture or use.
The Charleston and Hamburg.-In February, 1829, 15o ft. of track, the beginning of the Charleston and Hamburg, were laid on Wentworth street, in Charleston, South Carolina. This railroad was completed to Hamburg, South Carolina, across the Savannah river from Augusta, Georgia, in 1833, and was then the longest in the World, having a length of 135 miles.
The Baltimore and Ohio, the first railroad built in the United States for the general transportation of passengers and freight, but not projected specifically as a locomotive railroad, was char tered by the State of Maryland, and construction was commenced. on July 4, 1828. On May 24, 183o, 13 mi. were opened to Elli cott's Mills; on Dec. 1, 1831, it was extended to Frederick City; in 1832 to Point of Rocks, Maryland, in 1834 to Harper's Ferry; to Cumberland in 1852, and to Wheeling in 1853. The branch from Relay to Bladensburg (near Washington) was opened on August 25, The Mohawk and Hudson Railroad Company was chartered by the legislature of New York on April 17, 1826, to build a rail road between the Hudson and Mohawk rivers, and after legal delays construction began in July, 183o. Operation began on August r o, 1831, the travel between the termini, Albany and Schenectady, amounting at the outset to from 200 to 30o pas sengers per day Other sections of the present New York Central were later incorporated and opened for operation ; the Utica and Schenectady, opened in 1836, the Syracuse and Utica, in 1839; the Auburn and Syracuse, in 1838; the Auburn and Rochester, opened from Rochester to Canandaigua, in 1840, to Seneca Falls, in 1841, to Cayuga, in 1841, and to Auburn in 1841; the Rochester and Syracuse, in 1853; the Tonawanda Railroad, to Batavia in 1837, and to Attica in 1842; the Attica and Buffalo, to Darien, and to Attica in 1842. These eight railroads together constituted the first railroad connecting the Atlantic ocean or any of its tributary waters with the Great Lakes or rivers flowing to them or into the Mississippi river.
Boston and Albany were also connected by railroads completed in 1842 ; New York and Boston, in 1849, by the completion of the New York and New Haven ; Ogdensburg and Lake Champlain, in 185o; Boston and the Saint Lawrence river, by the building of the Vermont Central and the Vermont and Canada, in 185r.
Also, in 1851, the Erie Railroad was completed from Weehawken, New Jersey, on New York tidewater, to Lake Erie, and the Hudson River Railroad, paralleling the Hudson river to Troy was opened in 1852, but the west shore of the Hudson river was not occupied by a trunk line until the construction of the West Shore Railroad, which was opened in 1883. The New York, Westchester and Putnam Railway, now the fourth line of the New York Central to New York City and tidewater was opened in 1880.
Several independent railways formed a line from the Ohio river to Lake Erie in 1848. These lines, with the road from Toledo to Buffalo, the last section of which was finished in 1853, opened practically the whole State of Ohio to railroad transportation. Chicago was reached by rail in 1852 and in 1854 the Chicago and Rock Island Railroad was extended to the Mississippi river. As a result of these extensions much of the trade of the west bank of the Mississippi and of that part of Illinois which is con tiguous to the navigable portion of the Illinois river was diverted from New Orleans which had been its only outlet. By 1856 two more lines were built from Chicago to the Mississippi river, in addition to the Illinois Central which was completed to the junc tion of the Mississippi with the Ohio in the same year. In 1859, the railway system of the country was carried to the Missouri river, by the completion of the Hannibal and Saint Joseph Rail road; in 1866 the Galena, and Chicago Railroad was extended to Council Bluffs.
A railway journey across the continent first became possible in 1869 when the Union Pacific, building from the Missouri river at Omaha, met the Central Pacific, built from San Francisco, making a line 1,848 mi. long. Construction was started in by the Central Pacific. In the following year the Union Pacific began its progress westward. Many hardships and difficulties were encountered in completing this feat of railroad engineering and with its achievement the general outline of the railway system of the United States was formulated. Filling in this outline has been the task of the extensive construction work that has ensued, reaching regions that were left intermediate or at one side, by building cross lines, branches and additional trunk lines. Plans for the Northern Pacific were first developed in 1864, but work was not begun until 1870; it was completed to Portland in 1883. Work on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe was commenced in 1869 and by 1873 450 mi. were in operation. The Southern Pa cific, originally intended to join the Texas and Pacific at the Colo rado river, had built 102 mi. by 1869, and, in the subsequent four years 172 additional miles were constructed; the year 1881 marked its completion from San Francisco to New Orleans, 2,489 miles. The Atchison's line, from Kansas City to San Diego, and that of the Great Northern, from Saint Paul to Seattle were finished in 1893. Other transcontinental lines, sub sequently built, are the Chicago, Milwaukee and Saint Paul; San Pedro, and Western Pacific.