RAILWAYS OF THE UNITED STATES. The aggregate length of the rail ways of the United States on 31 Dec. 1917 was approximately 265,000 miles, or about 50,000 miles more than the total mileage of European railways and about two-fifths of the total in the entire world. Excluding switching and terminal railways and a few minor lines per forming strictly local services, as distinguished from interstate services, the total length of line, at the close of 1917, was 254,734 miles.
The development of the American railway sys tem during successive decades is suggested by the following: The unequal distribution of American rail way mileage, with respect to population and area, is indicated by the following table: not be considered significant that Federal regu lation of interstate rates, as embodied in the Interstate Commerce Law, began on 4 April 1887, or at about the same time as the retarda tion of railway building. From 1877 to 1887, the mileage added to the American railway system was 110,164, or an average of 5,508 miles per year; from 1907 to 1917, the added mileage was 76,156, or at the rate of 3808 miles per year. Unless it is conceived that the whole area of the United States is adequately sup plied with railway facilities it must be concluded that in some way the relative incentive to the investment of capital in the railway industry has been diminished.
It is interesting, in its implications as to future development, to note that if the 11 States, California, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Okla homa, Texas and Wisconsin, contained railway facilities as liberally proportioned to their area as those of the Commonwealth of Massa chusetts, their combined mileage would sub stantially equal the present mileage of the whole United States. This is shown by the following table: Prior to 1890, the increase in railway mile age was much more rapid than the growth in population but since that year the railway con struction has lagged until a comparison between 1890 and 1917 shows an increase of 28, or 729 per cent, in the average number of inhabitants served by each mile of railway. It may or may Considering the relative scarcity of capital, the rapidity with which new mileage was added from 1835 to almost the end of the 19th century is remarkable. Baltimore and Philadelphia
were connected by railWay in 1837 and Boston and Albany in 1842. During 1842. also, the last link in the chain of short lines connecting Albany and Buffalo was completed and the Baltimore and Ohio was extended to Cumber land. In 1851 the Hudson River Railroad. fol lowing the eastern bank of the Hudson from New York to Albany, and the New York and Lake Erie, connecting the west bank of the Hudson, opposite New York City, with Lake Erie, were placed in operation. The Baltimore and Ohio was extended to the Ohio River, at Wheeling,-in 1853, and the Pennsylvania Rail road to Pittsburgh in 1854. Buffalo and Toledo were connected by rail in 1853 and the year previous witnessed the completion of the third line between Ohio and Lake Erie, the first hav ing been finished in 1848. Chicago was reached by rail in 1852 and the Chicago and Rock Island was extended to the Mississippi River in 1854. Two years subsequently, a second and a third line from Chicago westward to the Mississippi were added and the Illinois Central was built to thejunction of the Ohio and Mississippi. The Hannibal and Saint Joseph, now a part of the Burlington system of rail ways, was the first line to reach the Missouri River, in 1859; in 1866 the Galena and Chicago was built to Council Bluffs, opposite Buffalo, and on 10 May 1869 the opening of the Central Pacific, with the Union Pacific and the railways already indicated, made it possible to travel by rail the whole distance from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Thus the outline of the American railway system was broadly sketched, the whole process being comprised within the years 1831 to 1866, or just half the °three score years and ten," supposed to constitute the allotment of a normal lifetime. Subsequent construction has filled in this outline, adding numerous railway routes which parallel those first laid down and supplying old and new railways with g f extending their services to all important sources of supplies of raw materials and manufactured products and to all considerable centres of population.