BALTIMORE AND OHIO RAIL ROAD, The. History.— The fact that the only use of rails for locomotion in 1827 on either side of the Atlantic was for coal carry ing, renders the more remarkable the action of the coterie of merchants and bankers of Balti more, gathering at Philip Thomas' house on the evening of 18 February of that year, in de ciding to proceed forthwith to build a railroad for general purposes. The Ohio, at Wheeling, was made the objective point; the intervening Blue Ridge and Allegheny Mountains evidently suggesting no difficulties that could not be sur mounted. But a week elapsed from the time of the initial meeting to the second, at which the committee appointed at the first reported the resolution, namely: (That immediate ap plication be made to the Legislature of Mary land for an act incorporating a joint stock company to be styled the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, and clothing such company with all powers necessary for the construction of a railroad with two or more sets of rails from the City of Baltimore to the Ohio River.' The capital stock was fixed at $5,000,000.
The Baltimore and Ohio's charter, granted of date 28 Feb. 1827, was the first anywhere coming into existence defining and authorizing procedure to completion. Under it the Balti more and Ohio Railroad Company is still act ing, it being the only enactment of the charac ter of the pioneer days of the railroad in this country or Europe remaining fully operative; the B. & 0. being the single railroad company of those times yet retaining, unchanged, its original name and organization.
On 23 April 1827 the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company was formally organized, Philip E. Thomas elected president and George Brown treasurer. Preparations were immediately inaugurated to secure a survey of the proposed line, the measures to which end were begun on 2 July. In this the United States government authorities were induced to co-operate to the extent of relieving Col. Stephen H. Long, of the Topographical Corps, from his regular duties, who, with Jonathan Knight, a Quaker civil engineer of repute, forthwith proceeded with the actual work, the date of its formal commencement being 20 November. On 5 April 1828 they submitted the result of their labor to that period; and the line _ west to the Patapsco and thence via its valley to Point of Rocks on the Potomac was decided upon as the first section to be under taken.
But persistent, bitter and vehement opposi tion by the canal authorities was encountered and this was even carried to legislative cham bers and the courts, but despite this trouble and a few adverse decisions by the courts, the Baltimore and Ohio pushed on from Baltimore west, and three miles were completed and ex perimented upon early in 1829. On 22 May 1830 the first section of the Baltimore and Ohio —that from Baltimore to Ellicott City, a dis tance of 14 miles—was formally opened for public use. Horse-power was the standard means of locomotion pending development of the locomotive to a more assuring stage than then reached anywhere from whence reliable information could be obtained. (See Locolio uvr., Tate). 'Brigades of cars' were 'an nounced to run three times each way daily, the fare named at 25 cents and business commenced in earnest. This was four months in advance of the formal opening of the Liverpool and Manchester, the first railway abroad for gen eral purposes, its date being 15 Sept. 1830.
Many difficult problems in the mechanics of railroading were decisively solved. Car wheels were first made with the flange on the inside edge, but their causing so many derailments and so frequently breaking led to the change of the flange to the outer edge. But this in creased the difficulty on the curves and the conical flange was invented. The anti-friction box on the axles and the practice of placing on the outside instead of the inside of the wheels were both first introduced by Winans; as was also the eight-wheel car. When the main line of the Baltimore and Ohio was com pleted its roadbed embodied the highest en gineering skill of the period in the traversing of mountain ranges; was the longest continuous railroad in the world, with the greatest bridges, trestles and tunnels. Its track construction throughout, and especially its. manner of meet ing the curvature and providing against slides from the environing mountain sides, were les sons in line construction and operation availed of by the whole world.