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Steam locomotives of the Chicago and North Western Railway in the roundhouse at the Chicago, Illinois rail yards, 1942. The Timeline of U.S. Railway History depends upon the definition of a railway, as follows: A means of conveyance of passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, also known as tracks.
In general, U.S. railroad companies imported technology from Britain in the 1830s, particularly strap iron rails, as there were no rail manufacturing facilities in the United States at that time. Heavy iron "T" rails were first manufactured in the U.S. in the mid-1840s at Mount Savage, Maryland [ 99 ] and Danville, Pennsylvania . [ 100 ]
1970, 21 June – Penn Central, the dominant railroad in the northeastern United States, became bankrupt (the largest US corporate bankruptcy up to that time). Created only two years earlier in 1968 from a merger of several other railroads, it marked the end of long-haul private-sector US passenger train services, and forced the creation of the ...
America's first transcontinental railroad (known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the "Overland Route") was a 1,911-mile (3,075 km) continuous railroad line built between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail network at Council Bluffs, Iowa, with the Pacific coast at the Oakland Long Wharf on San Francisco Bay. [1]
The first American locomotive at Castle Point in Hoboken, New Jersey, c. 1826 The Canton Viaduct, built in 1834, is still in use today on the Northeast Corridor.. Between 1762 and 1764 a gravity railroad (mechanized tramway) (Montresor's Tramway) was built by British Army engineers up the steep riverside terrain near the Niagara River waterfall's escarpment at the Niagara Portage in Lewiston ...
Railroads played a large role in the development of the United States from the Industrial Revolution in the North-east 1810–1850 to the settlement of the West 1850–1890. The American railroad mania began with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1828 and flourished until the Panic of 1873 bankrupted many companies and temporarily ended growth.
January 1: The United States Railroad Administration takes over operation of most of the U.S. rail network, [55] including almost all Class I railroads. [101] January 1: The Pennsylvania Railroad leases its subsidiaries that had been leased to the Pennsylvania Company, [55] as well as the Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington Railroad. [102]
Interstate Commerce Commission, Annual Report on the Statistics of Railways in the United States, 1910-Edward A. Lewis, American Shortline Railway Guide, 5th Edition, Kalmbach Publishing, 1996; Moody's Transportation Manual