Timeline of United States railway history

• 1795–96 & 1799–1804 or '05 — In 1795,
  Back Bay.^[1]
• 1815-1820s One interpretation of historical documents indicates the same equipment was used for a longer, more ambitious period to level and effectively remove 'The Tremont', Copely, Cope's, and Beacon Hills again into what became Boston's Back Bay.[1] These moves were far from completing the project, photos in the 1850s and recent scholarship show the majority of the Back Bay was still tidewater.

1810s–1830s

• 1800–1825 Various inventors and entrepreneurs make suggestions about building model railways in the United States. Around Coalbrookdale in the United Kingdom, mining railways become increasingly common. An early steam locomotive is given a test run in 1804, but is then wrecked carelessly. For unknown reasons, the inventor does not rebuild it for nearly two decades.^[2]
• 1809 Scottsman quarry owner Thomas Leiper, in 1809 when denied a charter to build a canal along the Crum Creek from his quarry to the docks in the tidewater, commissions a short temporary 60 yards (55 m) railroad test track in the yard of the Bull's Head Tavern in Philadelphia. The track had a grade of one inch and a half to the yard,^[3] with a 4% grade to test whether a horse could successfully pull 10,000 pounds (4,500 kg) against the slope.
• 1810–1829 The
  rights-of-way to instead build his desired canal along Crum Creek
  . The quarry man's 'make-do' railroad solution was the continent's first chartered railway, first operational non-temporary railway, first well documented railroad, and first constructed railroad also meant to be permanent. It was perhaps the only railroad replaced by a canal, and also one of the first to close, and of those, perhaps is alone in reopening again in 1858.

• 1825 American John Stevens (inventor), builds a test track and runs a locomotive around it in his summer home estate, Hoboken, New Jersey. This partially settles the tractive power questions, showing that on level track, metal on metal wheels can provide tractive effort and pull a load. The ability for any engine to do so on a grade is still widely doubted in the press and minds of potential investors (pubs, clubs, boardrooms, etc.), while the minds of many potential investors were well aware that most railroads in the capital poor United States would have to surmount significant grades to be useful technology. And while news from Europe was delayed 4–8 weeks, well connected Americans were aware in general of United Kingdom news coverage's and to a lesser extent, that of continental European developments. In consequence, the 1825 success of the Stockton and Darlington Railway only gradually eroded the three-way nay-sayer beliefs that the careful expensive gentle engineered grades extant in the early British railways was impracticable in most cases in America and that such grades were necessary since steel on iron rails would not provide traction on hills, were it possible to build an locomotive engine powerful enough to surmount such grades. In each case, it would take experience and success against such over at least several months before the misconceptions fell into disdain.
• 1826: The 3 miles (4.8 km) industrial
  Granite Railroad opens in Quincy, Massachusetts
  , to convey quarried granite for the Bunker Hill monument. It later becomes a common carrier railroad.

• 1827: Taking advantage of seasonal freezing of the
  wagon road^[4] into a gravity railroad in just four months of construction.^[5]

During the summer of 1827,[a] a railroad was built from the mines at Summit Hill to Mauch Chunk. With one or two unimportant exceptions, this was the first railroad in the United States.

— James E. Held, Archaeology

Pisgah Ridge

, shortening the up trip to twenty minutes from nearly four hours by mule.

1830s

• The
  Camden and Amboy
  by 1832.

• August 8, 1829: The
  Delaware and Hudson
  company. Deemed too heavy for the company's rails, it and its three brethren are converted to stationary engines for cable railway parts of the transportation system.
• 1830 ushers in a flurry of railroad incorporations, charter applications, grants and beginnings of construction. The B&O opens its first 13 miles (21 km) stretch to Ellicott's Mills and begins regular scheduled passenger services on schedule, May 24, 1830.
• 1830 the 26 miles (42 km)
  Parryville beyond the Lehigh Gap. This would form the seed company of the first class Lehigh Valley Railroad
  after the 1870s.

• 1831 The
  Mohawk and Hudson Railroad
  , made its first test run on July 2, 1831.
• 1830s–1860s: Enormous railway building booms in the United States. The mill owners of Lowell and New Hampshire launch the Boston and Lowell Railroad to parallel the historic Middlesex Canal, which had enabled their mills success; this is the first direct attack rail companies mounted against canal interests.

Railroads gradually replace canals as the first-choice mode of transportation infrastructure to champion and build, while canals hold a whip hand on economy for decades more, but falter on flexible destinations, speed, and where they suffer seasonal stoppages yet service year round needs. By the 1860s, in any case, where all the important older canals were to be found any canal with functions satisfiable by parallel railways (excepting by definition, ship canals) is eyed by investors to be supplanted by a competing railroad. The idea of a rail network in the US, which is by then showing early signs some areas have overbuilt in the Eastern United States is still not a common business model. Cut throat competitive capitalism, not co-operation are the rule, and the decade kicks off the forty years or so of the robber barons and excesses in capitalism.

1850-1900

• 1854 Indianapolis' Union Station, the first "union station" in the world, opened by the Terre Haute & Richmond, Madison & Indianapolis, and Bellefontaine railroads.
• 1862
  Chattanooga The Great Locomotive Chase, in which Union raiders led by James J. Andrews commandeered a 4-4-0 American locomotive
  , "The General" and attempted to sabotage Confederate tracks, telegraph lines, and bridges to prevent Confederate troops from moving by rail to Chattanooga.
• 1865:
  Pullman cars in his honor, after he loaned one of his cars to be in the funeral train of Abraham Lincoln from Chicago to Springfield, IL
  .
• 1869:
  Promontory Summit.^[8]
• 1869: George Westinghouse establishes the Westinghouse Air Brake Company.
• 1870s: Railroads begin to install
  automatic block signals
  which improve safety, allow faster train speeds, and allow more efficient utilization of trackage.
• 1870s and 1880s: Strikes break out against railroads and the
  Pinkerton
  guards to break up the strikes. Nonetheless, much violence occurs in the strikes. Many people were killed, buildings and rolling stock were burned, and reports of rioting shocked middle-class Americans.
• 1883: Standard time zones adopted by railroads.^[9]
• 1886: Many southern states convert from broad gauges such as
  Broad gauge#United States
  .)
• 1887: Congress creates the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to regulate railroads and ensure fair prices.^[10]
• 1891:
  railroad chronometers
  .
• 1893: Railroad Safety Appliance Act requires air brakes and automatic couplers on all trains, which greatly reduces railroad worker injuries and deaths.^[11]
• 1896:
  Takings Clause under eminent domain could be applied for historic preservation

1900-1970

• 1901: Nine locomotive manufacturing companies are combined in a merger to form the American Locomotive Company (ALCO).
• 1902: 20th Century Limited inaugurated by the New York Central Railroad.
• 1910s:
  Pennsylvania Station in New York City; New York Central builds current version of Grand Central Terminal
  .
• 1911: The
  Delaware Lackawanna and Western Railroad completes the Lackawanna Cut-Off in Northwestern New Jersey and Northeastern Pennsylvania
  .
• 1916: US railroad trackage was 230,468.32 mi (370,902.81 km),[12] the highest in history.^{[citation needed]} The trackage would increase to over 300,000 mi by the next decade.
• 1917: President Woodrow Wilson orders nationalization of the railroads shortly after the US enters World War I.^[13] The United States Railroad Administration manages the system until 1920, when Congress returns control to the railroad companies.^[14]
• 1920s and 1930s:
  Automobiles, airplanes and the Great Depression
  contribute to a decline in railroad ridership and mileage.
• 1926: Congress passes the Railway Labor Act to settle disputes and avoid strikes (law amended in 1934 and 1936).^[15]
• 1934:
  Chicago, Illinois, first diesel-powered streamliner
  in America.
• May 12, 1936: The Santa Fe railroad inaugurates the all-Pullman Super Chief between Chicago and Los Angeles.
• 1940s:
  European Theater
  . However, automobile travel causes ridership to decline after the war ends.
• March 20, 1949: The
  Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad and Western Pacific Railroad jointly launch the California Zephyr between Chicago and San Francisco as the first passenger train to include Vista Dome cars
  in regular service.
• 1950s and 1960s: Drastic decline in passenger travel in the United States, due to automobiles and also airplanes, as first
  mergers and attempts to shed unprofitable trains and rail routes. The speed of these efforts is reduced through the difficulties of Interstate Commerce Commission
  hearings.
• 1957: The
  Louisville & Nashville Railroad
  .
• December 1, 1959: ICC approved
  Norfolk & Western
  begins modern-day period of railroad mergers and consolidation.
• July 1, 1967: Rivals Atlantic Coast Line and Seaboard Air Line merge to form Seaboard Coast Line after 9 years of negotiations and ICC hearings.
• August 1, 1967: UAC TurboTrain maiden voyage.
• December 3, 1967: 20th Century Limited makes last run.
• February 1968: Pennsylvania Railroad and New York Central merge to form
  New Haven
  was added in 1969.

1970-present

• 1970s: Era of
  deregulation.^[16]
• March 1, 1970 Burlington Northern is created with the consolidation of the *Chicago Burlington & Quincy, Great Northern, Northern Pacific and Spokane Portland & Seattle railroads.
• March 22, 1970: The California Zephyr, on its last run, arrives in Oakland, California, from Chicago; the train name will soon be resurrected by Amtrak on a train travelling almost the same route as the original train.
• June 21, 1970 the Penn Central files for
  Chapter 7 bankruptcy, becoming the largest corporate failure up to that time in US history.^[17]
• 1971: Amtrak created by act of Congress to assume and operate a national network of passenger trains from private railroads after years of dropping ridership and massive deficits force railroads to drop passenger service and ask for government help.
• March 1972: the
  Illinois Central Gulf
  .
• 1970s: Conrail is created from the remains of the bankrupt Penn Central, Erie Lackawanna, Central of New Jersey, Reading and Lehigh Valley Railroads in the Northeast, beginning operations April 1, 1976.
• 1970s and 1980s: Amtrak introduces double-deck Superliner rolling stock. Auto-Train Corporation begins running as independent line (1971), but fails in 1981; In 1983, Amtrak revives service and runs slightly renamed "Auto Train" as one of its more-heavily promoted lines.
• 1977: Amtrak carried 19.2 million passengers an average of 226 miles.^[18]
• 1980: Railroads deregulated by Congress by Staggers Rail Act of 1980.^[19]
• March 1, 1980, the Rock Island ceases operations after bankruptcy liquidation.
• September 15, 1981: The
  Washington, DC
  .
• 1981: Union Pacific 3985 is restored to operating condition, making it the largest operable steam locomotive in the world.
• July 1, 1982, Norfolk & Western and Southern Railway merge to form Norfolk Southern.
• January 1, 1986: The Milwaukee Road is merged into the Soo Line Railroad in the largest railroad bankruptcy proceedings to date.
• July 1, 1986, Seaboard System and Chessie System merge to form CSX Transportation corp.^[20]
• 1990s: Amtrak funding comes under heavier scrutiny by Congress, while Amtrak creates new trains such as the
  Acela Express
  .
• 1995: ICC abolished; Congress creates Surface Transportation Board to assume the remaining regulatory functions.^[21]
• 1997–99: Conrail assets sold to Norfolk Southern Railway and CSX Transportation.
• September 11, 2001: Terrorists destroy
  PATH
  system in the process. Full PATH service resumed November 23, 2003.
• 2015: Total rail traffic declined 2.5 percent to 28 million carloads. Coal remains the largest volume, at 5.1 million carloads. Coal volume fell 12 percent in 2015, as natural gas replaces coal and electricity plants. The lower volume allowed better service and faster speed, but low fuel prices are giving an advantage to trucking.^[22]
• 2021: Moynihan Train Hall opens in New York City, partially replacing New York Penn Station.

Notes

1. ^ Summer of 1827 is in conflict with highly detailed account by Brenckman and other more local (and more contemporary) historians.^[5] Brenckman's detailed account details preparations stockpiling wood, iron, tools and materials over the entire preceding winter and fall with work parties defined and told off with work commencing as soon as soil melts allowed work to lay sleepers in March and April with the aim of not affecting coal deliveries to the canal head, so it could resume operations as soon as ice and flooding permitted. Further, framework, couplings, tires and other iron castings were carried out in the LC&N Co.'s own foundries in Mauch Chunk, the company having financed at least 12 of the first 14 blast furnaces North of Easton — so triggered the iron and steel industries of Bethlehem and Allentown south of the Blue Ridge escarpment.

See also

• History of rail transport in the United States
• Oldest railroads in North America
• Timeline of railway history
• Timeline of transportation technology

References

1. ^ William A. Newman, Wilfred E. Holton, Boston's Back Bay: The Story of America's Greatest Nineteenth-century Landfill Project, Northeastern University Press, Boston,
2. Connections (book)
   , 1978 edition book, Chapter "Fuel to the Flame" (episode title: "Thunder in the Skies").
3. ^ Gradient calculation: (1.5 X 100) / 36 = 4.16667%. This is steep by mountainous country standards.
4. LCCN 89-25150
   .
5. ^ ^{a b} Fred Brenckman, Official Commonwealth Historian (1884). HISTORY OF CARBON COUNTY PENNSYLVANIA (2nd (1913) ed.). p. 627.
6. ^ James E. Held (July 1, 1998). "The Canal Age". Archaeology (Online) (July 1, 1998). A publication of the Archaeological Institute of America. Retrieved 2016-06-12. During the summer of 1827, a railroad was built from the mines at Summit Hill to Mauch Chunk. With one or two unimportant exceptions, this was the first railroad in the United States.
7. ISBN 0-934118-17-5
   .
8. ^ "Ceremony at "Wedding of the Rails," May 10, 1869 at Promontory Point, Utah". World Digital Library. 1869-05-10. Retrieved 2013-07-20.
9. ISBN 978-0-375-72752-8
   .
10. ^ Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, ch. 104, 24 Stat. 379, approved 1887-02-04.
11. ^ Act of Mar. 2, 1893, 27 Stat. 531, recodified, as amended, 49 U.S.C. § 20302.
12. ^ "The USRA Era, 1900–1916, Part I". N.P. Ry. Tell Tale Extra. PW2.Netcom.com. Archived from the original on 2011-07-24. Retrieved 2011-05-25.
13. ^ Presidential Proclamation 1419, December 26, 1917, under authority of the Army Appropriation Act, 39 Stat. 45, August 29, 1916.
14. ^ Esch–Cummins Act, Pub.L. 66-152, 41 Stat. 456. Approved 1920-02-28.
15. ^ Railway Labor Act, May 20, 1926, ch. 347, 44 Stat. 577. 45 U.S.C. § 151 et seq.
16. ^ William E. Thoms, "Clear Track for Deregulation American Railroads, 1970-1980." Transportation Law Journal 12 (1981): 183+.
17. ^ Joseph R. Daughen, and Peter Binzen, The wreck of the Penn Central (1999).
18. ^ Steven A. Morrison, "The Value of Amtrak." Journal of Law and economics 33 (1990): 361+
19. ^ Clifford Winston, "The Success of the Staggers Rail Act of 1980" (AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, 2005) online.
20. ^ Brian Solomon, CSX (Voyageur Press, 2005).
21. Pub. L.Tooltip Public Law (United States) 104–88 (text) (PDF), 109 Stat. 803
    ; 1995-12-29.
22. ^ Laura Stevens, "Railroads face more tough track, Wall Street Journal 11 January 2016

Further reading

• Chandler, Alfred D., ed. (1987). The Railroads: The Nation's First Big Business – Sources and Readings. Arno Press.
  ISBN 9780405137686
  .
• Churella, Albert J. (2013). The Pennsylvania Railroad: Volume I, Building an Empire, 1846–1917. Philadelphia:
  OCLC 759594295
  .
• Deverell, William (1994). Railroad Crossing: Californians and the Railroad, 1850–1910. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press).
  ISBN 9780520205055
  .
• Ducker, James H. (1982). Men of the steel rails: Workers on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, 1869–1900.
• Fish, Carl Russell (1917). "The Northern Railroads, April, 1861," The American Historical Review, Vol. 22, No. 4 (Jul., 1917), pp. 778–793
  JSTOR 1836240
  ; old but still valuable
• Frey, Robert J. (1988). Railroads of the Nineteenth Century. Volume 2 of "Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography." (New York: Facts on File). 490pp.
  ISBN 9780816020126
  .
• Gallamore, Robert E.; Meyer, John R. (2014). American Railroads: Decline and Renaissance in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
  ISBN 9780674725645
  .
• Grant, H. Roger. Railroads and the American People (2012) excerpt and text search
• Hayes, Derek. Historical atlas of the North American railroad (2010); 400 historical maps
• Hubbard, Freeman H. (1981). Encyclopedia of North American railroading: 150 years of railroading in the United States and Canada. (New York: McGraw-Hill).
  ISBN 9780070308282
  .
• JSTOR 2113700
  .
• Kirkland, Edward Chase (1948). Men, Cities and Transportation, A Study of New England History 1820–1900. (2 vol.) Harvard University Press.
• Klein, Maury (1997). The Life and Legend of Jay Gould Johns Hopkins University Press.
  ISBN 9780801857713
  .
• Klein, Maury (2000). The Life & Legend of E. H. Harriman (2000) University of North Carolina Press.
  ISBN 0-8078-2517-4. Online edition. Archived 2011-06-04 at the Wayback Machine
• Marrs, Aaron W. Railroads in the Old South: Pursuing Progress in a Slave Society (2009) excerpt and text search
• Martin, Albro. James J. Hill and the Opening of the Northwest (1990) excerpt and text search
• Martin, Albro. Railroads Triumphant: The Growth, Rejection, and Rebirth of a Vital American Force (1992) excerpt and text search; wide-ranging overview
• Meyer, Balthasar H. History of Transportation in the United States before 1860 (1917) online
• Middleton, William D. ed. (2007). Encyclopedia of North American Railroads. Indiana University Press.
  ISBN 9780253349163
  .
• Miner, Craig. A Most Magnificent Machine: America Adopts the Railroad, 1825–1862 (University Press of Kansas; 2010) 325 pages; Documents the enthusiasm that accompanied the advent of the railroad system
• Nice, David C. Amtrak: The History and Politics of a National Railroad (1998) online edition Archived 2011-06-04 at the Wayback Machine
• Nock, O.S., ed. Encyclopedia of Railways (London, 1977), worldwide coverage, heavily illustrated
• Riegel, Robert Edgar. The Story of the Western Railroads 1926 online edition Archived 2011-06-04 at the Wayback Machine
• Riley, C. J. The Encyclopedia of Trains & Locomotives (2002)
• Saunders, Richard. Main lines: Rebirth of the North American railroads, 1970–2002 (Northern Illinois University Press, 2003).
• Stover, John. The Routledge Historical Atlas of the American Railroads (2001)
• Stover, John. History of the Illinois Central Railroad (1975)
• Stover, John. Iron Road to the West: American Railroads in the 1850s (1978)
• Turner, George E. Victory rode the rails: the strategic place of the railroads in the Civil War (1953)
• Ward, James Arthur. J. Edgar Thomson: master of the Pennsylvania (1980) 265 pages
• Ward, James A. "Power and Accountability on the Pennsylvania Railroad, 1846–1878." Business History Review 1975 49(1): 37–59. in JSTOR
• White, Richard. Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America (2011) excerpt and text search
• Wolmar, Christian. The Great Railroad Revolution: The History of Trains in America (2012), survey to 2012; emphasis on 19th century; 448pp excerpt and text search

Video

• Railroads in U.S. History (1830–2010) (2010), set of 4 DVDs, directed by Ron Meyer; #1, "Railroads come to America (1830 - 1840);" #2, "The First Great Railroad Boom (1841- 1860)"; #3, "A New Era in American Railroading (1861 - 1870)," #4, "The Second Great Railroad Boom (1871 - 2010)" link

External links

• "Railroad History" Bibliography by Richard Jensen, Montana State University-Billings

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