At this time, there were no railroads in the United States and only a few in Europe. The carriages or wagons were pulled by horses. On a good railroad, one horse could pull four wagons of 2 tons each.[1]
England’s first commercial railroad, opened in 1820, was originally intended to be operated with horses. Even later when the Liverpool and Manchester Railroad was chartered in 1828, it too was intended primarily to haul freight by horse power and included a provision in its charter that the owners could exact toll of all persons who might put vehicles on the road for transporting goods. However, this provision was required of few shippers because this railroad adopted steam propulsion a year later.
About the same time in Pennsylvania, the State built a railroad from Philadelphia to Columbia and licensed 20 different companies to run their horse-drawn cars over it.[2] In Indiana, the chief engineer of the Madison and Indianapolis Railroad recommended in 1837 that the State furnish steam motive power for its railroads, “leaving the care for the conveyance of freight and passengers to be furnished by individuals or companies, from whom the state will exact the proper toll for the use of the road, and for the motive power.”[3]
In their early days, railroads were regarded in the same light as turnpikes and canals, to be used by and for the benefit of the public. The theory that a railroad was private property to be used exclusively by the owners and with which they could do as they pleased, prevailed for only a very short time.
Rapid Extension of Railroads in the United States
In the United States, the first charters for commercial railroads were granted in 1827 to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad to operate in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, and to the Charleston and Hamburg Railroad for operation in South Carolina. Other States followed soon afterward, issuing charters for short railroads, few exceeding 100 miles in length. Up to the end of 1830, only 41 miles of railroad were constructed. This increased to 918 miles by the end of 1835 and to 2,797 by 1840. In 1856, 18,400 miles were in operation, and by 1860 railroads were being built at the rate of 5,000 miles per year, with 31,000 miles in operation.[4]
Steadily, this multitude of short lines was consolidated into more efficient systems by financial mergers and by standardization of gauges, so that long shipments were possible without changing railroads or cars.
Only a very few of the earliest railroads were planned for operation by animal power. After about 1835 practically all of the American railroads were made heavy enough to support steam engines, and, to accommodate the higher speeds possible with steam propulsion, were laid out with much less curvature and easier gradients than was customary for turnpike roads. At first, operating speeds were only about 8 to 10 miles per hour but these doubled by 1840.
These higher speeds, plus the ability to haul large tonnages at low cost, gave the railroads a tremendous competitive edge over both the turnpikes and the canals. For topographic reasons, the railroads located their lines parallel or close to the previously established turnpikes and canals, thus, coming into direct competition with them for most of their length. This competition was ruinous to the freight wagon and stagecoach companies which eventually lost not only their passengers and freight, but also their mail contracts to the rails.
Decline of the Turnpikes
The National Pike, or Cumberland Road, had entered upon an era of great prosperity when the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad reached Cumberland, Maryland, in 1842. Eleven years later, when the railroad reached the Ohio River at Wheeling, the horse transportation companies went into bankruptcy. The same blight spread to the great Pennsylvania wagon road to the west when the Pennsylvania Railroad was completed to Pittsburgh in 1854. Roadside businesses, which depended on the road traffic, such as inns and stables, shriveled and dried up. With no revenue coming in, the turnpike companies stopped maintenance and the proud turnpikes became so rough that travelers refused to pay toll.[5]
Milepost 10 miles west of Philadelphia on the old Lancaster Turnpike.
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