Railway transport has a leading position in the field of passenger and freight traffic. The dense network of train routes covering the whole world resembles a map of the human circulatory system. Railways can be found in almost every city in the world. Railways have the same value for any country, as the circulatory system has for humans. It is not easy to imagine modern life without railway transport. Railways have been, still are, and will be for a long time the main tool for the delivery of goods and people.
However railways were not always popular among people. The first railroad for public use with passenger traffic was opened in 1830 in Maryland. The same year, locomotives for passenger traffic were designed. The locomotive has established itself as a reliable form of transportation. Therefore, the railways began to compete directly with shipping. However, the public believed that steam engine was the son of the devil and that travel on such trains gives nothing but concussion. Despite this, the advantage of locomotives over the steamers was undisputed. Locomotives were much faster than ships.
For the following 10 years (1830-1840) the length of the railways in the United States increased from 40 miles to 2,755 miles. And before the Civil War, in 1860, it was more than 30 thousand miles.
The development of agriculture has led to the rapid growth of railway construction. Since the farms from the very beginning worked for the market; modern means of transportation were necessary for the export of their products.
Around 1865 the Golden Age of the railways in the United States began. For 50 years the development of the railways has adopted a grand scale: the railway network has increased from 35,000 to 254,000 miles. By 1916, almost 100% of domestic traffic (passenger and freight) was carried by rail.
History of US railroad construction is the story of the mobilization of public resources and the country’s natural resources for the benefit of a handful of railroad magnates. Before the construction itself, the railway companies were given government subsidies in the amount of 16 to 48 thousand dollars for every mile of the future route.
Railway construction had important consequences for the United States. Firstly, the infrastructure has been set up that has linked together the domestic market. Second of all, the railway construction contributed to the rise of industry and transport engineering. An important result of the construction of the railway was the accumulation of capital stock companies, who took contracts for the construction of transcontinental routes.
Railway transport has a leading position in the field of passenger and freight traffic. The dense network of train routes covering the whole world resembles a map of the human circulatory system. Railways can be found in almost every city in the world. Railways have the same value for any country, as the circulatory system has for humans.