In the September Penn Press podcast, Albert J. Churella, Associate Professor in the Social and International Studies Department at Southern Polytechnic State University and author of The Pennsylvania Railroad, Volume 1: Building an Empire, 1846-1917, talks about his monumental history of the transportation giant.
From the interview:
Americans are addicted to mobility. Today we take for granted our ability to be mobile with our cars, with aircraft. We think less about the role that trains played in increasing American mobility. But not much more than a hundred years ago, America became a mobile society because of the railroads, and particularly because of the Pennsylvania Railroad. And it was the steady diminution of the operating costs associated with railroads—it was the steady downward spiral of railroad rates—that underwrote American economic expansion, the rise of big business, and the prosperity that ultimately made the United States the leading economic power in the history of the world.
In this clip, Churella considers the Pennsylvania Railroad's most significant accomplishments.
The complete interview is available at the Penn Press podcast page.