transcontinental railroad, in U.S. history, rail connection with the Pacific coast. In 1845, Asa Whitney presented to Congress a plan for the federal government to subsidize the building of a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific. The settlement of the Oregon boundary in 1846, the acquisition of western territories from Mexico in 1848, and the discovery of gold in California (1849) increased support for the project; in 1853, Congress appropriated funds to survey various proposed routes. Rivalry over the route was intense, however, and when Senator Stephen Douglas introduced (1854) his Kansas-Nebraska Act, intended to win approval for a line from Chicago, the ensuing sectional controversy between North and South forced a delay in the plans. During the Civil War, a Republican-controlled Congress enacted legislation (July 1, 1862) providing for construction of a transcontinental line. The law provided that the railroad be built by two companies; each received federal land grants of 10 alternate sections per mile on both sides of the line (the amount was doubled in 1864) and a 30-year government loan for each mile of track constructed. In 1863 the Union Pacific RR began construction from Omaha, Nebr., while the Central Pacific broke ground at Sacramento, Calif. The two lines met at Promontory Summit, Utah, and on May 10, 1869, a golden spike joined the two railways, thus completing the first transcontinental railroad. Others followed. Three additional lines were finished in 1883: the Northern Pacific RR stretched from Lake Superior to Portland, Oreg.; the Santa Fe extended from Atchison, Kans., to Los Angeles; and the Southern Pacific connected Los Angeles with New Orleans. A fifth line, the Great Northern, was completed in 1893. Each of those companies received extensive grants of land, although none obtained government loans. The promise of land often resulted in shoddy construction that only later was repaired, and scandals, such as Crédit Mobilier (see Crédit Mobilier of America), were not infrequent. The transcontinental railroads immeasurably aided the settling of the west and hastened the closing of the frontier. They also brought rapid economic growth as mining, farming, and cattle-raising developed along the main lines and their branches.

railroad or railway, form of transportation most commonly consisting of steel rails, called tracks, on which freight cars, passenger cars, and other rolling stock are drawn by one locomotive or more. However, there are other types of railways, including those whose units consist of single self-propelled cars, cable-drawn railways used to ascend steep grades, and monorails whose cars are usually propelled along a single rail.

Early Railroads

As early as 1556 Georgius Agricola, in his book on minerals, De re metallica, mentioned a mining railway running on wooden poles. The replacement of wooden poles by cast-iron rails in the late 18th cent. and the development by Richard Trevithick in 1804 of a locomotive capable of heavy haulage (20 tons) prepared the railroad for uses other than mining. But it was not until 1825 that steam-powered freight and passenger service started on the Stockton and Darlington Railway in England.

American Railroads

The Early Nineteenth Century

In the United States, as in England, the first railroads, employing horse-drawn wagons, were used to haul minerals. The earliest such railroad, built from Quincy, Mass. to the Neponset River dates from 1826, and in the next year another was built in Pennsylvania from the coal mines in Carbon County to the Lehigh River. In 1829 two locomotives were imported from England, but they were found to be too heavy for the existing tracks. Thereafter, locomotives suited to the American railway were produced domestically, and Matthias Baldwin of Philadelphia soon took the lead in building them. The Baltimore & Ohio RR began operation in 1828 with horse-drawn cars, but after the successful run (1830) of the Tom Thumb, a locomotive built by Peter Cooper, steam power was used.

In the United States a turnpike era and then a canal era had immediately preceded the coming of the railroads, which proved to be fast, direct, and reliable in all weather. After 1830 the railroads grew so quickly that within a decade their mileage surpassed that of the canals. While the stagecoach type of railroad car was giving way to the square type in the 1830s, many short-run railroads began to appear throughout the United States. The big cities on the Atlantic Coast became the nerve centers, while inland points were readily connected with one another. Only the Erie RR was projected on a grand scale.

Because of the long distances involved, the United States and Russia had sleeping cars earlier than other countries. A type of sleeping car containing three tiers of berths on one side of the coach appeared in 1836 on the Cumberland Railway's run between Philadelphia and Harrisburg. Sleeping cars of a more modern type were patented (1856) by George M. Pullman and soon put in operation. The first all-steel car appeared in 1859.

An Era of Rapid Expansion

The Atlantic Coast was connected with the Great Lakes in 1850, with Chicago in 1853, and with the western side of the Mississippi in 1856. Cast iron proved too brittle in railway construction and was gradually replaced by wrought iron, which in turn, by 1863, was generally replaced by steel. At the same time, two acts of Congress (1862 and 1864) initiated the building of the first transcontinental railroad: the Union Pacific RR built westward from Nebraska and the Central Pacific RR built eastward from California; the two met at Promontory Summit, Utah, and were joined with a golden spike on May 10, 1869. For many years railroad tracks had varied in width, so that cars could not pass from one line to another. However, in the mid-1880s a standard gauge of 4 ft 8 1/2 in. (1.44 m) was adopted, mainly because the transcontinental railroad had, on federal orders, used such a width for its tracks.

Technological Innovations

In addition to tracks, cars had also differed in design; in 1867 the car builders organized to plan standardized cars. Separate compartments in cars first appeared in Europe in 1873 and in the United States in 1883. George Westinghouse patented his air brake in 1872, but not until 1884 were all passenger cars provided with such equipment, and not until 1887 were air brakes being added to freight cars. Electric light, from power provided by storage batteries, was first used by a railroad in 1881 in England on the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway. Automatic couplers were first added to cars in 1887; such equipment was in use on nearly all railroads in the country within little more than a decade. Subsequent developments included the introduction of steam heat (water was heated in the locomotive and conducted to the passenger cars through pipes) and the construction of refrigerator freight cars; large-scale use of such cars, originally cooled by salted ice, began in 1887.

Abuses and Regulation

Starting with the Panic of 1837, which was precipitated by the collapse of the railroad boom in England, overexpansion and unsound financing of the railroads had affected the national economy. During the turnpike- and canal-building booms the federal and state governments had done much of the financing; consequently, during the panic many states found it necessary to repudiate the debts thus incurred. That experience discouraged government participation in the railroad boom that was just beginning and accounted in large part for private instead of public ownership of railroads in the United States.

Growing sectionalism and the conflict between the North and the South before the Civil War had tended to block large-scale projects (e.g., that of Asa Whitney), but the war itself gave tremendous impetus to railroads (e.g., the Pennsylvania RR), which aided in the transportation of troops and supplies. After the Civil War the great battles of the railway financiers began. Cornelius Vanderbilt consolidated the New York Central RR system, but he, like others—e.g., Jay Gould, Daniel Drew, and James Fisk—was accused of acting with complete disregard for the American public. The 1880s saw the revival of Southern railway construction and the last period of feverish expansion, attributable in part to such financiers as James J. Hill and Henry Villard. One of the greatest financial battles over American railways was fought by Hill and Edward H. Harriman.

In 1887 the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was established to cope with the abuses that had resulted in part from the rapid expansion of the railroads, whose steadily increasing political power, excessive rates, and rebate policy had caused much popular discontent. For years the ICC sought to establish adequate controls over the railroads but lacked the necessary power. Its authority was accordingly increased by additional legislation until, in 1906 the Hepburn Act gave it, among other powers, that of fixing rates. Subsequent acts further expanded federal regulatory powers.

In 1917 the federal government took over the railroads for the duration of World War I. Although the Transportation Act of 1920 returned the railroads to their private owners, it also granted the ICC general control over the lines, including the right to mediate labor disputes, which had become an important factor. Organization of railway labor began with the unionization (1864) of locomotive engineers; by 1900 railroad personnel were organized on an almost nationwide basis. The many unions were headed by the Big Four—the brotherhoods of the engineers, the firemen and enginemen, the conductors, and the trainmen.

Decline and Revival

After 1920 the railroads failed to recapture their former prosperity largely because of added competition from the automobile, the bus, long-distance trucking, and the airplane. The widespread introduction of diesel power on long-distance passenger train routes and the electrification of heavily traveled urban lines in the 1930s still failed to revive the industry. During World War II, however, when gasoline rationing forced many travelers to abandon their cars, railroads increased their passenger traffic. After the war, railroads tried to maintain their gains through the introduction of air-conditioning and lighter, faster, more streamlined cars, built of steel and aluminum.

In spite of the changes, however, business, especially passenger travel, continued to decline. The industry's financial difficulties peaked with the bankruptcy of the Penn Central RR in 1970, but since then railroads have staged a modest revival. The Railroads Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act (1976) and the Staggers Act (1980) deregulated the industry by making it easier for railroads to set their own rates, abandon unprofitable lines, and buy other railroads, thus creating economies of scale. Under deregulation, railroads could offer rate discounts to get more customers. Moreover, variable gasoline prices and technological change made the industry more competitive with trucking. Containers that adapt to truck, ship, or train travel, multilevel automobile-rack train cars, computerized tracking systems, and piggyback carriers that allow trains to carry fully loaded trucks also aided the modernization of freight service.

The amount of freight moved by railroads increased by 34% between 1970 and 1992, and rail's share of the freight industry, relative to trucking and other forms of transport, remained stable through the 1990s, reversing decades of decline. In 1996 the 10 major railroad companies had operating revenue of nearly $33 billion. The 1980s and 90s saw the consolidation of the U.S. freight industry, which resulted in four major railroad companies: Burlington Northern Santa Fe, CSX, Union Pacific, and Norfolk Southern, as well as the expansion of the Canadian National into the United States with its purchase of the Illinois Central. As a result, the Surface Transportation Board blocked the proposed merger of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe and Canadian National systems in 2000 and issued (2001) new regulations designed to assure that future mergers would increase competition.

Amtrak

In the 1960s growing concerns over air pollution caused by automobile use, overcrowding of highways and airports, and the inconvenient out-of-town location of many large airports caused many people to call for government support of large-scale railroad passenger service. Finally, by the terms of the Rail Passenger Service Act (1970), a National Railroad Passenger Corporation was created to operate virtually every intercity passenger rail line in the United States.

Known as Amtrak, the quasipublic agency reduced the number of intercity passenger trains by one half in its first year of operation, retaining service only in areas of high-density travel. Amtrak, which now operates up to 300 intercity passenger trains per day on 21,000 miles of track in 46 states, carried nearly 26 million intercity passengers in 2007.

Railroads in Other Countries

Other nations with important railway lines include Great Britain, whose well-integrated railroad system, built mostly with private capital, was amalgamated into four lines by the Railway Act of 1921; nationalized in 1948, the system was largely privatized again by 1995. In Canada, the promise of a transcontinental railroad was a major impetus to confederation (see Canadian Pacific Railway). Railroads in France date from 1827, and after the 1840s France had one of the largest railroad systems in Europe. In 1994 the Channel Tunnel between England and France opened for passenger service, using a high-speed rail link. The first German railroad, running from Nuremberg to Furth, began operation in 1835. Soon Germany had a well-developed system, and by the beginning of the 20th cent. a majority of its railroads were owned by the state. The entire system was under state control by 1922. The first monorail line began operation (1899) in Elberfeld-Barmen (now Wuppertal), Germany.

In most other European countries, railroads date from about the middle of the 19th cent. and came increasingly under government ownership and operation. In Russian and other countries of the former Soviet Union, railroad construction, also begun in the mid-19th cent., received a great stimulus following the 1917 revolution, when railroads were first extended into Siberia. British capital and U.S. engineering skill laid the basis for many of the railroads of South America. Railroads of historical importance include the Baghdad Railway, the Trans-Caspian RR, the Chinese Eastern Railway, the Transandine Railway, and the Trans-Siberian RR.

High-Speed Passenger Service

Although the railroad played a significant role in the transportation of both passengers and freight during the 19th and early 20th cent., in the latter part of the 20th cent., the automobile and the aircraft eroded the railroad's importance for passenger travel until the introduction of high-speed rail. Faster than the automobile and more convenient than the airplane, high-speed passenger service was pioneered in Japan with the introduction of the Shinkansen, popularly known as the "bullet train," in 1964. The French Train à Grande Vitesse, or TGV, introduced the high-speed train to Europe in 1981. Other Continental countries soon followed—Italy (1988), Germany (1991), and Spain (1992)—and Great Britain began a high-speed service in 1984. It was not until 2000, however, that high-speed service began in the United States with the Acela Express, running between Washington, D.C., and Boston. Other countries that have or are developing high-speed rail lines include Australia, Finland, South Korea, Sweden, and Taiwan. Maglev trains (see magnetic levitation) have been run experimentally on short tracks in several countries. A maglev line linking Shanghai's financial district with its new airport was opened in 2002; scheduled commericial operation began in 2004.

High-speed trains have operational speeds of 186 mi per hr (300 km per hr) or more. The non-maglev speed record, set by the French TGV Atlantique during tests, is 320 mi per hr (515 km per hr). A Japanese maglev train has reached 361 mi per hr (581 km per hr). To attain these speeds requires high-quality track, roadbed, and right of way. Among the features associated with high-speed trains are the absence of grade, or level, crossings; wide spacing between tracks; four tracks at through stations so that slower, local trains can be bypassed; concrete foundations topped by tarmac and then ballast to minimize movement of the track; curves with a radius greater than 3 mi (5 km); and the avoidance of tunnels.

Union Pacific Railroad, transportation company chartered (1862) by Congress to build part of the nation's first transcontinental railroad line. Under terms of the Pacific Railroads Act, the Union Pacific was authorized to build a line westward from Omaha, Nebr., to the California-Nevada line, where it was to connect with the Central Pacific RR—which was to be built simultaneously from Sacramento, Calif. Each railroad company, after completion of an initial 40 mi (64 km) of track, was to be granted 6,400 acres (2,589 hectares) of public lands and a loan of from $16,000 to $48,000 for each mile of track laid. In 1864, Congress doubled the land grant, considerably eased the terms of government loans, and allowed the two railroad companies to borrow private capital. Also in 1864 and again in 1866 the Central Pacific was authorized to build eastward beyond the Nevada line.

In 1865 construction of the Union Pacific was begun from Omaha westward, and a long succession of harrowing construction problems, Indian troubles, and delays were encountered. Nevertheless, on May 10, 1869, the Union Pacific joined the Central Pacific, NW of Ogden, Utah, thus connecting the Missouri River and the Pacific Ocean by rail and completing the nation's first transcontinental railroad. The joining of the roads was marked in ceremony by the driving of a golden spike.

Construction of both roads involved tremendous profiteering, and in 1872 the scandal involving the Crédit Mobilier of America, an ephemeral holding company to which most of the Union Pacific's liquid assets had been transferred (1867), was unearthed. The fraud, combined with later mismanagement and overextensions, left the Union Pacific with heavy financial burdens, and in 1893 the company went into receivership. It was reincorporated (1897) as the Union Pacific RR Company in Utah, and under the management of Edward H. Harriman the railroad was expanded, vastly improved, and stabilized.

n 1901, Harriman added the Southern Pacific (see Southern Pacific Company) and the Central Pacific to his expanding railroad empire, and his spectacular attempt to control the Northern Pacific led to the formation of the Northern Securities Company, a huge rail monopoly that controlled transportation throughout the Northwest. Under pressure from President Theodore Roosevelt, the giant holding company was dissolved by the Supreme Court in 1904. Four years later the court ordered the Union Pacific RR Company to relinquish its control of the Southern Pacific, and in 1913 the separation was completed.

The Union Pacific also acquired large holdings in railroads in the East and later gained control over Western motor-coach lines. In 1936 the railroad initiated the development of Sun Valley, Idaho, into a popular winter resort. The Union Pacific acquired the Missouri Pacific and Western Pacific RRs in 1982 and M-K-T RR in 1988. In 1995 it agreed to purchase the Chicago and North Western RR, and it acquired the ailing Southern Pacific in 1996. By 1997 the much-expanded railroad was plagued by accidents, late arrivals, and congested rail lines; federal regulators intervened, allowing two competing railroads to share Union Pacific's tracks, to keep shipments moving (the track-sharing order was lifted in 1998). Today the railroad, with around 33,000 mi (53,000 km) of track in the West, Midwest, and Gulf Coast regions, is a subsidiary of the highly diversified Union Pacific Corporation; in 1999 the corporation split the railroad operation into three semiautonomous units (for the northern, southern, and western sections of the system).

Underground Railroad, in U.S. history, loosely organized system for helping fugitive slaves escape to Canada or to areas of safety in free states. It was run by local groups of Northern abolitionists, both white and free blacks. The metaphor first appeared in print in the early 1840s, and other railroad terminology was soon added. The escaping slaves were called passengers; the homes where they were sheltered, stations; and those who guided them, conductors. This nomenclature, along with the numerous, somewhat glorified, personal reminiscences written by conductors in the postwar period, created the impression that the Underground Railroad was a highly systematized, national, secret organization that accomplished prodigious feats in stealing slaves away from the South. In fact, most of the help given to fugitive slaves on their varied routes north was spontaneously offered and came not only from abolitionists or self-styled members of the Underground Railroad, but from anyone moved to sympathy by the plight of the runaway slave before his eyes. The major part played by free blacks, of both North and South, and by slaves on plantations along the way in helping fugitives escape to freedom was underestimated in nearly all early accounts of the railroad. Moreover, the resourcefulness and daring of the fleeing slaves themselves, who were usually helped only after the most dangerous part of their journey (i.e., the Southern part) was over, were probably more important factors in the success of their escape than many conductors readily admitted. In some localities, like Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Wilmington, Del., and Newport, Ind. (site of the activities of Levi Coffin), energetic organizers did manage to loosely systematize the work; Quakers were particularly prominent as conductors, and among the free blacks the exploits of Harriet Tubman stand out. In all cases, however, it is extremely difficult to separate fact from legend, especially since relatively few enslaved blacks, probably no more than a few thousand a year between 1840 and 1860, escaped successfully. Far from being kept secret, details of escapes on the Underground Railroad were highly publicized and exaggerated in both the North and the South, although for different reasons. The abolitionists used the Underground Railroad as a propaganda device to dramatize the evils of slavery; Southern slaveholders publicized it to illustrate Northern infidelity to the fugitive slave laws. The effect of this publicity, with its repeated tellings and exaggerations of slave escapes, was to create an Underground Railroad legend that correctly represented a humanitarian ideal of the pre-Civil War period, but that strayed far from reality. The pioneer study is W. H. Siebert, The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom (1898, repr. 1968); for an extensively revised account, see Larry Gara, The Liberty Line (1961).

Turkistan-Siberia Railroad, abbreviated as Turk-Sib, important railroad in Central Asia, providing the shortest link between Siberia and Central Asia. Completed in 1931, it runs from the Trans-Siberian RR at Novosibirsk SW to the Trans-Caspian RR, which it joins N of Tashkent. Its principal stations are Barnaul in Russia and Semey, Almaty, Taraz, and Shymkent in Kazakhstan. A spur of the railroad reaches Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan. The railroad is of vital economic importance.

Trans-Siberian Railroad, rail line, linking European Russia with the Pacific coast. Its construction began in 1891, on the initiative of Count S. Y. Witte, and was completed in 1905. The completion of the railroad greatly affected the history of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and modern Russia by opening up Siberia to development.

The original line began at Chelyabinsk and ran generally east through Omsk, Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, and Chita; it traversed Manchuria and reentered Russian territory before ending at Vladivostok. The Manchurian section of the line is known as the Chinese Eastern RR. The present Trans-Siberian RR branches off from the original line at Chita to follow, roughly, the Amur and Ussuri rivers and reaches Vladivostok by way of Khabarovsk; it lies entirely in Russian territory. The Moscow-Vladivostok run is 5,785 mi (9,310 km); the electrification of the entire line was only completed in 2002. The line carries both freight and passengers.

The Trans-Siberian RR now has several branch lines, notably the line connecting Omsk with Yekaterinburg. A branch to Ust-Kut connects with the Baykal-Amur Mainline (BAM). The railroad is also linked with the Turkistan-Siberia RR.

Trans-Caspian Railroad, transportation line linking the countries of Central Asia to one another and with the nations to the west. Built in the late 19th cent., the line begins at Turkmenbashi (Krasnovodsk) on the Caspian Sea and passes through Ashgabat, Bukhara, Samarkand, and Tashkent. There are branches to the Fergana Valley. The Trans-Caspian line connects at Arys with the more recent Turkistan-Siberia RR and the Kazalinsk line to Orenburg. It was formerly also known as the Central Asiatic RR.

Santa Fe Railroad, former U.S. railroad, chartered in 1863 as the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe RR; opened to traffic in 1864. Construction continued, and in 1880 it reached Santa Fe, N.Mex.; the following year the railroad connected with the Southern Pacific RR. The railroad acquired several small lines, and further construction followed; by the early 1890s the Santa Fe, with its 9,000 mi (14,480 km) of track and connections to Chicago and Los Angeles, became one of the world's longest railroad systems. Poor management and a reckless dividend policy combined with the depression of 1893, however, to bankrupt the railroad company, which in 1895 was reorganized as the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Company. In the 20th cent. the railroad increased its holdings; by 1929 it had 13,000 mi. (20,917 km) of track in the Southwest. In the 1960s a holding company, Santa Fe Industries, was created for the railroad and various subsidiaries. After the Interstate Commerce Commission blocked a merger with the Southern Pacific Company (1988), Santa Fe Industries reorganized, and the railroad emerged as a part of the newly named Santa Fe Pacific Corporation. In 1995 the Santa Fe Pacific Corporation merged with the Burlington Northern RR to become the Burlington Northern Sante Fe Railway.

Pennsylvania Railroad, former U.S. transportation company; inc. 1846 by the Pennsylvania legislature. It opened in 1854 as a single-track line between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Beginning in 1857, the company purchased many railroads, most notably the Allegheny Portage RR, that were owned and operated by the state of Pennsylvania. During the Civil War the Pennsylvania RR played an important role in the Union war effort. In the last decades of the 1800s, especially under the presidency of Thomas A. Scott (1874-80), the railroad rapidly extended its operations between the East Coast and the Mississippi River and between the Great Lakes and the Ohio and Potomac rivers. In 1910 a tunnel under the Hudson River allowed the railroad to reach its new terminal in New York City, known in the mid-1900s as the world's busiest rail station. The Pennsylvania RR introduced many innovations to railroading, including air conditioning, electrification, and the practice of loading truck-trailers on flat cars. In 1968, after a long legal battle that reached the U.S. Supreme Court, the Pennsylvania RR merged with the New York Central RR to form the Penn Central Company.

Erie Railroad, rail transportation line designed to connect the mouth of the Hudson River with the Great Lakes region. The New York and Erie RR Company was enfranchised and incorporated in 1832, and construction was begun in 1835 near Deposit, N.Y. The year 1851 saw 446 mi (718 km) of trunk line across New York state completed to Dunkirk, N.Y., on Lake Erie at a huge cost. The railroad was extended to Jersey City, N.J., and to Buffalo, N.Y., but in 1861 the company failed and was reorganized as the Erie Railway Company. The company gained sound financial footing during the Civil War before it became the subject of a tremendous financial battle. Daniel Drew, Jay Gould, and James Fisk allied themselves and from 1866 to 1868 outmaneuvered—with the aid of unauthorized stock issues, political chicanery, and incessant litigation—Cornelius Vanderbilt to keep control of the Erie Railway Company. After further financial trickery, the Erie Railway Company went bankrupt and was reorganized (1878) as the New York, Lake Erie and Western Railway Company. By 1880 branch lines were built to Chicago. The railroad went into receivership after the Panic of 1893 and was reorganized (1895) as the Erie RR Company. Under the presidency (1901-27) of Frederick D. Underwood, the Erie continued to suffer losses, and after a major reorganization (1941) it yielded (1942) a dividend for the first time in 69 years. In 1960 the Erie merged with the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western RR to form the Erie-Lackawanna. In 1976 this organization and five other lines that had gone bankrupt were merged to form the Conrail system, which in 1999 became part of the CSX and Norfolk Southern railroads.

Central Asiatic Railroad: see Trans-Caspian RR.

Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B&O), first U.S. public railroad, chartered in 1827 by a group of Baltimore businessmen to regain trans-Allegheny traffic lost to the newly opened Erie Canal. Construction began in 1828, and the first division opened in May, 1830, between Baltimore and Ellicott's Mills, Md. Horses were the first source of power, but the successful trial run of Peter Cooper's Tom Thumb in Aug., 1830, brought the change to steam locomotives. The B&O expanded steadily and reached St. Louis in 1857. During the Civil War the railroad moved Union troops and supplies. By the end of the 19th cent. the B&O had achieved almost 5,800 mi (9,334 km) of track and connected with Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York City. By the mid-1900s it had become mainly a freight carrier. Faced with financial difficulties, the B&O was acquired by the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway in 1963 and merged with it in 1965. In 1980 the combined company became part of the CSX Corporation. The B&O was the first railroad to publish a timetable, to use electric locomotives and specialty cars (e.g., dining and baggage), and to run fully air-conditioned trains.

Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site: see National Parks and Monuments (table).

Mode of land transportation in which flange-wheeled vehicles move over two parallel steel rails or tracks, drawn by a locomotive or propelled by self-contained motors. The earliest railroads were built in European mines in the 16th century, using cars pulled on tracks by men or horses. With the advent of the steam locomotive and construction of the first railway in 1825, the modern railroad developed quickly. The first U.S. railroad, the Baltimore and Ohio, began operation in 1827. Specialized railroad cars were built to transport freight and passengers, including the sleeping cars developed by George Pullman in 1859. In the 19th century the railroad had an important influence on every country's economic and social development. In the U.S. the transcontinental railroad, completed in 1869, began an era of railroad expansion and consolidation that involved such financial empire builders as Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, Edward H. Harriman, James J. Hill, and Leland Stanford. The railroad's importance in the U.S. began to diminish from the early 20th century, but in Europe, Asia, and Africa it continues to provide vital transportation links within and between countries. Seealso Orient Express, Trans-Siberian Railroad.

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Secret system in northern U.S. states to help escaping slaves. Its name derived from the need for secrecy and the railway terms used in the conduct of the system. Various routes in 14 states, called lines, provided safe stopping places (stations) for the leaders (conductors) and their charges (packages) while fleeing north, sometimes to Canada. The system developed in defiance of the Fugitive Slave Acts and was active mainly from 1830 to 1860. An estimated 40,000 to 100,000 slaves used the network. Assistance was provided mainly by free blacks, including Harriet Tubman, and philanthropists, church leaders, and abolitionists. Its existence aroused support for the antislavery cause and convinced Southerners that the North would never allow slavery to remain unchallenged.

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Longest single rail system in Russia, running from Moscow to Vladivostok, a distance of 5,778 mi (9,198 km). Conceived by Tsar Alexander III, its construction began in 1891 and proceeded simultaneously along its entire length, which traversed a section of Manchuria. It was completed in 1904, but the impending Japanese takeover of Manchuria compelled construction of a parallel section within Russian territory, completed in 1916. The railroad opened large areas of Siberia to settlement and industrialization by means of spur lines linking outlying areas with the main line. The complete trip takes about eight days.

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