In the decade before the Civil War various north and south lines of railway were projected and some of these were assisted by grants of land from the Federal Government

Farmers, merchants, manufacturers, and the traveling public have all had their troubles with the transportation lines, and the difficulties to which these struggles have given rise have produced that problem which is even now apparently far from solution.

The railroad originally was as completely dissociated from steam propulsion as was the ship

While no one railroad can completely duplicate another line, two or more may compete at particular points

In the decade before the Civil War various north and south lines of railway were projected and some of these were assisted by grants of land from the Federal Government

The public conviction that a railroad linking the West and the East was an absolute necessity became so pronounced after the gold discoveries of '49 that Congress passed an act in 1853 providing for a survey of several lines from the Mississippi to the Pacific.

When the scheme for the construction of a railroad from Baltimore to the waters of the Ohio River first began to take form, the United States had barely emerged from the Revolutionary period