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 States which form the northern border of the United States westward from the Great Lakes to the Pacific coast include an area several times larger than France and could contain ten Englands and still have room to spare.

With the reorganization of 1898 finished, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad entered a new period in its history.

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

Horses and mules, and even sail cars, made more rapid progress than did the earliest locomotive.

The construction of extensive railways, however, and particularly the consolidation of small, experimental lines into large systems, dates from the days of the discovery of gold in California

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.