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.

As the contest proceeded, public interest increased and the entire country watched to see which company would win the big government subsidies through the mountains.

The history of the Erie Railroad ever since 1901 has been a record of progress

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

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.

Many of the railroad evils were inherent in the situation; they were explained by the fact that both managers and public were dealing with a new agency whose laws they did not completely understand

The United States as we know it today is largely the result of mechanical inventions, and in particular of agricultural machinery and the railroad. One transformed millions of acres of uncultivated land into fertile farms, while the other furnished the transportation which carried the crops to distant markets.