The financial history of the Baltimore and Ohio since the close of the nineteenth century is interesting chiefly in connection with changes in the control of the property

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

Yet, in 1850 nearly all the railroads in the United States lay east of the Mississippi River, and all of them, even when they were physically mere extensions of one another, were separately owned and separately managed.

Consequently many large railroad systems of heavy capitalization bid fair to run into difficulties on the first serious falling off in general business

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 financial history of the Baltimore and Ohio since the close of the nineteenth century is interesting chiefly in connection with changes in the control of the property