Great men are usually the products of their times and one of the men developed by these times takes rank with the greatest railroad leaders in history.

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.

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

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 close relationship between railroad expansion and the genera development and prosperity of the country is nowhere brought more distinctly into relief than in connection with the construction of the Pacific railroads.

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

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