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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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