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

In the United States three new methods of transportation made their appearance at almost the same time - the steamboat, the canal boat, and the rail car

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

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

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.

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.

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