The development of railroads was one of the most important results coming out of the Industrial Revolution in the mid-1800s.
The United States was a young, growing country at the time and the railroads brought great social, economic and political change with their formation, construction and operation.
Although the railroads expanded during the last half of the 1800s until several crossed the country, all the railroad projects in the beginning were small and simple lines. There were some men, however, who saw a much greater and larger potential for railroads overall but a few railroads in particular.
This book is about five of those railroads, each of which went on to become remarkable, dominant early railroads in the United States:
* The Baltimore & Ohio
* The Erie Railroad
* The Great Northern Railway
* The New York Central
* The Pennsylvania Railroad
It's also, in many ways, the history of American railroading itself.
The stories of these early and dominant railroads wasn't only about laying down track, building bridges and blasting tunnels in their moves across the country but their stories were also complete with political corruption, financial schemes and a few men getting rich from the hard work of thousands of nameless laborers. Sounds a bit familiar, doesn't it?
The five dominant railroads went through many cycles of good times and bad times, some of which they created themselves with their questionable financing and bad management decisions. Both state and federal legislatures were strongly critical of the dominant railroads but at the same time they were very supportive of the railroads.
It was an interesting time for the railroads in the United States, to say the least, and these five railroads helped the United States become a world economic power.
Contents:
* Introduction
* The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B&O)
* The Great Pennsylvania System (PRR)
* The New York Central (NYC)
* The Erie Railroad (ERIE)
* The Great Northern (GN)
* Conclusion
