Railroad Transportation
By: Hannah Moreland and Alex baugher
The End of Canals
The canal boom ended with the rise of railroads, which could provide year round service and was a much safer mode of transport. The age of canals turned out to be short-lived, when many Americans realized that railroads better accomplish their goal. They wanted to connect to the east with the west in the 1830's. Most railroads joined major waterways.
British Railways VS. American Railroads
British railroads wanted to have trackage as close as they could to the level. This was something that was important in the early days of railroads, when locomotives had very little power. The conditions in the U.S. differed greatly in part because the distances to be spanned were vastly greater than the U.K.
Wagon VS Locomotive
A wagon is horse pulled. A locomotive is powered by steam.
Growth
By the 1860s about 30,000 miles of railroad was linked. The railroad company became one of the most powerful in the nation