EARLY TRAIN DEVELOPMENT IN THE UNITED STATES   By:  Cassidy Santos

 

On May 10, 1869, Central Pacific and Union Pacific met at Promontory, Utah with their rail lines coming from different directions.  When their rail lines met, they formed the nation's first Transcontinental Railroad.  The TCRR (Transcontinental Railroad) connected the East and the West.  The president of the Central Pacific, Leland Stanford, tried to hammer a golden spike into the rail that would join the two rail lines.  However, he failed and had a railroad worker instead hammer the golden spike that was engraved with "May God continue the unity of our country as the Railroad unites the two great Oceans of the world".  The TCRR was now completed and the West and the East were now connected.  The TCRR being built led to some great leaps for the united nation, but also caused problems, too.

 

With the TCRR newly built, the West was settled and developed quickly.  Americans from the North and South all moved west because they wanted to build single-family farms and the American Government was giving pieces of western land to American people for free as long as they settled it for five years.  This law (the Homestead Act) was passed in 1862 and promised 160 acres.  The purpose was to settle the west and have poor easterners have a farm to work on.  Within 40 years, half a million people had set up farms in the West.  However the Homestead Act had its problems, too.  Poor people didn't have enough money because lowest class on the TCRR would cost $45 or about $500 today.  If you were poor you probably didn't have that amount of money.  The Homestead Act wasn't the only thing that got effected by the TCRR in a bad way.

 

The TCRR effected many businesses.  Steel mills were affected a lot by the TCRR and other railroads that spread across the West.  Steel mills could sell their steel to the East and to the railroad companies for the companies  to use their steel to build more rail lines.  Textile Mills could also sell their cloths to the workers.  Their products could be shipped to anywhere in the United States.   Tourism in the East and West increased greatly, and people could make more vacations with the ability to travel easier.  Traveling across the continent was also quicker, safer, cheaper, all of that and more.  Trains would buy cart loads of coal from coal mines because the trains would run on coal.  Even other businesses like limber mills were affected by the trains, but it wasn't always a good change.

 

The trains effected many companies, but the trains caused problems for companies like the canal boat industry.  The canal boats would float down canals which were a man-made channel that was filled with water.  One of the most famous canals was the Erie Canal that was built in eight years starting construction in 1817 and was finished in 1825.  Once the Erie Canal was finished, a saluting volley (a series of guns or cannons that fired at the same time) was sent off from Buffalo, New York which set off the next town to follow suit.  The towns continued to fire to each for about 300 miles until the volley reached New York City.  However, the canals lasted for only 100 years because the railroads took the business from the canals.  The canals eventually went out of business and the tradition was lost. 

Trains changed the way the Civil War and how the South recuperated after the war.  During the war, the Confederacy (the South) faced some problems.  Although the South was on the defensive in the Civil War, the Confederacy didn't have many railroads and even the ones that they did have did not have a standard gauge to build a network of rail lines.  With no railroads that connected, troops would not be able to get supplies fast and the troops couldn't be moved quickly from battlefield to battlefield.  After the war, railroads were built in the South and that helped the South build more buildings and homes faster, cheaper, and easier.  A standard gauge and new networks were built that connected the North with the South.  Engines for trains had to be rebuilt because of the new, different gauge that was now built all over the South.  The South and the West weren't the only places to be affected by the new railroads.

 

The North was affected a lot by the new rail lines.  The North's logging industry decreased in business because the South started to cut down its yellow pine which started to compete with the North's white pine.  Tourism in the North skyrocketed and in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, the coal mines could ship out a lot of coal all at once.  The North was affected a lot by the trains and even Lincoln, NH had its own train station.

 

Lincoln's station was built around the 1880's, at the same time as when the train came to Lincoln.  Once the Lincoln Station was built, John E. Henry moved to Lincoln and practically bought the whole town of Lincoln.  Henry built a saw mill in Lincoln, NH and started a large-scale logging/paper operation.  With the saw mill, Lincoln grew quickly and shipped out millions of tons of wood and paper to the rest of the nation.  With Lincoln's station came a famous train called the Flying Yankee.

 

The Flying Yankee traveled from Portland, Maine to New York, New York.  The Flying Yankee was the first of its kind, being the "Bullet Train" of its time.  It could go 115mph in 1935 and held about 135 people.  The Flying Yankee was light weight, but had a huge engine.  The Flying Yankee was aerodynamic, cheap, and fast.  Trains are faster today than in our history, but still 115mph is fast.  The Flying Yankee was a commuter train.  Trains had classes where the lower the class, the slower the train.  A class 1 train could go 25mph, while a class 6 train could reach 80mph.  Every town would have a train station, but most didn't have names and were just called (the town's name) station.  For example, Lincoln's station was simply called Lincoln Station.  Trains could carry eight times the amount of stuff of a truck.  The average amount of trains to northern stations to arrive during a day is about 75, which means 75 trains to load and unload during a day.  It may be hard to picture being an American in that time period, but the trains had really changed their way of life a lot.

 

If you were a New Hampshirite that had a family and lived in Lincoln, then you probably would live in a small house made out of wood and worked at the sawmill.  The train would have changed your life hugely and even though you could be rather poor, the trains would have made it possible to have vacations throughout the whole nation from the South and the West.  If you had money, then you might have worked as a manager at the saw mill.  The saw mill would have been a huge part of your family's daily life in Lincoln, NH.  The trains changed the United States of America greatly in the 1800's and even today, without the train development in the past, we might have unstable train engines, not know sciences that we know of today, and many more things that would interrupt the present day.

 

The trains improved quickly in the West with the TCRR being built.  The West was settled really fast with the TCRR cutting the West in half.  The new rail lines really affected the businesses along with companies in the whole nation.  The South during the Civil War and after the war (during reconstruction of the South) was affected greatly by the new trains that covered the now connected country.  Our region here in New Hampshire and New England was affected by the trains developing throughout the nation.  The Flying Yankee was a popular train in the early to mid 1900's.  The trains in Lincoln, NH were the product of the West getting their rail lines.  The average person who lived in New Hampshire was affected by the trains greatly.  Trains are a huge part of our nation's history and should never be forgotten. 

FUN FACTS

 

• New Hampshire currently owns 420 railroads
• Train-cars would be named after hotels in order to keep our history alive
• There are many different types of train-cars, including passenger and freight cars
• The TCRR cost $50,000,000.00 to build which is equal to about $874,968,866.15 today