Railroads Changed the World

Two hundred years ago, on September 27, 1825, the Stockton & Darlington Railway, a 26-mile line in northeast England, opened for public business. Built to haul coal from mines to a river port near Newcastle, trains consisted of wagons with flanged wheels rolling on wrought iron rails and pulled by animals or a newfangled steam engine called Locomotion. The steam trains allowed passengers and could travel at the stately speed of 7 mph. It was the beginning of the Railway Age.

Five years later, regular scheduled steam passenger service began on the dual-track Liverpool & Manchester Railway. Opening day was a national event with Prime Minister the Duke of Wellington among thousands of passengers. The L&M used enclosed coaches rather than open wagons, and improved locomotive technology allowed speeds near 40 mph, faster than humans had ever traveled. Railways soon linked nearly every British city. Their construction, and the accelerated commerce, added to the GDP, reduced produce prices making a better diet widely available, and gave most people personal mobility that added a new dimension of choice to their lives. Those choices eventually led to beneficial social changes.

Railway building booms swept Europe and North America. The first U.S. all-steam common carrier, the Baltimore and Ohio, began operation in 1830 and is today part of CSX Transportation. U.S. rail mileage grew from 13 in 1830 to 254,000 in 1916, including the first transcontinental line completed in 1869. That year also saw the opening of Kansas City’s Hannibal Bridge, the first rail bridge over the Missouri, that led to KC becoming a national rail center. (The Union Pacific’s transcontinental line crossed the river by ferry at Council Bluffs, Iowa, until 1872.)

To cope with rapid freight and passenger growth, technology produced safe automatic couplers, luxurious Pullman sleeper cars, refrigerator cars allowing long-distance transport of perishable foods, Westinghouse air brakes, safer signal systems, the Bessemer steel-making process allowing a transition to more durable steel rails, and more powerful and faster steam locomotives. Britain’s Mallard set a steam record that still stands of 126 mph in 1938.

Meanwhile, Europe developed electric locomotives for tram systems and London’s Underground. After World War II, France and others moved to electrify much of their national rail systems. In the 1920s, German and Swiss companies built diesel-electric switching locomotives, followed in the 1930s by Westinghouse and GE/Baldwin in the U.S. In 1939, GM began selling the 1350 horsepower FT road diesel, four of which, coupled together, equaled the power of a large steam engine and were cleaner, more reliable, and required less maintenance. Eager rail officials lined up to buy them, but most were disappointed when World War II limited diesel production because copper and other vital materials were directed to war production. 

Peace brought a flood of new diesels, and the last U.S. mainline steam ran in 1960. Railroads adopted new technologies: welded rail, better signaling and communications, more powerful diesels, and intermodal freights. Still, they lost business to the new interstate highways and to airlines. In 1971, Amtrak was created to operate nearly all passenger trains.

European and East Asian countries developed high-speed rail (HSR) as the most efficient public transport. HSR features speeds of 125 to 240 mph, dedicated tracks with gentle curves, and no road or rail crossings. Japan led the way in the 1960s with its famous Shinkansen ”bullet” trains followed by the U.K. and most of Europe, Taiwan, South Korea, Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and China (pictured). Amtrak operates 125 mph trains on part of its Northeast Corridor, and California is building a 220 mph HSR line from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Now let’s build one from Chicago through St. Louis and KC to Denver.

 

  “Who Controls the Past Controls the Future”

                                                                                        George Orwell, 1984

For 30 million visitors a year, the Smithsonian Institute’s free museums are a highlight of Washington, D.C. Established in 1846 with money willed to the U.S. by Englishman James Smithson for “an Establishment for the increase & diffusion of knowledge among men,” the first of 21 museum buildings (pictured) opened on the Mall in 1855. The Smithsonian is one of the world’s great museums and vividly illustrates the remarkable history of the United States. 

History is the record of what happened in the past, why, and the consequences, both good and bad. Historians study two kinds of evidence: primary (contemporary sources such as eyewitness accounts, recordings, documents, and artifacts) and secondary (analysis, modification, or interpretation of primary sources). Both kinds of evidence need to be carefully examined for biases, ideological agendas, unverified evidence, selective omissions, and other distortions. Done well, the result is a narrative—a story—that explains events and ideas within the context of the time as accurately as the evidence allows. 

History narratives can be books, lectures and discussions, specialized scholarly papers, school texts, audio and visual recordings, and descriptions of museum exhibits. Depending on the historian’s skill, they can be dry as dust or lively stories told with passion that place the topic within a larger, meaningful context.

Historians see the world through various lenses depending on their expertise and interests: political, economic, social, religious, intellectual, artistic. Fifty years ago and more, school texts tended to focus on political matters—wars, treaties, politicians—but important as these are, there has been a growing focus on social and economic issues and the condition of ordinary citizens, often called “history from the bottom up” rather than from the top down. The Smithsonian recently opened museums dedicated to the experience of African Americans and of the American Indian and plans two new museums about the American Latino and women in America. 

Now comes a president complaining on social media: “Museums all over the country are “the last remaining segment of “WOKE.” The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been—nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future.” 

Incorrect English aside, Mr. Trump writes as if he has never been in a Smithsonian museum or given serious thought to the vast evidence about the horrors of slavery and the subsequent evils of Jim Crow, redlining, lynching, and the ongoing resistance to voting rights. In fact, he toured the Smithsonian’s new National Museum of African American History and Culture in 2017, saying that it “tells of the great struggle for freedom and equality that prevailed against the sins of slavery and the injustice of discrimination.” It seems his memory has faded since then. And his values.

He also seems unfamiliar with the thousands of exhibits describing American “Success” from the Wright brothers to moon landings, the Internet, and, since he longs for “Brightness,” Edison’s first light bulb. As to the “Future,” museums, like history, illuminate the past through evidence. There is no evidence about the future. 

Trump wants to whitewash history (pun intended), hiding our sins to invent a pseudohistory he thinks more inspiring. A free people deserve not propaganda, but the truth—the whole truth—from their museums, their schoolbooks, and their government. That is inspiring. 

Truthful history has been called “history, warts and all.” Award-winning author Peter Beagle offered one example: “We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers and discoverers—thieves planting flags, murderers carrying crosses.” Surely the native Americans who were here when Balboa and Cortez arrived uninvited deserve both our sympathy and our respect in the American story.