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.