Page 17 - flip_2015_USA_West_By_Train_The_Complete_Amtrak_Travel_Guide
P. 17
HISTORICAL ROOTS OF AMERICA’S RAILROAD 51
Maryland. He is the irst president to take a trip on the rails.
1837 A day coach is modified to become the first sleeping car. It serves the Cumberland Valley Railroad between Harrisburg and Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.
he irst American-type locomotive (4-4-0) is developed by Henry R. Campbell a year after he receives a patent for his design.
1840 Close to 3,000 miles of railroad and 3,300 miles of canal are already serving locals and tourists in the United States.
1841 he irst caboose, also known
as a way-car, is used by Nat Williams, a conductor on the Auburn & Syracuse Railroad in upstate New York. his type of car soon becomes a ixture at the end of every freight train in America.
his year marks the start of westward expansion. he irst settlers travel across the Northern Great Plains to the Paciic Northwest, then called the Oregon Country, over the Oregon Trail, which soon becomes
a migration route.
1845 Asa Whitney submits to Congress one of the earliest formal proposals for the construction of a transcontinental railroad. He spends six years ighting for his cause, but the proposal is tabled as
other issues and debates rock the legislature. Yet Whitney plays
a major role in pioneering the
vision of a transcontinental railroad to the Pacific.
America’s irst iron railroad bridge, designed by Richard B. Osborne in 1844, is built on the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad near Manayunk, Pennsylvania.
1848 he statement by outgoing president James K. Polk about the discovery of gold in the renamed Oregon Territory causes further westward expansion.
1850 California is received into the “sisterhood” of the States on September 9. he gold-rich territory becomes the 31st state of the Union.
1851 OnSeptember22,theErieRailway in New York starts the use of telegraph to coordinate the movements of its trains. The commercial telegraph system had been invented by Samuel F.B. Morse in the 1830s; its message system became known as the Morse code.
1853 he Terre Haute & Richmond Railroad, Madison & Indianapolis
Railroad, and Bellefontaine Railroad open the world’s first “union station”—the Indianapolis Union Station.
Below: In 1979, the Indianapolis Union Station was converted from railroad station to festival marketplace.