The San Francisco call., 1903-12-05
Groa.ll of Railroads.
BY EARL D. BERRY.
Former Railroad EDITOR Kew York Times and
New York SUM

Copyright 1903. by Joseph r. BoYles.l
our own country is the child OF
the locomotive" So wrote Charles
Francis Adams .Jr. thirty-three years
ago, and # true then, the saying
seems doubly true to-day. Robert
Louis Stevenson. writing of the first
transcontinental line. said: 1T seems
10 me as il this railway were the one
typical achievement OF the age i'm
which we live" President Hadley Of
Yale University has written Of the
railroad as working the industrial rev.
oluton Of the nineteenth century, and
compares this revolution with the pO-
iticsI revolution of the eighteenth
century.
Thus three great minds. viewing
The subject from different standpoints
agree in accepting the railroad as the
greatest product OF the century that
has passed: and il is. in the century
that is opening, the greatest power in
the business and civilization Of the
United States. Yet less than seventy
fve years ago there was not single
only fifty years ago when continuous
railroad communication between New
York and Chicago was established,
and il is only thirty-three years.
single eneration-since the cOnti-
nent was spanned by an iron way.
In 1880 there were only twenty
three miles of railroad track in this
nd arfn
10 that date the process of railroad
construction developed clumsily and
hatingly. Englishmen, boasting of the
achievements of George Stephenson
and the Newcastle mine owners in
operating serviceable cars on station
airy rails, came over here to show
their American cousins how to build
and operate railways. Nearly all Of
the first projects were utter failures,
and there was much complaint on the
part OF the early railroad builders of
the lack Of interest in their efforts
manifested in the communities in
Which they were working.
When Lafayette visited this country
in 1924 there was some talk on the
part Of his enthusiastic entertainers Of
giving him a ride on a real railroad.
omitted, however, because there was
no railroad in operation. On April .,
1923, the New York State Legislature
granted a charter to the Delaware and
Hudson Canal Company TO build a
canal and a railroad from the coal
fields Of Pennsylvania to Rondout, on
the Hudson River. This company did
not complete its gravity railroad until
experiments were made in New York,
New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Mary
land by men of wealth and energy,
who foresaw that the old stage coach
must give way to some mechanical
means of transportation. One Of the
most ardent supporters of the railroad
idea at that time was the patriotic
Colonel Stevens Of Stevens Castle, Ho-
boken.
The first rails laid were strips of
wood on crossties of timber and stone.
subsequently thin strips Of iron were
held in place by driving stout pegs into
the ground at each end. The original
railway car was a fOur-wheeled We
hicle shaped like an ordinary road
carriage and capable Of seating four
grooved, but the groove speedily gave
way to the fange. The locomotive of
that period was practically a steam
boiler with steam chest and piston
rod set on a fat car. A box or bar
rel filled with fuel occupied the rear
part or this. car. Pine knots and
hickory wood were chiefly used for
fuel. q liberal supply of pine knots
ever these primitive trains were run
at night.
Many and wonderful have been the
improvements in railway appliances
and methods since then, yet the man
who ran with blazing torch ahead Of
the slow moving coach motor per-
formed the same responsible duty that
the penetrating headlight the electrical
block signal the swinging semaphore
and the watchful trackman perform
now. Some Of the locomotives built in
the early '20s, before the advent of the
De Witt Clinton, when they Ventured
out after dark pushed small platform
car on which there was vessel of
blazing material This was the first
type OF locomotive headlight A loco
motive in those days cost from $3.50 TO
500 Through gradual process of evo-
luton the railway locomotive is now al
most as elaborate a piece of machinery
as the perfected printing press, and it's
cost is in the neighborhood of $4,000.
The patriarch Of the great railroad
systems Of to-day is the Baltimore and
Ohio. This company was chartered in
Maryland on February 2s. 1897, and in
Virginia the following March, Con-
struction was begun in Baltimore with
much ponp and ceremony on July 4.
1898. The work OF building this road
progressed slowly. After the first flush
Of enthusiasm the public interest in the
project died out, and only a few earnest
men we're left TO carry it to completion.
II was nearly two years after the pre-
tentious ceremonies in Baltimore that
the first fifteen mile section was opened
from Baltimore to Ellicotts Mills. The
cars were drawn by horses Tor three