Rail transportation in the United States
| USA | |
|---|---|
| Statistics | |
| Ridership | 29 million (Amtrak only) |
| Passenger km | 10.3 billion |
| Freight | 2,524 billion tkm |
Rail transportation in the United States consists primarily of freight shipments, while passenger service, once a large and vital part of the nation's passenger transportation network, plays a limited role as compared to transportation patterns in many other countries.
During this period, Americans watched closely the development of railways in the United Kingdom. The main competition came from canals, many of which were in operation under state ownership, and from privately owned steamboats plying the nation's vast river system. The state of Massachusetts in 1829 prepared an elaborate plan. Government support, most especially the detailing of officers from the Army Corps of Engineers - the nation's only repository of civil engineering expertise - was crucial in assisting private enterprise in building nearly all the country's railroads. Army Engineer officers surveyed and selected routes, planned, designed, and constructed rights-of-way, track, and structures, and introduced the Army's system of reports and accountability to the railroad companies. More than one in ten of the 1,058 graduates from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point between 1802 and 1866 became corporate presidents, chief engineers, treasurers, superintendents and general managers of railroad companies. Among the Army officers who thus assisted the building and managing of the first American railroads were Stephen Harriman Long, George Washington Whistler, and Herman Haupt.
State governments granted charters that created the business corporation and gave a limited right of eminent domain, allowing the railroad to buy needed land, even if the owner objected.
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) was chartered in 1827 to build a steam railroad west from Baltimore, Maryland to a point on the Ohio River. Scheduled service on its first section started on May 24, 1830. Lasting 111 years, the first railroad to carry passengers, and (by accident the) first tourist railroad was built and began operating 1827, the Summit Hill & Mauch Chunk Railroad began as a Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company gravity road feeding Anthracite to the Lehigh Canal (using mules to return 9 miles up the mountain) but newspapers document it carried passengers regularly by the summer of 1829; it is acknowledged to be the world's first roller coaster, and from the 1890s-1937 ran as a common carrier and tourist road, having added a steam powered cable railroad return track for true two way operation by 1843.
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