Elle Kloewer
U.S. History
7th hour
Railroads and Trains
Railroads were one of the most important and effective inventions in the United States. They first called them roads of rails, when they were made out of wood. By 1776, iron had replaced the wood in the rails and wheels on the carts. William Jessup created the first wagons with flanged wheels. So the wagons/ train cars good drive smoothly on the tracks. Then the locomotive was invented. The locomotive hauled a load of 10 tons of iron, 70 men and five extra wagons 9 miles.
Before the locomotive, the wagons were powered by horses. They horses could only go far without becoming tired. The invention of the steam engine was very important to the invention of the railroad and train. More supplies were transferred in two months by train than ever before. Samuel Homfray decided to fund the development of steam-powered vehicles to replace the horse-drawn wagons on the railroads.
The transcontinental was built from 1863 to 1869. The union pacific started building the transcontinental from Omaha, Nebraska. The Central Pacific started building from Sacramento, California. The railroad connected the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Congress supported the construction and repair of the railway for 30-years. The congress also gave them land grants of government owned land. The railroad opened for public traffic on May 10, 1869.
The building of the transcontinental was extremely dangerous. Workers had to be prepared for attacks by the Indians. The Indians didn’t want the railroad built on their land. For revenge, they tried to kill everyone that was trying to build the transcontinental. But they didn’t stop progress the railroad was completed.
The introduction of trains helped the expansion of people settling in the west. With railroads people were able to people were able to travel to the west in hours instead of days or months. Trains also were the reason of the creation of time zones. Before trains people used solar time. Railroads and trains also allowed for supplies to be traded across the U.S. Railroads and trains have transformed what America is today.
http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/themed_collections/subtopic2b.html
http://tigger.uic.edu/~rjensen/railroad.htm
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