AMERICAN AGE OF TRANSPORTATION

America, from the age of exploration, was dependent on ships to bring people and goods to the new land. Ships carried both newly Arriving immigrants and needed supplies to our shores. The same ships returned to the Old World with cotton, tobacco, lumber and other materials. Additionally, American fleets sent goods to Southern ports from the factories of the North. As America expanded westward, reliable and inexpensive transportation was needed to extend to the newly opened territories. Rivers were used to sail goods inland and canals soon interconnected a number of inland waterways.

The fabled Pony Express riders, covered wagons of the pioneers, and horse-drawn passenger coaches, were not enough to supply the needs for transport of passengers and goods from eastern cities to the West. A national road from Washington was traveled by horse-pulled carriages. Further north, a grand canal was dug that linked lake Erie to the other Great Lakes. Soon this new system of transport, which carried goods to the West, proved to be faster, and less expensive than the National Road. Merchants to the south of the Erie Canal route west needed a route west to stay competitive.

Meanwhile, in England, and other parts of Europe, there were experiments with small steam power engines that pulled small loads on wheeled carts along tracks. It was not long before the concept of using rails to transport materials for longer distances was tried. There were several early horse-drawn railways; but the first crude steam engines were very heavy and collapsed the railway under their weight. However, cleaver modifications were to overcome this, and other problems, with railroad travel.

In Baltimore, a company was formed called the Baltimore and Ohio, which became one of the world's leading railways for both freight and passenger service. As railways grew, the earlier reliance on canals for transport faded. Immigrants were used to dig the canals, build roads and lay the railroad tracks that were to connect the East Coast to the Pacific. It was hard work but those who were newly arrived were happy to have work to support themselves and their families. In Baltimore, and in other cities, immigrant communities were located near the rail yards. An example of such a community can be seen today in the Lemon Street restoration adjacent to the present day Baltimore and Ohio Train Museum.

Still other Irish and European workers traveled west with the railroads and helped to settle communities along the rail routes. The Chinese worked as few others would, long and grueling hours, as they nailed the tracks which were to join and connect the railways from the East Coast to the West. Thus, immigrant workers from both sides of the globe helped greatly in meeting the needs of this newly expanding nation. America is indebted to those whose sweat, and hard work, was the bedrock on which the American transportation industry was laid.

View of interior of covered wagon (from the text "American Nation")

View of train going west (from the text "Railroads in the Days of Steam")

View of immigrants living on train (from the text "Railroads in the Days of Steam")

Photograph as trains link the East with the West at Promontory Point

(from the text "Railroads in the Days of Steam")

Horse-drawn rail cart (from the B&O Museum, Baltimore)

Atlantic- The first running B&O locomotive (from the B&O Museum, Baltimore)