3-1 Growth of
Railroads
1865 (end of the Civil War) – 1914 (start of WWI)
Warm-up
• Imagine you own a railroad in the 1800’s
where do you build a railroad? Why?
• Imagine you are a business in the west in the
1800’s – do you want a railroad in / through
your town? Why?
What would be the challenges of building here?
Growth of Railroads
•
•
•
•
Before the Civil War –
Why? – not interested in investing where few people live
Money from local business owners and farmers.
Wanted goods shipped quickly and easily
Where are all the Railroads?
Early Railroads
• in Northeast
• Short lines
• Government helped build
• Congress gave
– gifts of land to rr companies who
sold to settlers and used the $ to
build
The Transcontinental Railroads
RR that stretches across a continent
10 sq miles of land for each mile of track
More track = more land = more $ from land sales
•
Central Pacific – Sacramento Ca
-Up, over through
mountains then across
.
-Low pay and dangerous
-Hired
immigrants
Union Pacific – Omaha Nebraska
– Through
– Hired
immigrants
Railroads Spur Industry
• adopted the same
• join together in a
,
or system of connected lines
• To run more efficiently companies
began to
• Larger companies bought smaller
companies
•
used
ruthless tactics to buy up most of
the rail lines between Buffalo and
Chicago.
made railway travel
and
• George Westinghouse’s
air brake stopped all the
railroad cars at once
• George Pullman’s
berths
and bathrooms.
• added dining cars
• thousands of miles of new tracks
• railroad companies built three
more
lines
• James Hill completed the last
one—the Great Northern
•
•
•
•
Time Zone
No standard time
Noon in St. Louis but another time a few miles away
1883 – American Railway Association divided US into
Clocks in every place in a time zone are set to the same time
Pullman Sleeping car
The interior of a Pullman car on the
Chicago and Alton Railroad circa 1900. In
this photo the car is configured for
daytime operation
The first American sleeping car, the
"Chambersburg" started service on
the CVRR in 1839
Eliminating Competition
Overbuilding made railroad companies look for
ways to get rid of the competition.
•
secret
to
their biggest customers forced small companies out
of business.
•
Pooling - In a
,
several railroad companies
agreed to divide up the
business in an area. Then,
they fixed shipping prices at
a high level.
What would be the benefit of consolidation?
What would be the benefit of not consolidating?
Reaction to rebates and pools
• angered farmers - both practices kept shipping prices high for them.
• farmers joined the
government regulation of rail rates.
. The party called for
• Congress did pass laws regulating railroad companies, but the laws did
not end abuses.
Railroads Contribute to the Growth
of the American Economy
Created thousands of jobs
new ways of managing business
Other big businesses soon copied these management techniques
Opened every corner of the country to settlement and growth
TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE
Railroad companies were able to form a network of rail lines across the nation because
a) loggers cut down whole forests that were in the way of railroad building.
b) railroads standardized the size of the track they used.
c) many short lines served only local communities.
d) northern lines and southern lines had different kinds of track.
Small farmers in the South and the West called for the government to regulate railroads because
a) railroad building gave jobs to miners and lumberjacks but not to farmers.
b) the noise of air brakes was frightening livestock along the track.
c) rather than competing for customers, railroads were dividing up the business in an
area, then fixing high shipping rates.
d) James Hill was encouraging some farmers and ranchers to settle near his railroad by
helping them buy equipment.