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The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 13, November, 1858

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Дата написания1970-01-01

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WHEAT CORN

Carried by Carried by Carried by Carried by

railroad wagon railroad wagon

At market $49.50 49.50 25.60 25.60

Carried 10 m. 49.25 48.00 24.25 23.26

do. 50 m. 48.75 42.00 24.00 17.25

do. 100 m. 48.00 34.50 23.25 9.75

do. 150 m. 47.25 27.00 22.50 2.25

do. 200 m. 46.50 19.50 21.75 0.00

do. 300 m. 45.00 4.50 20.25 0.00

do. 330 m. 44.55 0.00 19.80 0.00

Thus a ton of corn carried two hundred miles costs by wagon transport more than it brings at market,—while, moved by railroad, it is worth $21.75. Also wheat will not bear wagon transport of 330 miles,—while, moved that distance by railroad it is worth $44.55 per ton.

The social effect of railroads is seen and felt by those who live in the neighborhood of large cities. The unhealthy density of population is prevented, by enabling men to live five, ten, or fifteen miles away from the city and yet do business therein. The extent of this diffusion is as the square of the speed of transport. To illustrate. If a person walks four miles an hour, and is allowed one hour for passing from his home to his place of business, he can live four miles from his work; the area, therefore, which may be lived in is the circle of which the radius is four miles, the diameter eight miles, and the area 501/4 square miles. If by horse he can go eight miles an hour, the diameter of the circle becomes sixteen miles, and the area 201 square miles. Finally, if by railroad he goes thirty miles an hour, the diameter becomes sixty miles, and the area 2,827 square miles.

In the case of railroads, as of other labor-saving (and labor-producing) contrivances, the innovation has been loudly decried; but though it does render some classes of labor useless, and throw out of employment some persons, it creates new labor for more than the old, and gives much more than it takes away.

Twenty years of experience show that the diminished cost of transport by railroad invariably augments the amount of commerce transacted, and in a much larger ratio than the reduction of cost. It is estimated by Dr. Lardner that three hundred thousand horses, working daily in stages, would be required to perform the passenger-traffic alone which took place in England during the year 1848.

Regarding the safety of railroad-travelling, though the papers teem with awful calamities from collisions and other causes, yet so great is the number of persons who use the new mode of transport, that travelling by railroad is really about one hundred times safer than by stage. The mortality upon English roads was for one year observed: —one person killed for each sixty-five million transported; in America, for the same time, one in forty-one million.

If we should try to reason from the rate of past railway-growth as to what the future is to be, we should soon be lost in figures. Thus, in the United States,—

In 1829 there were 3 miles.

In 1830 41 miles.

In 1840 2167 miles.

In 1850 7355 miles.

In 1856 23,242 miles.

Thus from 1830 to 1840, the rate is as 2167/41 or 53 nearly; from 1840 to 1850, 7355/2167, or 3 nearly; and from 1850 to 1856, 23242/ 7355 or 3 nearly; and from 1850 to 1860 we may suppose the rate will be about 4. The rate is probably now at its permanent maximum, taking the whole country together,—the increase in New England having nearly ceased, while west of the Mississippi it has not reached its average.

Among the larger and more important roads and connected systems in our country may be named the New York and Erie Railroad,—connecting the city of New York with Lake Erie at Dunkirk, (and, by the road's diverging from its western terminus, with "all places West and South," as the bills say,)—crossing the Shawangunk Mountains through the valley of the Neversink, up the Delaware, down the Susquehanna, and through the rich West of the Empire State.

The Pennsylvania Central Road: from Philadelphia through Lancaster to Harrisburg, on the Susquehanna, up the Juniata and down the western slope of the Alleghanies, through rock-cut galleries and over numberless bridges, reaching at last the bluffs where smoky Pittsburg sees the Ohio start on its noble course.

The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad: from Baltimore, in Maryland, to Wheeling and Parkersburg, on the Ohio;—crossing the lowlands to the Washington Junction, thence up the Patapsco, down the Monocacy, to the Potomac; up to Harper's Ferry, where the Potomac and the Shenandoah chafe the rocky base of the romantic little town perched high above; winding up the North Branch to Cumberland,—the terminus of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, and of the great national turnpike to the West, for which Wills' Creek opened so grand a gate at the narrows,—to Piedmont the foot and Altamont the summit, through Savage Valley and Crabtree Gorge, across the glades, from which the water flows east to the Chesapeake Bay and west to the Gulf of Mexico; down Saltlick Creek, and up the slopes of Cheat River and Laurel Hill, till rivers dwindle to creeks, creeks to rills, and rills lose themselves on the flanks of mountains which bar the passage of everything except the railroad; thence, through tunnels of rock and tunnels of iron, descending Tygart's Valley to the Monongahela, and thence through a varied but less rugged country to Moundsville, twelve miles below Wheeling, on the Ohio River.

These are our three great roads where engineering skill has triumphed over natural obstacles. We have another class of great lines to which the obstacles were not so much mechanical as financial, —the physical difficulties being quite secondary. Such are the trunk lines from the East to the West,—through Buffalo, Erie, and Cleveland, to Toledo and Detroit, and from Detroit to Chicago, Rock Island, Burlington, Quincy, and St. Louis; from Pittsburg, Wheeling, and Parkersburg, on the Ohio, to Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Louisville, and St. Louis; and from Cleveland, through Columbus, to Cincinnati, and from Cincinnati to the Northwest.

In progress also may be noticed roads running west from St. Louis, Hannibal, and Burlington, on the Mississippi, all tending towards some point in Kansas, from which the great Pacific Road, the crowning effort of American railway-engineering, may be supposed to take its departure for California and Oregon.

The chief point of difference between the English and the American engineer is, that the former defies all opposition from river and mountain, maintains his line straight and level, fights Nature at every point, cares neither for height nor depth, rock nor torrent, builds his matchless roads through the snowy woods of Canada or over the sandy plains of Egypt with as much unconcern as among the pleasant fields of Hertford or Surrey, and spans with equal ease the Thames, the Severn, the St. Lawrence, and the Nile. The words "fail," "impossible," "can't be done," he knows not; and when all other means of finding a firm base whereon to build his bridges and viaducts fail, he puts in a foundation of golden guineas and silver dollars, which always gives success.

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