Transportation Revolution

[USS ALASKA]

Sure, but wouldn't they be better together?

Sir, we can absolutely add so many details to any map to make it so busy and convoluted as to be worthless to any single teaching point. The map in question was only to demonstrate the connection between population centers and railroad systems.

This is about communication and those changes in gauge certainly hindered it.

In the US, standardization of gauge wasn't done until after the ACW when economics showed it to be of fiscal advantage. No other reason was needed. Certain cities and cartage firms notwithstanding.

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

 

[Old Soldier]

Sir, we can absolutely add so many details to any map to make it so busy and convoluted as to be worthless to any single teaching point. The map in question was only to demonstrate the connection between population centers and railroad systems.



In the US, standardization of gauge wasn't done until after the ACW when economics showed it to be of fiscal advantage. No other reason was needed. Certain cities and cartage firms notwithstanding.

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

Yes it was, but DURING the Civil War, although there appears to be a connection, it required a change or cross-loading. IOW it was not a direct connection, as inferred by the first map. The RATES of travel maps were a better illustration. Pity there wasn't one for 1870.

 

[USS ALASKA]

Journal Article
Plank Road Fever in Antebellum America: New York State Origins
DANIEL B. KLEIN and JOHN MAJEWSKI
New York History
Vol. 75, No. 1 (JANUARY 1994), pp. 39-65
Cornell University Press

https://www.jstor.org/stable/23181738

Full article at above link on JSTOR with Google sign-in (In the upper right-hand corner of the linked page, there is a 'Log in' button. If you have a Gmail account, you have a Google sign-in and this will allow for free reading of 100 articles a month).

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

 

[USS ALASKA]

Journal Article
Early Canal Traffic and Railroad Competition in Ohio
Ernest L. Bogart
Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Jan., 1913), pp. 56-70
The University of Chicago Press

https://www.jstor.org/stable/1819852

Full article at above link on JSTOR. OPEN ACCESS, no log-in required.

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

 

[USS ALASKA]

Journal Article
Canals in the Early Republic: A Review of Recent Literature
Ronald E. Shaw
Journal of the Early Republic
Vol. 4, No. 2 (Summer, 1984), pp. 117-142
University of North Carolina Press

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3122718

Full article at above link on JSTOR with Google sign-in (In the upper right-hand corner of the linked page, there is a 'Log in' button. If you have a Gmail account, you have a Google sign-in and this will allow for free reading of 100 articles a month).

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

 

[Old Soldier]

Journal Article
Canals in the Early Republic: A Review of Recent Literature
Ronald E. Shaw
Journal of the Early Republic
Vol. 4, No. 2 (Summer, 1984), pp. 117-142
University of North Carolina Press

View attachment 549313

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3122718

Full article at above link on JSTOR with Google sign-in (In the upper right-hand corner of the linked page, there is a 'Log in' button. If you have a Gmail account, you have a Google sign-in and this will allow for free reading of 100 articles a month).

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

The aim of many early railroads was to transport bulk goods from somewhere to either a port for moving it a long distance or to a town for use in industry. There was a lot of coal in SW County Durham and the only market was .. London. It needed shipping from the exposed coalfield near Bishop Auckland to a port. The first obvious method would be by canal - the traditional way of moving bulk goods along way across land and a plan was submitted in 1768.. It bypassed all the large towns and estates. It was offered in 1770, but no one was prompted to fund it. To get the coal to the canal would have required road transport of waggonways. it was proposed again in 1815, but again, no takers.

Most of the mines were owned by people in and around Stockton and Darlington, mainly Quakers, so they got a Welsh engineer to survey the route again and he proposed a tramway in place of a canal. They then organised another survey and selected the plans of a local engineer, one George Stephenson. They got Parliament's permission in the Stockton and Darlington Railway Act 1821. The first official use of the term 'railway' and the first PUBLIC railway. (An alternative scheme which made a more direct route to the North., bypassing Both Darlington and Stockton, was termed the Clarence Rail Road.)

** Stockton was the port but it is well up the River Tees, even after two passages through the meanders of the River Tees it was still only navigable at high tide for loaded ships. A new line was proposed and built to a small hamlet five miles downstream - Middlesbrough - in 1830 and coal drops established there and Stockton's share dropped quite dramatically. It also simulated the exploitation of local iron ore and the iron/steel industry along the banks of the Tees.

The Stockton and Darlington set the standard for much of the new railways with a gauge of 4'8" and steam haulage. Ater difficulties in traversing bends in the line, the gauge was increased to 4'8.5" without altering the gauge of the axles and wheels but it did not become the official national standard until 1892.

 

[LetUsHavePeace]

An estimate by Grok to the total tonnage hauled for the U.S. Army during the four years of the Civil War.

 

[USS ALASKA]

Journal Article
The Erie Canal and Transportation
Edward P. North
The North American Review, Vol. 170, No. 518 (Jan., 1900), pp. 121-133

https://www.jstor.org/stable/25104942

Open Access - no log-in required.

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

 

[USS ALASKA]

Journal Article
Steamboats and the Great Productivity Surge In River Transportation
James Mak and Gary M. Walton
The Journal of Economic History
Vol. 32, No. 3 (Sep., 1972), pp. 619-640
Cambridge University Press

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2116652

Full article at above link on JSTOR with Google sign-in (In the upper right-hand corner of the linked page, there is a 'Log in' button. If you have a Gmail account, you have a Google sign-in and this will allow for free reading of 100 articles a month).

Cheers,
USS ALASKA