1.
United States Postal Service
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The United States Postal Service, is an independent agency of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the United States. It is one of the few government agencies explicitly authorized by the United States Constitution, Mail traces its roots to 1775 during the Second Continental Congress, where Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first postmaster general. The USPS as of February 2015 has 617,254 active employees, the USPS is the operator of the largest civilian vehicle fleet in the world. The USPS is legally obligated to serve all Americans, regardless of geography, at uniform price, the USPS has exclusive access to letter boxes marked U. S. The USPS lost $5.5 billion in fiscal year 2014 and $5.1 billion in 2015, in the early years of the North American colonies, many attempts were made to initiate a postal service. These early attempts were of small scale and usually involved a colony, Massachusetts Bay Colony for example, for example, informal independently-run postal routes operated in Boston as early as 1639, with a Boston to New York City service starting in 1672. A central postal organization came to the colonies in 1691, when Thomas Neale received a 21-year grant from the British Crown for a North American Postal Service, the patent included the exclusive right to establish and collect a formal postal tax on official documents of all kinds. The tax was repealed a year later, Neale appointed Andrew Hamilton, Governor of New Jersey, as his deputy postmaster. The first postal service in America commenced in February 1692, rates of postage were fixed and authorized, and measures were taken to establish a post office in each town in Virginia. Massachusetts and the other colonies soon passed laws, and a very imperfect post office system was established. Neales patent expired in 1710, when Parliament extended the English postal system to the colonies, the chief office was established in New York City, where letters were conveyed by regular packets across the Atlantic. Before the Revolution, there was only a trickle of business or governmental correspondence between the colonies, most of the mail went back and forth to counting houses and government offices in London. The Revolution made Philadelphia, the seat of the Continental Congress, News, new laws, political intelligence, and military orders circulated with a new urgency, and a postal system was necessary. Journalists took the lead, securing post office legislation that allowed them to reach their subscribers at very low cost, overthrowing the London-oriented imperial postal service in 1774-1775, printers enlisted merchants and the new political leadership, and created a new postal system. The United States Post Office was created on July 26,1775, the official post office was created in 1792 as the Post Office Department. It was based on the Constitutional authority empowering Congress To establish post offices, the 1792 law provided for a greatly expanded postal network, and served editors by charging newspapers an extremely low rate. The law guaranteed the sanctity of personal correspondence, and provided the country with low-cost access to information on public affairs. Rufus Easton was appointed by Thomas Jefferson first postmaster of St. Louis under the recommendation of Postmaster General Gideon Granger, Rufus Easton was the first postmaster and built the first post office west of the Mississippi
2.
Mail
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The mail or post is a system for physically transporting documents and other small packages, or, the postcards, letters, and parcels themselves. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems, since the mid-19th century national postal systems have generally been established as government monopolies with a fee on the article prepaid. Proof of payment is often in the form of adhesive postage stamps, modern private postal systems are typically distinguished from national postal agencies by the names courier or delivery service. Postal authorities often have other than transporting letters. In some countries, a postal, telegraph and telephone service oversees the system, in addition to telephone. Some countries postal systems allow for savings accounts and handle applications for passports, the Universal Postal Union, established in 1874, includes 192 member countries and sets the rules for international mail exchanges. The word mail comes from the Medieval English word male, referring to a bag or pack. It was spelled that way until the 17th century, and is distinct from the word male, the French have a similar word, malle for a trunk or large box, and mála is the Irish term for a bag. In the 17th century, the mail began to appear as a reference for a bag that contained letters. Over the next hundred years the word began to be applied strictly to the letters themselves. The U. S. Postal Service delivers the mail, the term email first appeared in the 1970s. The term snail-mail is a retronym to distinguish it from the quicker email, various dates have been given for its first use. Post is derived from Medieval French poste, which stems from the past participle of the Latin verb ponere. The practice of communication by written documents carried by an intermediary from one person or place to another almost certainly dates back nearly to the invention of writing, however, development of formal postal systems occurred much later. The earliest surviving piece of mail is also Egyptian, dating to 255 BC, the first credible claim for the development of a real postal system comes from Ancient Persia, but the point of invention remains in question. He also negotiated with neighbouring countries to do the same and had built from the city of Post in Western Iran all the way up to the city of Hakha in the East. Other writers credit his successor Darius I of Persia, other sources claim much earlier dates for an Assyrian postal system, with credit given to Hammurabi and Sargon II. Mail may not have been the mission of this postal service
3.
Transport
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Transport or transportation is the movement of people, animals and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, rail, road, water, cable, pipeline, the field can be divided into infrastructure, vehicles and operations. Transport is important because it enables trade between people, which is essential for the development of civilizations, terminals may be used both for interchange of passengers and cargo and for maintenance. Vehicles traveling on these networks may include automobiles, bicycles, buses, trains, trucks, people, helicopters, operations deal with the way the vehicles are operated, and the procedures set for this purpose including financing, legalities and policies. In the transport industry, operations and ownership of infrastructure can be public or private, depending on the country. Passenger transport may be public, where operators provide scheduled services, freight transport has become focused on containerization, although bulk transport is used for large volumes of durable items. Transport plays an important part in growth and globalization, but most types cause air pollution. While it is subsidized by governments, good planning of transport is essential to make traffic flow. A mode of transport is a solution that makes use of a type of vehicle, infrastructure. The transport of a person or of cargo may involve one mode or several of the modes, each mode has its own advantages and disadvantages, and will be chosen for a trip on the basis of cost, capability, and route. Human powered transport, a form of transportation, is the transport of people and/or goods using human muscle-power. Modern technology has allowed machines to enhance human power, human-powered vehicles have also been developed for difficult environments, such as snow and water, by watercraft rowing and skiing, even the air can be entered with human-powered aircraft. Animal-powered transport is the use of working animals for the movement of people, humans may ride some of the animals directly, use them as pack animals for carrying goods, or harness them, alone or in teams, to pull sleds or wheeled vehicles. A fixed-wing aircraft, commonly called airplane, is a craft where movement of the air in relation to the wings is used to generate lift. The term is used to distinguish this from rotary-wing aircraft, where the movement of the lift surfaces relative to the air generates lift, a gyroplane is both fixed-wing and rotary-wing. Fixed-wing aircraft range from small trainers and recreational aircraft to large airliners, two things necessary for aircraft are air flow over the wings for lift and an area for landing. The majority of aircraft also need an airport with the infrastructure to receive maintenance, restocking, refueling and for the loading and unloading of crew, cargo and passengers. While the vast majority of land and take off on land, some are capable of take off and landing on ice, snow
4.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
5.
Chicago
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Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the third-most populous city in the United States. With over 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the state of Illinois, and it is the county seat of Cook County. In 2012, Chicago was listed as a global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $640 billion according to 2015 estimates, the city has one of the worlds largest and most diversified economies with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. In 2016, Chicago hosted over 54 million domestic and international visitors, landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis Tower, Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicagos culture includes the arts, novels, film, theater, especially improvisational comedy. Chicago also has sports teams in each of the major professional leagues. The city has many nicknames, the best-known being the Windy City, the name Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, known to botanists as Allium tricoccum, from the Miami-Illinois language. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as Checagou was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir, henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the wild garlic, called chicagoua, grew abundantly in the area. In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by a Native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, the first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent and arrived in the 1780s and he is commonly known as the Founder of Chicago. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes had ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833, on August 12,1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 4,000 people, on June 15,1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as U. S. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4,1837, as the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicagos first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois, the canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River. A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad, manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade listed the first ever standardized exchange traded forward contracts and these issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage
6.
Railway post office
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The RPO was staffed by highly trained Railway Mail Service postal clerks, and was off-limits to the passengers on the train. In the UK, the equivalent term was Travelling Post Office, from the middle of the 19th century, many American railroads earned substantial revenues through contracts with the U. S. Post Office Department to carry mail aboard high-speed passenger trains, in fact, a number of companies maintained passenger routes where the financial losses from moving people were more than offset by transporting the mail. The worlds first official carriage of mail by rail was by the United Kingdoms General Post Office in November 1830, using adapted railway carriages on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. In the United States, some references suggest that the first shipment of mail carried on a train occurred in 1831 on the South Carolina Rail Road. Other sources state that the first official contract to carry mail on a train was made with the Baltimore. The United States Congress officially designated all railroads as official postal routes on July 7,1838, similar services were introduced on Canadian railroads in 1859. The Railway post office was introduced in the United States on July 28,1862, using converted baggage cars on the Hannibal, purpose-built Railway Post Office cars entered service on this line a few weeks after the service was initiated. Their purpose was to separate mail for connection with a westbound stagecoach departing soon after the arrival at St. Joseph. This service lasted approximately one year, the first permanent Railway Post Office route was established on August 28,1864, between Chicago, Illinois, and Clinton, Iowa. This service is distinguished from the 1862 operation because mail was sorted to and received from each post office along the route, as well as major post offices beyond the routes end-points. Armstrong, assistant postmaster at Chicago, originally came up with the idea of having mail processed and distributed while the mail was on board, en route in mail cars. With the assistance of Schuyler Colfax, Speaker of the House at the time, in 1869, the Railway Mail Service, headed by George B. Armstrong, was inaugurated to handle the transportation and sorting of mail aboard trains. Armstrong was promoted from a position in the Chicago post office following his experiments in 1864 with a converted route agents car on runs between Chicago and Clinton, Iowa. RPO car interiors, which at first consisted of wood furniture and fixtures. In 1879, an RMS employee named Charles R. Harrison developed a new set of fixtures that soon gained widespread use. Harrisons design consisted of hinged, cast-iron fixtures that could be unfolded and set up in a number of configurations to hold mail pouches, racks and a sorting table as needed for specific routes
7.
Pioneer Zephyr
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The train featured extensive use of stainless steel, was originally named the Zephyr, and was meant as a promotional tool to advertise passenger rail service in the United States. The construction included innovations such as shotwelding to join the stainless steel, for one section of the run it reached a speed of 112.5 mph, just short of the then US land speed record of 115 mph. The historic dash inspired a 1934 film and the trains nickname, the train entered the regular revenue service on November 11,1934, between Kansas City, Missouri, Omaha, Nebraska, and Lincoln, Nebraska. It operated this and other routes until its retirement in 1960, when it was donated to Chicagos Museum of Science and Industry, the train is generally regarded as the first successful streamliner on American railroads. In the early 1930s, the US was in the depths of the Great Depression, without the money to purchase new goods, freight trains were not hauling as much as they had in the previous decade. People who could not buy goods also could not afford to travel to the extent that they had before, automobile travel had increasingly cut into rail ridership since the mid-1920s, making faster, more efficient service imperative for railroads to compete. Railroads needed a way to re-energize the traveling public and offer a bit of hope for the days to come, the project hinged on two major elements, developing lighter railcars and developing an internal combustion driven power system adequate for high speed service. In 1932 Ralph Budd met Edward G. Budd, an automotive pioneer who was founder. Edward Budd was demonstrating his new Budd-Michelin rail motorcar built of stainless steel, since the carbody was much lighter than similar cars, it would be able to carry a higher revenue load for the same cost. On August 20,1932, Earl J. Shotwelding, as Ragsdale termed his method, in spot welding, the two pieces of metal that are to be joined are pressed together with an electrode on each side of the joint. A very high current is passed through the joint and fuses the two pieces of metal together. With their patented welding process at the core of stainless steel railcar construction, the existing powerplants for motorized railcars were completely inadequate. Contemporary four-stroke Diesel motors had unacceptably low power-to-weight ratios and were only efficient under a narrow range of operating conditions. Their efficient operating range was improved, owing largely to improvements in fuel injection developed by GM. A Diesel-electric system driven by the new motor was used to power General Motors automotive assembly exhibit at the 1933 Century of Progress Chicago Worlds Fair. Budd saw the compact, efficient system in action, saw a piece of his lightweight train puzzle fall into place. The result was a Diesel-electric drive system powered by an eight-cylinder,600 hp Winton 201A Diesel motor installed in a new three car stainless steel streamliner within a year. In 1933 a Century of Progress exhibit inspired the Zephyr streamliner, the year the new Zephyr streamliner inspired the Century of Progress fair
8.
Chicago and North Western Transportation Company
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The Chicago and North Western Transportation Company was a Class I railroad in the Midwestern United States. It was also known as the North Western, the railroad operated more than 5,000 miles of track as of the turn of the 20th century, and over 12,000 miles of track in seven states before retrenchment in the late 1970s. Until 1972, when the company was sold to its employees, it was named the Chicago and North Western Railway. The C&NW became one of the longest railroads in the United States as a result of mergers with other railroads, such as the Chicago Great Western Railway, Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway and others. By 1995, track sales and abandonment had reduced the total back to about 5,000. The majority of the abandoned and sold lines were lightly trafficked branches in Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. Large line sales, such as those that resulted in the Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad further helped reduce the railroad to a core with several regional feeders. The company was purchased by Union Pacific Railroad in April 1995, the Chicago and North Western Railway was chartered on June 7,1859. It had purchased the assets of the bankrupt Chicago, St. Paul, on February 15,1865, it officially merged with the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, which had been chartered on January 16,1836. The Winona and St. Peter Railroad was added to the network in 1867, the North Western had owned a majority of the stock of the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railway since 1882. On January 1,1957 it leased the company, and merged it into the North Western in 1972. The Omaha Roads main line ran from an interchange with the North Western at Elroy, Wisconsin, to the Twin Cities, down to Sioux City, Iowa, the North Western picked up several important short railroads during its later years. It finalized acquisition of the Litchfield and Madison Railway on January 1,1958, the Litchfield and Madison railroad was a 44-mile bridge road from East St. Louis to Litchfield, Illinois. On July 30,1968, the North Western acquired two former interurbans — the 36-mile Des Moines and Central Iowa Railway, and the 110-mile Fort Dodge, Des Moines and Southern Railway. The DM&CI gave access to the Firestone plant in Des Moines, Iowa, on November 1,1960, the North Western acquired the rail properties of the 1, 500-mile Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway. In spite of its name, it ran only from Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Peoria and this acquisition provided traffic and modern rolling stock, and eliminated competition. On July 1,1968 the 1,500 mi Chicago Great Western Railway was merged into the North Western and this railroad went from Chicago to Oelwein, Iowa. From there lines went to the Twin Cities, Omaha, Nebraska, a connection from Hayfield, Minnesota, to Clarion, Iowa, provided a Twin Cities to Omaha main line
9.
Clinton, Iowa
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Clinton is a city in and the county seat of Clinton County, Iowa, United States. The population was 26,885 as of 2010, Clinton, along with DeWitt, Iowa, was named in honor of the sixth governor of New York, DeWitt Clinton. Clinton is the city of the Clinton Micropolitan Statistical Area. Clinton was incorporated on January 26,1857, Clinton was platted as the town of New York in 1836 by Joseph Bartlett. In March 1837, Noble and Sarah Gregory Perrin purchased 136 acres of land in what is now Clinton and their oldest daughter, Valeria, married Dr. Augustus Lafayette Ankeny, who participated in the Blackhawk war and came to Lyons in April 1850. Mary Perrin, born September 26,1837, was the first female child of European ancestry born in Clinton County, in 1839, as in most early river towns, the town consisted of a sprinkling of cabins, two stores and a tavern. In 1855, the Chicago, Iowa, Nebraska Railroad announced it would cross the river at Little Rock Island adjacent to Bartletts settlement, on November 10,1855, the first plat of the city of Clinton was signed. On January 26,1857 the city was granted a charter and on March 7, on April 5,1859, the amended charter of the city was adopted, which lasted until a general charter was adopted in 1867. In June 1859 the railroad line was completed to Cedar Rapids, the first train crossed from the Illinois shore to Little Rock Island at noon, January 9,1860, and was ferried from there to the Iowa shore. In January 1864, construction was started on the span from Little Rock Island to the Iowa shore and was completed on January 6,1865, the original single track railroad bridge was replaced by a double track bridge that was completed in 1909. The first public school in Clinton was conducted in a log house near the W. J and it was erected in the winter of 1855-56 and Isaac Baldwin was its first teacher. St. Irenaeus School was opened in 1852, the original Lyons-Fulton Bridge was constructed in 1891, followed by the Clinton High Bridge in 1892. Between the 1850s and 1900, the cities of Lyons and Clinton quickly became centers of the industry and were regarded as the Lumber Capital of the World. Huge log rafts were floated down the river from Wisconsin and Minnesota, cut into lumber at Clinton, then shipped to the growing communities via the river and the railroads. Companies owned by the W. J. Young, Chancy Lamb, George M. and Charles F. Curtis, David Joyce, Silas W. Gardiner Lyons, and Friedrich Weyerhäuser families soon became among the largest in the nation. In the 1880s and 1890s Clinton boasted 13 resident millionaires, more millionaires per capita than any town or city in the nation. In 1877 the noted pianist Carl Lachmund founded the German Conservatorium of Music in Clinton, fellow lumber baron F. C. Weyerhauser, his wife and daughter attended together with several hundred guests all attired in formal wear. The era of opulence came to an end by 1900, as the forests were depleted
10.
Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad
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The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad was a Class I railroad in the United States. It was also known as the Rock Island Line, or, in its final years, at the end of 1970 it operated 7183 miles of road on 10669 miles of track, that year it reported 20557 million ton-miles of revenue freight and 118 million passenger-miles. The song Rock Island Line, a spiritual from the late 1920s first recorded in 1934, was inspired by the railway, construction began October 1,1851, in Chicago, and the first train was operated on October 10,1852, between Chicago and Joliet. Construction continued on through La Salle, and Rock Island was reached on February 22,1854, the Mississippi river bridge between Rock Island and Davenport was completed on April 22,1856. In 1857, Abraham Lincoln represented the Rock Island in an important lawsuit regarding bridges over navigable rivers, the suit had been brought by the owner of a steamboat which was destroyed by fire after running into the Mississippi river bridge. Lincoln argued that not only was the steamboat at fault in striking the bridge, the M&M was acquired by the C&RI on July 9,1866, to form the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad Company. The railroad expanded through construction and acquisitions in the following decades, the Rock Island stretched across Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Texas. The easternmost reach of the system was Chicago, and the system also reached Memphis, Tennessee, west, it reached Denver, Colorado, and Santa Rosa, New Mexico. Southernmost reaches were to Galveston, Texas, and Eunice, Louisiana while in a direction the Rock Island got as far as Minneapolis. The heaviest traffic was on the Chicago-to-Rock Island and Rock Island-to-Muscatine lines, in common with most American railroad companies, the Rock Island once operated an extensive passenger service. The primary routes served were, Chicago-Los Angeles, Chicago-Denver, Memphis-Tucumcari, the Rock Island ran both Limited and Local service on those routes as well as locals on many other lines on its system. In 1937, the Rock Island introduced Diesel power to its passenger service, in competition with the Santa Fe Chiefs, the Rock Island jointly operated the Golden State Limited with the Southern Pacific Railroad from 1902–1968. On this route, the Rock Islands train was marketed as a low altitude crossing of the Continental Divide, the Rock Island did not concede to the Santa Fes dominance in the Chicago-Los Angeles travel market and re-equipped the train with new streamlined equipment in 1948. At the same time, the Limited was dropped from the trains name, the local run on this line was known as the Imperial. The 1948 modernization of the Golden State occurred with some controversy, in 1947, both the Rock Island and Southern Pacific jointly advertised the coming of a new entry in the Chicago-Los Angeles travel market. The Golden Rocket was scheduled to match the Santa Fes transit time end-to-end and was to have its own dedicated trainsets, one purchased by the Rock Island. As the Rock Islands set of streamlined cars was being finished. The Rock Islands cars were delivered and would find their way into the Golden States fleet soon after delivery, the Golden State was the last first-class train on the Rock Island, retaining its dining cars and sleeping cars until its last run on February 21,1968
11.
Pennsylvania Railroad
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The Pennsylvania Railroad was an American Class I railroad, founded in 1846. Commonly referred to as the Pennsy, the PRR was headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the PRR was the largest railroad by traffic and revenue in the U. S. for the first half of the 20th century. Over the years, it acquired, merged with or owned part of at least 800 other rail lines and companies and its only formidable rival was the New York Central, which carried around three-quarters of PRRs ton-miles. At one time, the PRR was the largest publicly traded corporation in the world, with a larger than that of the U. S. government. The corporation still holds the record for the longest continuous dividend history, in 1968, PRR merged with rival NYC to form the Penn Central Transportation Company, which filed for bankruptcy within two years. The viable parts were transferred in 1976 to Conrail, which was broken up in 1999, with 58 percent of the system going to the Norfolk Southern Railway. Amtrak received the electrified segment east of Harrisburg, with the opening of the Erie Canal and the beginnings of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, Philadelphia business interests became concerned that the port of Philadelphia would lose traffic. The state legislature was pressed to build a canal across Pennsylvania and it soon became evident that a single canal would not be practical and a series of railroads, inclined planes, and canals was proposed. Because freight and passengers had to change several times along the route and canals froze in winter, it soon became apparent that the system was cumbersome. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania granted a charter to the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1846 to build a rail line that would connect Harrisburg to Pittsburgh. The Directors chose John Edgar Thomson, an engineer from the Georgia Railroad, to survey, the crest of the mountain was penetrated by the 3, 612-foot Gallitzin Tunnels and then descended by a more moderate grade to Johnstown. The western end of the line was built from Pittsburgh east along the banks of the Allegheny. In 1857, the PRR purchased the Main Line of Public Works from the state of Pennsylvania, the line was double track from its inception, and by the end of the century a third and fourth track were added. Over the next 50 years, PRR expanded by gaining control of railroads by stock purchases. This line is still an important cross-state corridor, carrying Amtraks Philadelphia to Harrisburg Main Line and he served as PRRs first Chief Engineer and third President. Track connection in Philadelphia was made via the PRRs Connecting Railway, the PRRs Baltimore and Potomac Rail Road opened on July 2,1872, between Baltimore and Washington, D. C. This route required transfer via horse car in Baltimore to the lines heading north from the city. On June 29,1873, the Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel through Baltimore was completed, the PRR started the misleadingly named Pennsylvania Air Line service via the Northern Central Railway and Columbia, Pennsylvania
12.
Erie Railroad
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It expanded west to Chicago with its 1941 merger with the former Atlantic and Great Western Railroad, also known as the New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio Railroad. Its mainline route proved influential in the development and economic growth of the Southern Tier, including such as Binghamton, Elmira. The Erie Railroad repair shops were located in Hornell, and were Hornells largest employer, Hornell was also where Eries main line split into two routes, one north to Buffalo and the other west to Cleveland. On October 17,1960, the Erie merged with the former rival Delaware, the Hornell repair shops were closed, and repair operations moved to the Lackawannas Scranton facility, this had a devastating effect on Hornell from which it has never recovered. Most of the former Erie line between Hornell and Binghamton was destroyed in 1972 by the floods of Hurricane Agnes, what was left of the Erie Lackawanna became part of Conrail in 1976. In 1983, Erie remnants became part of New Jersey Transit rail operations, today, most of the surviving Erie Railroad routes are operated by the Norfolk Southern Railway. The New York and Erie Rail Road was chartered April 24,1832 by Governor of New York, Enos T. Throop to connect the Hudson River at Piermont, north of New York City, west to Lake Erie at Dunkirk. On February 16,1841 the railroad was authorized to cross into the northeast corner of Pennsylvania on the west side of the Delaware River, construction began in 1836, and it opened from Piermont to Goshen on September 23,1841. After some financial problems, construction resumed in August 1846, further extensions opened to Binghamton December 27,1848, Owego January 1,1849, and the full length to Dunkirk May 19,1851. At Dunkirk steamboats continued across Lake Erie to Detroit, Michigan, the line was built as 6 ft wide gauge, this was believed to be a superior technology to standard gauge, providing more stability. In 1848 the railroad built the Starrucca Viaduct, a railroad bridge over Starrucca Creek in Lanesboro. The viaduct is 1,040 feet long,100 feet high and 25 feet wide at the top and it is the oldest stone rail bridge in Pennsylvania still in use. The Eries charter was amended April 8,1845 to allow the building of the Newburgh Branch, running from the line near Harriman north-northeast to Newburgh. The branch opened January 8,1850 and it was later used as a connection to the New York and New England Railroad via a car float operation across the river to Beacon, New York. Through ticketing began in 1851, with a change of cars at Ramapo due to the gauge break. In 1852 the Buffalo and Rochester Railroad, part of the New York Central Railroad system, the alignment from Buffalo to Attica was sold to the Eries Buffalo and New York City Railroad, a reorganization of the Attica and Hornellsville Railroad, and converted to the Eries wide gauge. The extension from Attica southeast to Hornellsville opened on November 17,1852, giving the Erie access to Buffalo, the Erie began operating the Chemung Railroad in 1850, this provided a branch from Horseheads north to Watkins. The Canandaigua and Elmira Railroad opened in 1851 as an extension from Watkins to Canandaigua and was operated by the Erie until 1853
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