The Continental Railroad System In The Late 19th Century

One of America's greatest feat was the continental railroad system developed/finished in the late nineteenth century. During this time it was very crucial for America to link states or territories as much as they could. This would speed the process up of traveling across the country in an exponential rate. “By the end of the construction of the continental railroad there was approximately two-hundred and fifteen thousand total miles made up of tracks in the US.” (S1) This made it paramount to travel across the country and transporting goods as well to other settlements that lied in the west. “Traveling forty miles by foot/carriage would of took all day, but these locomotive could turn a long journey day of travel into a mere couple hours. Roughly the locomotives
could travel around a whopping seventeen mile within an hour insanely speeding the travel distance with less time.” (S2) That wasn’t just the only thing that was significant that occurred during the transition of the railroad stage.
It also lowered the price of transporting goods by carriage. “Originally Americans saw these new locomotives in New England where they found out that drop shipping by carriage around sixty to seventy percent in total.” (S2) It also helped new settlements connect to current and already populated cities. This would give them connection to help grow their settlements and get people to move out while taking a big risk. It will also allowed these urban areas to conduct business, such as, farming and selling to bigger cities. Both would profit from this and the farmer would have source of income and city folk who have a source of production of food. Meaning the economy would profit off of this. “The economy would gain so much that with a short time they would be ten times more profitable than in the past.” (S3) It also gave many people jobs all over America as well. During this time Americans were looking to journey and see new things. By taking the job to work on the railroad they would be able to experience the central part of America. The progression of the railroad would pave numerous pros for America such as; civilian transportation, livestock, or even goods to far distance in short
amount of time. Speaking of time it would also help create the timezones preventing the confusion between point A and point B from communication of departments and also arrivals.
The biggest thing to take from it helped us gain unity and find a way to connect and spread American live across the country. Without the continental railroad smaller urban areas would have parish or slowly stabilized over time if they were successful. The railroad would give these small town some traction of people whom were just passing by. Utterly they would prove outsiders with housing, substances, and other necessities if they had the money to provide for these essentials. This was one thing America desperately need during this time because of the fact we were traveling further away from each other and we need to keep in contact in order to function as a society. The continental railroad was such a bigger fact in American history that without it today would be completely different than we know it.