Why Did Railroads Evolve The United States

People who lived in the East could not travel to the West. That was until railroads started getting built on both sides. Building railroads did have downfalls though, as the building process was very hard on their bodies. It was also very hard to get supplies to the building. Then people invented different types of track to help evolve the building of the railroad systems. Railroads helped evolve the United States into what it is today, despite all the rough patches the Americans faced to make it happen. Beginning in the nineteenth century, railroads were built for a number of reasons. The Americans had always dreamed of moving to get more out of the land. “Now that the West had a railroad, immigrants could realize the American Dream of prosperity
Working on the railroads was very hard on the workers' bodies. The process of building the railroads also took a very long time because it was complicated to get supplies. Every mile of track took a very large amount of railroad ties, and a few tons of metal (“Benson”). Adding to the already long process of building, more and more towns were popping up. This caused the railroad to continue growing so quickly. Wherever the railroad was, the people and towns would follow (“Kimbrough”). Once they started building more and more railroads, the Americans needed something to make the track go more smoothly. “Several other innovations helped foster the growth of railroads between 1840 and 1860. These included T-shaped rails that distributed the weight of trains evenly and hook-headed spikes that grabbed the rail, thus attaching it securely to the crossties” (“Kimbrough”). The railroad system was not evolving enough to keep up with human settlement. Then American citizens started inventing new pieces to help evolve the railroads. These inventions made the building process easier and faster. It also makes the tracks more reliable to travel