The railroad originally was as completely dissociated from steam propulsion as was the ship.

To this end, the Pennsylvania Railroad was incorporated on April 13, 1846, with a franchise permitting the construction of a railroad across the State from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh.

Practically no railroad, even as late as the sixties, was wider than another. They were all single-tracked lines.

When the scheme for the construction of a railroad from Baltimore to the waters of the Ohio River first began to take form, the United States had barely emerged from the Revolutionary period.

The history of the Erie Railroad ever since 1901 has been a record of progress.

In 1831, steam locomotives were tested, and one of them, the York, was found capable of conveying fifteen tons at the rate of fifteen miles an hour on level portions of the road.