How did railroads help the northern economy?

Railroad companies immediately became the most powerful economic actors in the Pacific Northwest, and they toiled to shape its economic development to their benefit. They built or expanded towns, for example, where it best suited (or profited) them, often leaving bypassed sites to wither.



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Steel rails linked the farms and the mills. The railroads provided the efficient, relatively cheap transportation that made both farming and milling profitable. They also carried the foodstuffs and other products that the men and women living on the single-crop bonanza farms needed to live.

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The steel highway improved the lives of millions of city dwellers. By the 1890s, the United States was becoming an urban nation, and railroads supplied cities and towns with food, fuel, building materials, and access to markets. The simple presence of railroads could bring a city economic prosperity.

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In 1860, the North manufactured 97 percent of the country's firearms, 96 percent of its railroad locomotives, 94 percent of its cloth, 93 percent of its pig iron, and over 90 percent of its boots and shoes. The North had twice the density of railroads per square mile.

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As a result, rail transport has many advantages such as high carrying capacity, economy, reliability, environmental impact, safety and independence from traffic congestion. It is a preferred method of transport, especially when large volumes and long-distance cargoes are to be transported.

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In addition to transporting western food crops and raw materials to East Coast markets and manufactured goods from East Coast cities to the West Coast, the railroad also facilitated international trade. The first freight train to travel eastward from California carried a load of Japanese tea.

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BUT, our results also imply that the railroad was the cause of midwestern urbanization, accounting for more than half of the increase in the fraction of population living in urban areas during the 1850s.

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Just as it opened the markets of the west coast and Asia to the east, it brought products of eastern industry to the growing populace beyond the Mississippi. The railroad ensured a production boom, as industry mined the vast resources of the middle and western continent for use in production.

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It made commerce possible on a vast scale. In addition to transporting western food crops and raw materials to East Coast markets and manufactured goods from East Coast cities to the West Coast, the railroad also facilitated international trade.

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The developing railroads rapidly became huge businesses, imperative to the success of American enterprise. The material needs of the railroads helped create several other big industries, such as iron, steel, copper, glass, machine tools, and oil.

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