How many miles of track was laid by 1890?

The building boom peaked during the 1880's, during the height of the Gilded Age. As historian John F. Stover notes in his book, The Routledge Historical Atlas Of The American Railroads, a staggering 70,400 miles was laid down between 1880 and 1890 with total mileage growing from 93,200 to 163,600!



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By 1860, 30,000 miles (49,000 km) of railroad tracks had been laid, with 21,300 miles (34,000 km) concentrated in the northeast. The Baltimore and Ohio railroad was the first chartered railroad in the United States and was built to increase the flow of goods between Baltimore and Ohio.

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A new mode of transportation took root (interurbans). Labor made a greater push for fair working conditions. A locomotive reached speeds beyond 100 mph (New York Central & Hudson River 4-4-0 #999, which attained a speed of 112.5 miles per hour on May 9, 1893) The mighty Southern Railway was born.

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The immensity of the American rail system can be illustrated by one fact. The Civil War was fought between two sides that controlled the largest and third largest railroad system in the world. The largest was the Union at 21,000, miles followed by Britain at 10,000 miles and third was the Confederacy at 9,000 miles.

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Beginning in the early 1870s, railroad construction in the United States increased dramatically. Prior to 1871, approximately 45,000 miles of track had been laid. Between 1871 and 1900, another 170,000 miles were added to the nation's growing railroad system.

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Soon joining the B & O as operating lines were the Mohawk and Hudson, opened in September 1830, the Saratoga, opened in July 1832, and the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company, whose 136 miles of track, completed to Hamburg, constituted, in 1833, the longest steam railroad in the world.

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Historic Strasburg takes pride in the fact that its railroad is the oldest continuously operating short-line railroad in America.

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According to Wikipedia there are 149,910 kilometers of rail track in the United States (although many other sources say it is much larger at 226,000 kilometers or 140,000 miles).

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Stung by the Union Pacific's record of eight miles of track laid in a single day, the Central Pacific concocted a plan to lay 10 miles in a day. Eight Irish tracklayers put down 3,520 rails, while other workers laid 25,800 ties and drove 28,160 spikes in a single day.

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