What happened to the number of railroads between 1870 and 1890?
The caption on this map says that the amount of railroad tracks in the U.S. tripled between 1870 and 1890. National Geographic chose to display this information with two historical maps.
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Railroads Built in the Late 1800s. Between 1870 and 1890, the amount of railroad track in the United States tripled, dramatically changing the U.S. Although trains traveled slowly by today's standards, they sped along the tracks more quickly than anyone could have imagined a century before.
The Railroad Act of 1862 put government support behind the transcontinental railroad and helped create the Union Pacific Railroad, which subsequently joined with the Central Pacific at Promontory, Utah, on May 10, 1869, and signaled the linking of the continent.
Misguided railroad regulation was a major factor behind the rail industry's decline. For example, the ICC set maximum and minimum rates for rail shipments, with rates often unrelated to costs or demand.
By 1870 already a total of 52,900 miles of railroads existed in the United States, with 1,350 miles in Missouri and 660 in Kansas, but none lay within Oklahoma.
Railroads discriminated in the prices they charged to passengers and shippers in different localities by providing rebates to large shippers or buyers. These practices were especially harmful to American farmers, who lacked the shipment volume necessary to obtain more favorable rates.
By 1920 the United States possessed the most extensive railroad network in the world, with more than 250,000 miles of track. The railroads faced increasing problems, however, including the aftereffects of government operation during World War I, increased labor unrest, and growing competition from highway traffic.
The U.S.'s first transcontinental railroad was built between 1863 and 1869 to join the eastern and western halves of the United States. Begun just before the American Civil War, its construction was considered to be one of the greatest American technological feats of the 19th century.