Oldest railroads in North America explained

This is a list of the earliest railroads in North America, including various railroad-like precursors to the general modern form of a company or government agency operating locomotive-drawn trains on metal tracks.

Railroad-like entities (1700s–1810s)

Early railroad companies (1820s–1830s)

Granite, coal and cotton railroads

Early common carriers (1820s–1830s)

While private railroads are legally free to choose their jobs and customers, common carriers must charge fair rates to all comers.

Any effort to arrange early common-carrier railroads in chronological order must choose among various possible criterion dates, including applying for a state charter, receiving a charter, forming a company to build a railroad, beginning construction, opening operations, and so forth.

NameCharteredStateOpenedNotes
Union Canal Company of PennsylvaniaPennsylvaniaChartered on May 30, 1811, to build a canal; authorized to build a railroad on March 3, 1826
Granite RailwayMassachusettsOnly authorized to carry freight until April 16, 1846
Delaware and Hudson Canal CompanyPennsylvaniaChartered on March 13, 1823, to build a canal; authorized to build a railroad on April 5, 1826
Danville and Pottsville RailroadPennsylvania
Mohawk and Hudson RailroadNew YorkCarried only passengers for first few years of operation due to competition from the adjacent Erie Canal.
Baltimore and Ohio RailroadMarylandFirst common carrier in the United States, chartered from its inception to haul freight and passengers on timetabled trains over vast distances with steam power, first to open for public service
South Carolina Canal and Railroad CompanySouth CarolinaOperated first steam hauled passenger train in the United States on a schedule. Known to the public as the Charleston & Hamburg Railroad.
Ithaca and Owego RailroadNew York
Mill Creek and Mine Hill Navigation and Railroad CompanyPennsylvania
Tioga Navigation CompanyPennsylvaniaChartered on February 20, 1826, to build a canal or slack-water navigation; authorized to build a railroad on February 7, 1828
Baltimore and Susquehanna RailroadMaryland
Chesterfield RailroadVirginia
New Castle and Frenchtown Turnpike and Railroad CompanyMarylandChartered on January 6, 1810, as the New Castle and Frenchtown Turnpike Company to build a turnpike; renamed and authorized to build a railroad on March 14, 1828
Philadelphia and Columbia RailroadPennsylvaniaPart of the state-owned Main Line of Public Works
Schuylkill Valley Navigation CompanyPennsylvaniaChartered on March 20, 1827, to build a canal; authorized to build a railroad on April 14, 1828; renamed Schuylkill Valley Navigation and Railroad Company on January 15, 1829
Schuylkill East Branch Navigation CompanyPennsylvaniaChartered on February 20, 1826, to build a lock navigation; authorized to build a railroad on April 14, 1828; renamed Little Schuylkill Navigation, Railroad and Coal Company on April 23, 1829
Mine Hill and Schuylkill Haven RailroadPennsylvania
Northern Liberties and Penn Township RailroadPennsylvania
Mount Carbon RailroadPennsylvania
Tuscumbia RailwayAlabama
Pontchartrain RailroadLouisiana
Lexington and Ohio RailroadKentucky
Camden and Amboy Railroad and Transportation CompanyNew Jersey
Petersburg RailroadVirginia
Lykens Valley Railroad and Coal CompanyPennsylvania
Beaver Meadow Railroad and Coal CompanyPennsylvania
Canajoharie and Catskill RailroadNew York
Boston and Lowell RailroadMassachusetts
Petersburg RailroadNorth Carolina
Paterson and Hudson River RailroadNew Jersey
Elizabethtown and Somerville RailroadNew Jersey
Saratoga and Schenectady RailroadNew York
West Chester RailroadPennsylvania
West Feliciana RailroadLouisiana
Philadelphia and Columbia RailroadPennsylvaniaPart of the state-owned Main Line of Public Works
Southwark RailroadPennsylvania
Cumberland Valley RailroadPennsylvania
Philadelphia and Delaware County RailroadPennsylvaniaRenamed Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad on March 14, 1836
Philadelphia, Germantown and Norristown RailroadPennsylvaniaFirst common carrier in Pennsylvania. Earlier railroads were operated to haul minerals like coal and iron, but later in the decade would become modern common carrier systems hauling passengers and public goods.
Winchester and Potomac RailroadVirginia (now partially West Virginia)
New York and Harlem RailroadNew York
Boston and Providence RailroadMassachusetts
Boston and Worcester RailroadMassachusetts
Clinton and Vicksburg RailroadMississippiReorganized by the Commercial and Railroad Bank of Vicksburg on 25 December 1833. Reorganized on 9 March 1850 as the Vicksburg and Jackson Railroad. Reorganized in January 1857 as the Southern Railroad of Mississippi. Reorganized on 28 January 1867 as the Vicksburg and Meridian Railroad. On 22 October 1885, the five foot gauge of the entire line from Meridian to Vicksburg, 152 miles including sidings, was changed to standard gauge of 4 feet 6 inches in about 16 hours. From 1889 the Meridian-Vicksburg Railway line was known as the Alabama & Vicksburg Railway line of the Queen and Crescent Route.[26]
Mad River and Lake Erie RailroadOhio
Tuscumbia, Courtland and Decatur RailroadAlabama
Wilmington and Susquehanna RailroadDelaware
Lawrenceburg and Indianapolis RailroadIndiana
Ohio and Indianapolis RailroadIndianaRenamed Jeffersonville Railroad on February 3, 1849
Philadelphia and Trenton RailroadPennsylvania
Baltimore and Port Deposit RailroadMaryland
New Jersey Railroad and Transportation CompanyNew Jersey
Portsmouth and Roanoke RailroadVirginia
New Jersey, Hudson and Delaware RailroadNew JerseyMerged into the New Jersey Midland Railway on April 26, 1870
Franklin RailroadPennsylvania
Delaware and Maryland RailroadMarylandMerged into the Wilmington and Susquehanna Railroad on April 18, 1836
York and Maryland Line RailroadPennsylvania
Liggett's Gap RailroadPennsylvaniaRenamed Lackawanna and Western Railroad on April 14, 1851
Rensselaer and Saratoga RailroadNew York
Saratoga and Fort Edward RailroadNew YorkReorganized as the Saratoga and Washington Railroad on May 2, 1834
New York and Albany RailroadNew YorkSold to the New York and Harlem Railroad on March 9, 1846
Watertown and Rome RailroadNew York
Tonawanda RailroadNew York
New York and Erie RailroadNew York
Brooklyn and Jamaica RailroadNew YorkLeased by the Long Island Rail Road from opening
Hudson and Berkshire RailroadNew York
Boston, Norwich and New London RailroadConnecticutMerged into the Norwich and Worcester Railroad on June 22, 1836
New York and Stonington RailroadConnecticutMerged into the New York, Providence and Boston Railroad on July 1, 1833
Portsmouth and Lancaster RailroadPennsylvaniaRenamed Harrisburg, Portsmouth, Mountjoy and Lancaster Railroad on March 11, 1835
Williamsport and Elmira RailroadPennsylvania
Strasburg Rail RoadPennsylvaniaStill in operation as a shortline freight hauler and tourist railroad. Recognized as the oldest, continuously operating railroad in the United States as it still operates under its original 1832 charter.
New York, Providence and Boston RailroadRhode Island
Detroit and St. Joseph RailroadMichiganSold to the Central Railroad of Michigan on April 22, 1837

Selected railroads chartered since 1832:

Tunnels and bridges

West of the Mississippi River

See also

External links

Specific railroads

Notes and References

  1. Book: Brown, Robert R.. Canada's Earliest Railway Lines . October 1949. Railway & Locomotive Historical Society Bulletin #78.
  2. http://historiclewiston.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06//the_cradles_tramway_placemat.pdf Text online of placement commemorating historic railroad.
  3. Web site: Archived copy . 2010-03-11 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110726151554/http://historiclewiston.org/downloads/the_cradles_tramway_placemat.pdf . 2011-07-26 . dead .
  4. Book: Whitehill, Walter Muir. Boston - A Topographical History . 1959 . Harvard University Press. 62.
  5. Gamst, Frederick C.;, Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum; "First, in 1795 on Boston's Beacon Hill, a wooden railway of about a two-foot gauge in the form of a double-track inclined plane took earth removed from the top of the hill to its base. This excavation prepared a level area for the new State House of 1798, designed by the architect and construction engineer Charles Bulfinch."
  6. Web site: Leiper Railway Historical Marker . www.explorepahistory.com . WITF, Inc. . 3 November 2022.
  7. Gamst observes Bullfinch probably employed a similar technically-savvy individual familiar with British technologies to oversee construction and the relatively frenetic funicular operations of the Boston Back Bay railroads.
  8. Book: Dunbar, Seymour. A History of Travel in America. 876–7.
  9. Book: Dunbar. quoting Thomas McKibben of Baltimore in the American Engineer, 1886. 878–9.
  10. Book: Dunbar. 880.
  11. Railroads and Canals of the United States of America by Henry V. Poor (New York: John H. Schultz & Co, 1860), page 85 https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=M0YKAAAAIAAJ
  12. http://www.donrittner.com/his310.html American Railroading Began Here
  13. Railroads of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company: GROUP IX . Heydinger . Earl J. . Railway and Locomotive Historical Society . 1964 . . 110 . 110 . 59–62 . 43518101 . THE MAUCH CHUNK RAILROAD: Pennsylvania's first railroad and first anthracite carrier opened on Saturday, May 5th, 1827, when seven cars of coal passed from the Summit Hill mines of the L. C. & N. Company to their canal at Mauch Chunk, descending 936 feet in the nine-mile trip. Sixteen-year-old Solomon White Roberts, later a noted railroad engineer, who had helped his uncle, Josiah White, build the railroad, rode the first delivery of coal by rail. Loaded cars made the trip in a half-hour; mules returned three or four empties over the same route in three to four hours. Evidently the line had only seven (or twenty-one) coal cars at the opening, as that number brought coal to the canal on the following Monday and Tuesday also. These three days' deliveries, twenty-one cars, deposited nearly a thousand tons of anthracite into a chute over the canal boat landing. Loaded cars descending drew empties from the bottom of this chute on a self-acting plane. Built in a period of four months, on a turnpike previously used for coal wagons, the line, 12-1/2, miles with sidings, cost $38,726. Ties were on four-foot centers; strap rail was ⅜" x 1½"..
  14. Railroads and Canals of the United States of America by Henry V. Poor (New York: John H. Schultz & Co, 1860), pages 415,537 https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=M0YKAAAAIAAJ
  15. Book: . History of Carbon County Pennsylvania . 1884. Fred Brenckman, Official Commonwealth Historian. Harrisburg, Pa., J.J. Nungesser . 2nd .
  16. Book: . Bartholomew. Ann M. . Metz. Lance E. . Kneis. Michael . 1989 . DELAWARE and LEHIGH CANALS, 158 pages . en . First . Oak Printing Company, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania . . 1989 . 0930973097 . 89-25150 . 4–5 .
  17. Bartholomew makes the point this "monotonically even descent grade" over such a length was an engineering first, not only in North America, but also in European road construction of any kind.
  18. Railroads and Canals of the United States of America by Henry V. Poor (New York: John H. Schultz & Co, 1860), page 415 https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=M0YKAAAAIAAJ
  19. in The Transfer of Pioneering British Railroad Technology to North America by Frederick C. Gamst, University of Massachusetts, Boston http://cprr.org/Museum/First_US_Railroads_Gamst.html
  20. Railroads and Canals of the United States of America by Henry V. Poor (New York: John H. Schultz & Co, 1860), page 459 https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=M0YKAAAAIAAJ
  21. Railroads and Canals of the United States of America by Henry V. Poor (New York: John H. Schultz & Co, 1860), page 501 https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=M0YKAAAAIAAJ
  22. http://www.cityoftuscumbia.org/Our_History/index.html Welcome to Tuscumbia, Alabama - You Should See Us Now!!
  23. Railroads and Canals of the United States of America by Henry V. Poor (New York: John H. Schultz & Co, 1860), page 462 https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=M0YKAAAAIAAJ
  24. Railroads and Canals of the United States of America by Henry V. Poor (New York: John H. Schultz & Co, 1860), page 460 https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=M0YKAAAAIAAJ
  25. Development of Early Transportation Systems in the United States by J.L. Ringwalt (Philadelphia: Railway World Office, 1888), (RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION FROM 1830 TO 1840)http://catskillarchive.com/rrextra/abrw05.Html
  26. https://www.meridianspeedway.net/history-of-the-av.html Meridian Speedway History
  27. ExplorePAHistory.com Historical Marker Allegheny Portage Railroad
  28. ExplorePAHistory.com Historical Marker Service began on wooden rails.
  29. http://www.tnonline.com/2012/jul/13/3800-ft-lansford-hauto-tunnel-engineering-marvel Lansford-Hauto tunnel called an engineering marvel
  30. https://archive.today/20130909070133/https://sphotos-a-lga.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc1/297306_137372699687990_4401759_n.jpg Facebook image of legal notice of sale
  31. http://www.csa-railroads.com/Red_River.htm Red River Railroad