A railway map of the United States shows that most parts of our
country have a thickly woven net of railroads. The mileage of our
railroad lines is now 184,000 miles, the actual length of track on
these roads being about 245,000 miles. The significance of these large
figures becomes more manifest when a comparison is made between the
length of our railroads and the length of those of Europe and those of
the world. The railroads in the United States comprise over four
ninths of the total railway mileage of the world, and are considerably
longer than the railroads of all the countries of Europe combined. The
facts are shown graphically by the following diagram:
Mileage in Europe 155,000
Mileage in U. S. 184,000
Total for the World 434,000
The history of the construction of American railroads covers a period
of seventy years. The greater part of our mileage has been built
since 1870. The following table and diagram illustrate the growth of
our railway net during each decade:
Year | Miles
------|--------
1830 | 23
1840 | 2,800
1850 | 9,000
1860 | 30,600
1870 | 53,000
1880 | 90,300
1890 | 163,600
1898 | 184,000
It will be noted that the decades of most rapid railway development
were the one from 1850 to 1860, following the discovery of gold in
California, and the two between 1870 and 1890. We added 70,000 miles
to our railway net between 1880 and 1890--a record that no other
country has equalled. By 1892 we seem to have met the more urgent
demands for new lines, and we are now annually building less than 2000
miles of new roads. The face value of the capital now invested in
American railroads is $11,000,000,000. The number of persons employed
in the railway service is 850,000.