56:. The tramway was some sixty feet long, had a grade of one inch and a half to the yard, and up it, to the amazement of the spectators, one horse used to draw a four-wheeled wagon loaded with a weight of ten thousand pounds. This was the summer of 1809. Before autumn laborers were at work building a railway from the quarry to the nearest landing, a distance of three quarters of a mile. In the spring of 1810 the road began to be used and continued in using during eighteen years.
341:. After rights to build the canal were initially denied, for 18 years a horse-drawn industrial railroad, the Leiper Railroad, was used to carry stone products from the quarry to the Delaware dock before the opening of the canal. Located close to the University of Pennsylvania, one historian has opined that the idea was not Leiper's but belonged to TBDL and found, who became a noted engineer and steam locomotive builder.
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52:. He was the owner of a fine quarry not far from Philadelphia, and was much concerned to find an easy mode of carrying stone to tide-water. That a railway would accomplish this end he seem to have had no doubt. To test the matter, and at the same time afford a public exhibition of the merits of tramways, he built a temporary track in the yard of the Bull's Head Tavern in
262:, while also in 1827, Maryland and Virginia clear needs and issue the charter and rights-of-ways for the ambitious Baltimore and Ohio — which becomes the (3rd or 4th) next operational railroad (depending upon how Liepers' withdrawal is counted and scored), running tests in 1829 about the time Leiper and Son are shifting from rail to canal and
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about 4%) over its total length of 60 yards (54.9 m) and proves satisfactory when tested with a loaded car. The test track had created quite a scene, so it and the railway begun that year was both studied by nearby Penn students and professors, and was much covered in the press — when the permanent railroad began operations, it
510:"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."
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First, he commissioned a short experimental horse-powered railway in 1809 which proved a horse-drawn heavy wagon heavily loaded could advance successfully against a stiff gradient a bit over 4%. The track, with a 4 feet (1.2 m) gauge, had a grade of 1-1/2 inch to the yard (1 : 24 or
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In the 1930s, a
Harvard economics study observed that post Revolutionary War towns throughout the country experienced phenomenal growth rates, citing 133% per decade as a sustained average growth rate, that continued into the 1920s. This means, for every 1000 citizens, ten years later there were
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From the start of the 1880s, most of the well known, or the individuals commonly thought of as our country's founding fathers, as well as many lesser known men of means and affairs had focused on transportation as being a problem. The 13 colonies had saturated the riverine valleys so far as they
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After the mid-1780s, the historical record shows repeated petitions to allow river improvements or charters for turnpikes and toll roads, so historians can correctly paint the era as either the canal age or the turnpike age. In 1793, the engineers of the
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would support agrarian life-styles in vogue for the times, and industry was building only slowly but blocked by lack of fuels and worse, lack of means to transport it the tens or hundreds of miles it need come if a foundry or mill were to make use of it.
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incorporation and charter to connect New York harbor with
Philadelphia-Trenton by fast railcar service, the first railroad to be 'focused first' on passenger traffic, with the competitive aim of taking on lucrative stagecoach
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just as the world elsewhere was turning to and regularly were considering adopting railways for movement of heavy and bulk goods, as well as people. Then, in 1852, the railway was reopened and it replaced in turn, the
40:. The quarry man's 'make-do' railroad was the continent's first chartered railway, first operational non-temporary railway, first well-documented railroad, and first constructed railroad also meant to be permanent.
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ushers in a flurry of transportation (railroad & canal) incorporations, charter applications, grants and beginnings of construction, and completions of construction and partial or full railway openings.
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beyond the Lehigh Gap—this offered a more efficient use of the canal without jamming up the Summit Hill & Mauch Chunk. This would form the seed company of the first class
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was a
Pennsylvania Militia officer who served during several campaign years, first failing to obtain allowance to build a canal connecting his quarry near
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The B&O opens its first 13 miles (21 km) stretch to
Ellicott's Mills and begins regular scheduled passenger services on schedule, May 24, 1830.
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on April 17, 1826 (c.1826, o:1831), based on the idea it was better to travel an hour instead of a day circuitously on the canal around a waterfall.
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built a test track in 1825 to experimentally settle the great traction debate and runs a steam locomotive around it in his summer home estate,
160:, located a hydraulic cement and generally showed the way forward, and for the next several decades, canals to support commerce such as the
244:, to convey quarried granite for the Bunker Hill monument. It later becomes a common carrier railroad and lasted into the 20th century.
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company on August 8, 1829. Deemed too heavy for the company's rails, it and its three brethren are converted to stationary engines.
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in North
America, and first built by civilians. Ironically, when an 1824 petition finally succeeded, the railroad was replaced by
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As the Leiper Canal was being constructed, a number of other railroad projects of far more ambitious scope were taking the field:
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whereas the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts over chartered the Leiper Railroad's soulmate: the 3 miles (4.8 km) industrial
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This is the distance from the Thomas Leiper House, 521 Avondale Road in
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Gradient calculation: (1.5 X 100) / 36 = 4.16667%. This is steep by mountainous country standards.
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In the meantime, New York chartered the 16-mile route between Albany and
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was on every-day operational display in the nation's largest, and most industrialized city.
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562:. Nether Providence Historical Society. Archived from the original on January 26, 2001
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A History of the People of the United States, from the
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A History of the People of the United States, from the Revolution to the Civil War
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A History of the People of the United States from the Revolution to the Civil War
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It operated regularly as a private carrier between 1810 and 1828 in what is now
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A Brief Review of Railroad History from the Earliest Period to the Year 1894
599:. York, Pennsylvania: American Canal and Transportation Center. p. 74.
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The tramway became a shortline branch of the B&O railroad in the 1880s.
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Efforts were made in the 1930s to preserve the remnants of the railroad.
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of 0.75 miles (1.21 km), constructed in 1810 after the quarry owner,
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in 1970. The Thomas Leiper House has been turned into a public museum in
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The Transfer of Pioneering British Railroad Technology to North America
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The Transfer of Pioneering British Railroad Technology to North America
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which intended to crawl over the Alleghenies with barges on a railroad,
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Map showing Crum Creek, Pennsylvania (2023 boundary of Philadelphia)
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Impossible Challenge: The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in Maryland
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682:. delcohistory.org. Archived from the original on January 16, 2000
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126:(Penn) within Philadelphia itself, so the railroad became the
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Railroad Magazine September 1938, at pp. 120-21 (with photo).
460:. New York and London: D. Appleton and Company. p. 494.
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imported into the USA, is tested along tracks built by the
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The Amazing Pennsylvania Canals, 150th Anniversary Edition
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The credit of constructing the first permanent tramway in
508:, Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum;
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Pennsylvania's second private charter was given to the
493:, Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum
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first 'meant to be permanent' and documented railway
258:built and began operating the 9 miles (14 km)
199:Pennsylvania's second charter was included in the
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260:Summit Hill and Mauch Chunk Railroad
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218:. In 1830, this would result in the
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525:. Baltimore, MD: Barnard, Roberts.
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48:may therefore be rightly given to
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521:Harwood, Jr., Herbert H. (1979).
418:Oldest railroads in North America
321:Built two decades into the brief
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58:by John Bach McMaster, page 494,
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170:Chesapeake and Ohio Canal
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502:Gamst, Frederick C.;
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370:39.85778°N 75.32056°W
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547:Crum Creek
429:References
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360:75°19′14″W
357:39°51′28″N
327:Crum Creek
311:Parryville
240:opened in
186:Erie Canal
83:Crum Creek
38:Crum Creek
631:March 20,
223:services.
94:tidewater
696:cite web
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466:13020148
412:See also
271:, first
26:railroad
46:America
20:was a '
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164:, the
148:2330.
66:Leiper
301:from
702:link
688:2008
633:2009
601:ISBN
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462:LCCN
396:The
283:1830
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
