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Railroads are central in the history of Georgia. Explore 200 years of railroad expansion and consolidation in this must-read for railroad and Georgia history fans.

Before the start of the Civil War, Georgia had ten railroads, five of which figured significantly in General William T. Sherman's Atlanta Campaign and March to the Sea.

The number of rail lines in the state ballooned after the war. Many were founded by individual entrepreneurs like Henry Plant and Thomas Clyde, while the biggest railroad of them all (Southern Railway) was created out of whole cloth by New York financier J.P. Morgan. At the close of the nineteenth century, consolidation was already in process, and by the end of the next century, only three significant railroads remained in Georgia.

Author and historian Robert C. Jones examines Georgia's rail history over the past two centuries and today.

Dominated by Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island's scenic coast is paralleled by the tracks of some of the oldest and now fastest railroads in the United States. With determination and ingenuity, early civil engineers overcame barriers such as the Great Swamp, which stretches from Kingston to Westerly. The state's key position at the intersection of trade routes and between the major population centers of New England also shaped the placement of its railroads, as well as their dynamic character. Tour the state's historic railways with longtime railfan and railroad historian Frank Heppner. From the Stonington Line to the Boston and Providence Railroad, speed along the pioneer tracks in Rhode Island.

The Little Miami Rail Road did not exist twelve years since--nor any other railway in the Valley of the Ohio--but now it is here, to take you on your journey with all the speed, comfort and convenience of any such road, in any country; and there are three thousand miles of railway in this valley! Year after year hundreds of miles are added to the number, and where it once took weeks to accomplish a journey, it now takes only hours! What a revolution! But the revolution is not in the gain of time only, nor even money. The great change is in society. Thousands meet now where tens could meet twenty years since. Look through these cars, and you see around, men, women and children going to see friends, or transact business, or seeking pleasure, where they would not have dreamed of going a few years since. Some are going only to the next town; some to the Lakes; some to the Atlantic; some to Europe; --and some, perhaps, will wander through old Jerusalem, or by the banks of Jordan, before they will again return. The Railroad and the Steamboat have made man almost ubiquitous on this little earth, and his fondness for novelty and change is gratified beyond the dreams of fancy. Where will this stop? No where, till this earth is inhabited by one family, dwelling together in peace and unity.

It has been the intention of the writer to present a brief history of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad from its inception in 1826 until its completion to Wheeling in January, 1853. The monograph has been designed as a study in the economics of transportation, and stress has been laid upon the influence of the railroad in the development of the industryand commerce of the city of Baltimore, and of the agricultural, mineral and manufacturing resources of the state of Maryland. The Baltimore and Ohio having been the first great through-route railroad projected in America, has naturally an important place in the regard of the student of transportation. The beginnings of some of the present difficult railroad problems appear in the history of this road, and these have not only been treated incidentally as they appeared in connection with the legislative, financial and mechanical history of the railroad, but have been summarized in the final chapter.

You remember that at Paris but three of the buildings were open in the evening. Here every one of the great halls is open and aglow with light. In all but the Fine Arts, the Administration, and the Woman's Building arc lights are employed. In Machinery Hall there are six hundred; in Agricultural Hall, six hundred; in the Electric Building, four hundred; in the Mines and Mining Building, four hundred; in the Transportation Building, four hundred and fifty; in Horticultural Hall, four hundred; in the Forestry Building, one hundred and fifty; and in the Great Palace of the Liberal Arts, two thousand. Twelve thousand incandescent lamps light the Fine Arts Building; ten thousand more are ablaze in the Administration Building; and in the Woman's Building there are one hundred and eighty arc lights and twenty-seven hundred incandescent lamps. When at length you approach the Grand Avenue the scene becomes more and more beautiful. Every window and archway of the great edifices here are sending out broad columns of light, illuminated fountains are throwing aloft their brilliant-hued waters, groups of white statuary stand out in bold and striking outline against the black shadows, and the golden ornaments of the entrances to the several mammoth piles facing the Grand Canal flash and glitter in the flood of dazzling effulgence.