THE railroad problem is one of the most complicated and vital questions of the day. Nothing, perhaps, is so typical of the ingenuity, skill and colossal power of our modern civilization as the railroad train—a solitary man holding the lever which controls this tremendous mass of wood and metal, with its freight of goods and passengers rushing past us at the rate of a mile a minute.
The growth of the railroad is one of the greatest marvels of this wonderful century. England got her first road from the Romans in 415 A.D. To move the Roman armies it was necessary to have the “Roman Way,” and the remains of those wonderful works still excite the admiration of all beholders. The dangers and delays of roads in the middle ages, and even in the stage-coaching days of our fathers, beset as they were with difficulties and terrorized by highwaymen, all seem to us to belong to some remote past.
It is a new tribute to the genius of that imperial people who swayed the world in the earlier ages of Christianity that even now, with all our facilities of modern travel, our people are beginning to realize the necessity of roadways approximating those which they constructed. The farmer often has to haul the products of his fields many miles to reach the railway station, and the time and the effort needed to get his wheat or corn over tortuous and defective roadways entails a very serious loss. In many parts of the country the roads in fact are so impassable in certain months that the farmer is unable to transport his grain to the railway at a time, perhaps, when the markets are high, and is forced to hold it until the season opens, and to dispose of it at a much lower price. There is a general awakening of public sentiment to the necessity for improvement in this direction, and for some years to come there will probably be quite as much effort expended in the bettering of country roads as in the further improvement and extension of our already colossal railroad system.
Until the opening of the railway era, commerce and travel followed the natural lines of transportation—the water-ways. There were, it is true, a few exceptional instances like those of the ancient caravan routes which crossed the lines of the great rivers and built up inland cities, but the operation of natural laws in time
prevailed, and these cities fell into ruins, while others sprang up along the coasts and water-ways. Even after the introduction of railways, the cost of transportation thereby was so heavy that the water-ways still commanded the general direction of commerce, and it is only since the wonderful cheapening of railway rates—due to the enormous growth of the traffic and the introduction of more heavily loaded cars and other economies—that the iron way has dominated the water-way and subverted what had been one of the maxims of commercial development from the earliest times.
At the present time, where the question of time is not important, the carriage of passengers and goods by water is so much cheaper than by rail as to survive in competition. Where the passenger’s time is of value, or perishable goods are carried, or the merchant is in a hurry to receive his consignment, the railway, following virtually the shortest distance between the two points—piercing mountains, spanning ravines and crossing the rivers, is, of course, the necessary means of communication. Most of the great cities that have sprung up within the memory of people still living, like those of old, are reared on the sea-coasts or the shores of great lakes, or on the banks of navigable streams, the facilities of transportation by water conspiring to create these centres of activity and industry. Where a number of railroad lines concentrate, a great city may spring up—like Indianapolis; or where great manufacturing facilities exist, as in the juxtaposition of the coal, ore and flux—as at Birmingham, Alabama. But these are comparatively few in number, and have not such limits of expansion as cities which may be reached by water. Aside from their commercial disadvantages, the inland cities present difficult problems, among the most important being that of successful sewage and sanitation.