Niagara Claims that its lift railway over the escarpment was the first. D&H claims that there canal railroad was first and B&O says its railroad was the first. The C&O claimed it was founded by George Washington and the state of Mass says that the temp railroad to build bunker hill was the first. Who is right? All of them?
The D&H claim is for the oldest incorporated transportation company, the B&O the oldest railroad company, the tracks a Bunker HIll the first supposed use of railroad in the US. As for the CSX claim about founded by George Washington, that may well fall between Bunker Hill and D&H or B&O. So, yes, in effect, each claim is right but in different ways and for different reasons.
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The connection between George Washington and the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad comes from his interest in the C&O Canal.
Johnny
The Bunker Hill Granite Railway was built in 1826, but was horse powered.
The Chesapeake and Ohio canal actually wasn't built until after General Washington's death. Some false starts were made during the General's lifetime but stalled due to lack of funding. Washington was a big canal booster as he felt the young United States needed all the means to boost commerce it could get. A canal or two tying the Old Northwest to the Eastern Seaboard would keep the goods of that part of the country from going down the Mississippi to New Oleans giving Spain (who occupied New Orleans at the time) a greater influence on that part of the country than the American government had.
At any rate, the C&O Canal which operated into the 20th Century had no corporate link to the C&O Railroad, so the C&O calling itself "George Washington's Railroad" was a bit of a stretch.
This is NOT to say General Washington wouldn't have loved steam railroads had he lived long enough to see them. He always had a streak of adventure in him he never lost.
I read Wikipedia's description to say that it was actually B&O which bought the canal out of bankruptcy in the early 20th Century.
My memory was that as a young man, George Washington worked as a surveyor in what was then "the wilderness" located in today's states of Virginia, West Virginia, and Ohio; and that the C&O connection was that part of their mainline was built along a path he had surveyed??
Washington didn't actually lay out any pathways, there were trails into the area at the time. The surveys he did were for Lord Faifax's Virginia land holdings (when George was a teenager), and then later after the French and Indian War when he surveyed the land grants given to the veterans of the war.
Having been there though, he did have some definate ideas about what route a canal should take.
Back to the original question: the first scheduled steam railroad as we know it was the South Carolina Railroad, running from Charleston to Hamburg in 1831. Remember the "Best Friend of Charleston"?
No, I think the Best Friend of Charleston was a test on a test track and not a railroad. just like Stevens locomotive in Hoboken, NJ. First, evidently, George Washington had a hand in surveying or mapping out unincorporated lines for what became the C&O Canal and C&O company but not while he was alive. Second, a railroad was used to build the Monument at Bunker HIll in the early 1800's Third, the Delaware and Hudson Canal was incorporated shortly after than (ca 1820?) making it the longest existing transportation company. And fourth, the B&O RR was incorporated ca 1825-30. The rest all came after that. At least I believe that is how historians have laid it out semi officially. Unless one can come up with firmer dates of incorporation and operation, I think that is how it stands.
Henry, do I read you right, saying that the Best Friend of Charleston was not a locomotive used in road service? It was the first locomotive used by the South Carolina Railroad, and it definitely was used in road service until the fireman tired of hearing the steam escaping from the safety valve and tied the valve down--and continued adding wood to the fire box until the pressure rose to the point that the boiler could no longer contain it.
Au contraire Henry, the "Best Friend" was in actual service, it wasn't a test rig on a test track. Now, Colonel John Steven's locomotive, the one he ran in Hoboken NJ in 1812 WAS a demonstrator. Even that early the Colonel was pushing for a steam railroad across New Jersey amd built the locomotive to show it was feasable.
By the way, the "Colonel" wasn't an honorific. John Stevens earned the rank during the Revolutionary War due to a very distinguished combat record, and before he was even 28 years old!
Second place for a locomotive in scheduled service goes to the "DeWitt Clinton" which ran on a predecessor 'road of the New York Central in 1831.
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