Several railroads have been called the oldest in North America. References for the list of railroads below are: (1) a thoroughly researched article by Professor Frederick C. Gamst of the University of Massachusetts in Boston entitled The Transfer of Pioneering British Railroad Technology to North America.[1] In this article, Professor Gamst documents the earliest railroads and a brief history for each one. (2) Railroads and Canals of the United States of America by Henry V. Poor[2]. While this book only covers New England and the Mid-Atlantic states, Henry V. Poor is well known for his Poor's Railroad Manuals and for being the Poor's in the Standard and Poor's 500 Stock Index. (3) The U. S. Census Bureau with reports covering Railroads in 1860[3] and 1880.[4] The 1860 report covers all railroads in existence between 1850 and 1860. The 1880 report gives a history of railroad construction going back to 1830. Unfortunately, the Census Bureau did not cover special purpose railroads constructed primarily for transporting raw materials from mines and quarries such as coal and granite. For those railroads, we must reference the first two sources.
1795: A wooden railway on Beacon Hill in Boston carried excavations down the hill to clear the land for the State House.
1799: Boston developers begin to reduce the height of Mount Vernon, prior to building streets and homes. Silas Whitney constructs a gravity railroad to move excavated material down the hill to fill marshy areas to create new land from the Back Bay.[6]
1809: In September an experimental railroad was built next to a Philadelphia tavern by a millwright named Somerville. The track, built for Thomas Leiper, has a grade of 1-1/2 inch to the yard (about 4 %) over its total length (60 yards) and proves satisfactory when tested with a loaded car.[7]
1811: George Magers designs and builds a 1-mile wooden gravity railroad between a gunpowder mill and its powder storage bunker at Falling's Creek, Virginia.[8]
1815: New Jersey grants a charter on February 6, 1815 for a company to "erect a rail-road from the river Delaware near Trenton, to the river Raritan, at or near New Brunswick", as proposed by John Stevens (1749-1838). This was the first railroad chartered in the United States, but the New Jersey Railroad Company never built the railway due to an inability to attract financial investors.
1830: The Union Canal Company Railroad(map) was a 3.5 mile railroad constructed by the Union Canal (Pennsylvania) Company and was chartered on March 3, 1826. The company was in the canal business, but due to the topography, they could not extend their canal to the coal fields north of Pine Grove, Pennsylvania. Their solution was to build this short coal hauling railroad which was completed in 1830.
1832: The Camden and Amboy Rail Road and Transportation Company(map) was chartered on February 4, 1830, to connect the Delaware River, serving Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with the Raritan River, for access to New York City. This was done in conjunction with the Delaware and Raritan Canal Company. The C&A was organized on April 28 in Camden, and surveys began June 16. Construction began December 4, 1830 at Bordentown on the Delaware River, with rails and locomotives imported from England. The first 14 mile section from Bordentown to Hightstown opened in October, 1832 and was extended to South Amboy, a distance of 22 miles, two months later. [7]
1834: The Long Island Rail Road(map) is opened, but actual operations do not begin until 1836. Due to this date, it is the oldest continually operating railroad in the world.
