The Railway Conquest of the World

ALTHOUGH the first trans-continental railway across the North American continent tapped San Francisco, this was not the route that was advocated in the first instance. Public fancy was inclined rather to the suggestion that the Pacific should be gained more to the north, at the estuary of the Columbia River. This feeling was fostered, no doubt, because that country loomed more prominently in the popular eye, as a result of the famous expedition of Lewis and Clark during the years 1804-6, wherein they trailed across the unknown corner of the continent and gained the Pacific via the Columbia River. The operations of the Hudson Bay Trading Company and its numerous rivals also had served to familiarize the public with this great territory.

It is strange to observe how, directly Stephenson had demonstrated the possibilities of the steam locomotive, imaginative minds drew pictures of stupendous railway- building achievements across great continents, broken up by unscaled mountains and unfathomed broad rivers, as if the building of a track for the iron horse was the same as a child building toy houses with wooden bricks. As a result the North American continent became crisscrossed in all directions by railways -- on paper -- and it was a good thing for the country at the time that these schemes never got any farther than that stage.

Since Huntington succeeded in his first great effort, the country has been spanned by a round dozen lines. Four systems, however, stand out pre-eminently. These are the Northern Pacific and the Great Northern, two lines which, in the first instance, were built after the pioneer manner, and the Western Pacific, and the Milwaukee, St. Paul, and