Railroad Eclipse a National Road - Baltimore, Maryland
Posted by: flyingmoose
N 39° 17.117 W 076° 37.910
18S E 359262 N 4349704
Located next to the parking lot at the B&O Museum on the eastbound side of West Pratt Street.
Waymark Code: WM13VD2
Location: Maryland, United States
Date Posted: 02/22/2021
Views: 3
Railroad Eclipse a National Road
"Thus will scientific power conquer space."
For several decades in the early 1800s, thousands of Conestoga Wagons, "ships of inland commerce," rules the National Road. With their sloping bodies, wheels taller than a man and six-horse teams skillfully maneuvered with a single "jerk line," they could carry up to eight tons of freight. The railroad, a Baltimore-borne transportation revolution, soon put them out of business, along with the taverns, livery stables, wheelwrights, and blacksmiths that served them.
In 18030, the National Road was still under construction when here, from the Roundhouse, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad introduced the first regular freight and passenger service in the United States. By 1852, the B&O spent $15 million to lay track as far as the Ohio River. Freight and travel time was cut in half. The "national road" was now on rails.