Before the Railroad

I think this is interesting.

It details how freight was moved from the steamboats on the Missouri River west to places such as Denver and Salt Lake City before the railroad was built. Please note the use of common railroad terms such as “Conductor” and “Trainman” to refer to the wagon train’s crew.

I’m particularly insterested in how railroads fit in to the overall economy, specifically how they enhance it. The rates the wagon freighters charged were sky high. To the order of $25.00/cwt. That would be $0.25/pound on coffee, or any other commodity. In 1860 dollars. And that’s just to haul it west from the Missouri River.

http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=historydiss

It all comes down to energy use to transport. Steel wheels on steel rails used a lot less energy for transport than horses and carts over dirt trails. Less energy = faster transit time and lower costs.

But that is only after the much higher cost of building those steel wheels and steel rails – the cost of the infrastructure. How should those costs get figured into the calculations?

And isn’t that the heart of so many discussions on these (and other rail-related) forums, whether about HSR, or long-distance rail, or the history of the transcontinental railroads?

HSR is a proven money pit.

Why don’t you surprise me and post that you’ve actually taken and passed an accounting class. I don’t think you have, but you want to talk about cost accounting. I could be wrong, so why don’t you surprise me and tell me if you have actually taken and passed some form of accounting class.

The initial cost of construction would be capitalized and then… Oh never mind. Have you any background in accounting for costs?

ken: Back to your interesting initial post. Sounds like the makings of a good dissertation in economic history. Without the transcons, i wonder how the growth patterns in the West would have been different? It would also be interesting to see how much, if any, of the cost of building the transcons (other than the GN) was subsidized to the degree that a percentage (how much?) did not need to be paid off by gross profit on operations.

That is a neat look into the past, with lots of detail and nuances. Thanks for sharing it !

When I was in high school, I wrote a book report of an academic book on the history of the canal systems, and how they could have stayed competitive with the railroads. I was real curious about that assertion and how it could have been supported and gotten past peer review to be published. The key was that the author based his thesis on a reasonable speed for the mules, mule skinner, and canal boats as being 14 MPH ! Pointing out that fallacy earned me an “A” - it surely helped that my teacher was a Boy Scout troop leader/ Scoutmaster, and so very cognizant of what that would have meant in the real world. Evidently the academics didn’t understand - perhaps a day with the mules at 14 MPH would have educated them . . . [:-^]

  • Paul North.

greyhounds –

Yes, I have taken an accounting class. Even a cost accounting class. How about an MBA with emphasis in accounting, and a CPA (passed the entire exam in my first sitting). Enough accounting for you? I know about how to account for the initial and on-going costs.

The issue I was trying to point to, is that development and infrastructure maintenance costs have to come into play, as well as the “how efficient is steel wheel on steel rail” operating anaylsis.

It seems to me that the history of the early railroad development vs. its competition at the time (wagons, steamships, riverboats, and canal boats), might give us some insight on today’s issues, such as Amtrak vs MegaBus, or RRs vs. air vs. highway transport in general – or yes, even the question of proven money pit development (oops, I mean HSR).

I find your initial post very intriguing. I too am interested in how railroads fit in to the overall economy, both historically and today. And, I would like to take the lessons of history and try to apply the learnings from those experiences to today’s problems. I’m sorry if I offended you.

I don’t understand why there is this debate. Didn’t we all have grade and high school history? Haven’t we all been interested in railroading enough to have read some of the many books about the histories of railroads and/or the histories of our favorite or local railroads? Is so we should be able to sift out the historic need for any given piece of track plus the historic return on that investment be it private enterprised or government supported. Likewise we should have an understanding of how rail, road, water, and air transportation systems work together and against each other. Without being MBA’s or CPA’s, we should see there are correlations. Without doctorates in history we should be able to see that being able to transport raw materials, manufactured products, and people spurs economic development in more than just one place. Those of us here not understanding these principals should go back a read or reread the likes of Jensen’s American Railroads, histories of the transcontenentals, the story of your favorite railroad, and the comings and goings and demise of your local short line. Without having read these histories we are just throwing contemporary political epithets at each other. READ HISTORY. Then talk.

I think that is a fair point. As mentioned, the number-one virtue of railroads is low friction. The number-one drawback is the amount of capital it takes to achieve that low friction. For that matter, water transport probably has even lower friction, but only at the lowest speeds. We want high speed and low friction, and some routes have enough potential traffic to justify a railroad. Other routes only justify a highway.

Here’s an interesting and fairly short webpage on this subject, at the U.S. DOT’s Federal Highway Administration’s website:

ECONOMIC RETURNS FROM TRANSPORTATION INVESTMENT: NINETEENTH CENTURY EXPERIENCES AND CONTEMPORARY ISSUES

by Charles David Jacobson, Morgan, Angel & Associates

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/otps/060320a/appb.htm

Perhaps the book I referenced above is this one:

Fogel, Robert William Railroads and American Economic Growth: Essays in Econometric History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1964)

  • Paul North.

EDIT: This is too much fun ! Here are a couple links to more and pertinent info on this:

At a webpage of the “Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science” (whatever that is ?):

Pro: “Robert W. Fogel: The Argument for Wagons and Canals, 1964 - By John Corbett” - http://www.csiss.org/classics/content/19

Con: “Railroad Redux” at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis’ website at: http://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications_papers/pub_display.cfm?id=3418

I particularly like the lead-off quote by Thomas Curtis Clarke, 1889 . . . [swg]

A lot of this ought to be of interest to Railway Man, as it appears to corroborate his assertion that the primary transportation market, function, and volumes of even the long-haul railroads in the late 1800’s was mainly local/ regional - say, up to 150 miles or so - and not transcontinental traffic.

  • PDN.

I respectfully disagree. The primary virtue of railroads is their self-guiding technology, which enables aggregating many different loads into a train, with only a single (or very few) for a crew. The resulting huge savings in labor costs outweighs the lower friction advantage. Imagine a train of horse-drawn wagons - something like the 20-mule team of borax fame - with lots of horses, mules, and wagons strung together, but with only a single driver plus helper - see:

http://www.owensvalleyhistory.com/ghosts_of_past1/mule_train_complete.jpg

And this essay (4 pages, approx. 23 KB in size): http://www.owensvalleyhistory.com/stories1/20_mule_team.pdf

Both from: http://www.owensvalleyhistory.com/ghosts_of_past1/page8.html

See also this photo of 2 steam tractors double-he

…Considering these Mechanical powered tractors pulling a “train” of heavy hauling wagons…If used to travel other than flat desert…what did they use for brakes…?

Good question ! But if on anything but rock or very hard-packed road, the ‘rolling friction’ alone would slow them down pretty quickly. Ever try to push a wheeled anything through the sand at the beach ? [:-^]

  • Paul North.

I’m presuming here, but I think the OP was looking at factors beyond engineering and physics, as important as they were/are.

Right - I took the Original Post as looking at the economics, more than those aspects. Specifically, the high rates charged by the freight wagons, and then how the drastic decrease in those rates as enabled by the railroad technology affected the frontier economy, etc.

But too often overlooked is that those economic aspects are governed by the engineering and physics, as well as many other aspects - scheduling, logistics, financial structure, etc., etc. Ignore those and what’s left is essentially “transportation geo-politics” - a nice discussion, but divorced from reality and the actual causes, results, and effects, etc.

To recap a bit: Here, the 2nd post then opined that friction reduction was the chief cause of the savings, a viewpoint that does have some merit. Bucyrus and I are now debating whether it’s the self-guiding technology, the aggregation of many loads into a train-type vehicle, and/ or the drastic reduction in needed crew labor, as being the principal factor which facilitates and drives the rate decreases. Most of those are really applications and the result of applied physics and engineering, so they’re still relevant to this discussion, I think.

  • Paul North.

See also the lone comment to this listing for the Fogel book on Amazon, at:

http://www.amazon.com/Railroads-American-Economic-Growth-Econometric/dp/0801811481

  • Paul North.

An interesting book review and conclusion. Speed, I think, is a major answer to the success of the railroad beause of it’s abiltiy to overcome friction economically and quickly, because it was able to cut across and over country not easily attained by water traffic. Speed was the American manifistation of impatience in the 19th Century…it also fueld the economies of towns, counties, states, and the country.

Speed is also the reason most people fly long distances these days. If you’re going New York to LA it’s either a 5 hour plane ride or 3 days on a train… which are you going to choose?

And NY to LA even 220 mph HSR still won’t even come close to planes… but for short distances where rail can compete with aircraft speed then the prospect of HSR whether 220 mph or 110 mph is very attractive…

Sawtooth500, you are espousing the concept and need for a rationalized and integrated transportation system… Something I have preached about for over 40 years!