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Map. Rail transportation in the United States consists primarily of freight shipments along a well integrated network of standard gauge private freight railroads that also extend into Canada and Mexico. The United States has the largest rail transport network of any country in the world, about 160,000 miles (260,000 km).
Track gauge. Originally, various track gauges were used in the United States. Some railways, primarily in the northeast, used standard gauge of 4 ft 8⁄ in (1,435 mm); others used gauges ranging from 2 ft (610 mm) to 6 ft (1,829 mm). As a general rule, southern railroads were built to one or another broad gauge, mostly 5 ft (1,524 mm), while ...
The first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869. Railroads played a large role in the development of the United States from the Industrial Revolution in the Northeast (1820s–1850s) to the settlement of the West (1850s–1890s). The American railroad mania began with the founding of the first passenger and freight line in the country ...
1997–99: Conrail assets sold to Norfolk Southern Railway and CSX Transportation. September 11, 2001: Terrorists destroy World Trade Center in New York and destroy part of the PATH system in the process. Full PATH service resumed November 23, 2003. 2015: Total rail traffic declined 2.5 percent to 28 million carloads.
A railway track (British English and UIC terminology) or railroad track (American English), also known as a train track or permanent way (often "perway" [1] in Australia or "P Way" in Britain [2]), is the structure on a railway or railroad consisting of the rails, fasteners, railroad ties (sleepers, British English) and ballast (or slab track ...
Purchased for scrap by the Kovalchick Corporation when it ended common carrier service in 1956, it reopened as a tourist railroad in 1960. Still owned by the Kovalchick family, trains operate over 5 miles (8.0 km) of the original 33-mile (53 km) mainline. This line is the oldest surviving stretch of narrow-gauge track in the United States.
Passenger trains are limited to 59 mph (95 km/h) and freight trains to 49 mph (79 km/h) on track without block signal systems. (See dark territory.) Trains without "an automatic cab signal, automatic train stop or automatic train control system "may not exceed 79 mph (127 km/h)." The order was issued in 1947 (effective December 31, 1951) by the ...
A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of 1,435 mm (4 ft 81⁄2 in). The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), international gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge in Europe, [1][2][3][4][5] and SGR in East Africa. It is the most widely used track gauge around the world, with about 55 ...