More than 500 French soldiers are killed when their train derails in Modane, France, on this day in 1917. The troops were returning from fighting World War I in Italy. There was ample warning that the conditions were dangerous, but the French officers ignored the expert advice ...read more
At first glance, the job posting looks like a standard help-wanted ad for a cross-country trucker. Up to three weeks a month on the road in an 18-wheel tractor-trailer, traveling through the contiguous 48 states. Risks include inclement weather, around-the-clock travel, and ...read more
1. Liverpool and Manchester Railway The opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in September 1830 marked the dawn of steam-powered rail travel. Prior to its construction, most railways were horse-drawn and used to haul freight such as coal over short distances. The ...read more
For ages, people used the sun to determine what time it was where they were. Every community set its clocks to noon based on when the sun reached its highest position in the sky; as a result, when it was noon in Washington, D.C., the local time in New York City was already ...read more
1. Jesse James’ Iowa Train Robbery Notorious outlaw Jesse James is best remembered as a bank robber, but he was also one of the first bandits to hold up a moving train. The earliest of these heists came on the evening of July 21, 1873, near Adair, Iowa. After gathering ...read more
Long before supersonic jets made it easy to cross the country, train travel was the elegant way to get from place to place in the United States. During the golden age of American trains, their sleek, opulent interiors featured plush seats, porters for your every need and gleaming ...read more
1. The term “horsepower” originated as a marketing tool. James Watt didn’t invent the steam engine, but he did create the world’s first modern one, and developed the means of measuring its power. In the 1760s, the Scottish inventor began tinkering with an earlier version of the ...read more
The first recorded railroad accident in U.S. history occurs when four people are thrown off a vacant car on the Granite Railway near Quincy, Massachusetts. The victims had been invited to view the process of transporting large and weighty loads of stone when a cable on a vacant ...read more
The Crédit Mobilier scandal of 1872-1873 damaged the careers of several Gilded Age politicians. Major stockholders in the Union Pacific Railroad formed a company, the Crédit Mobilier of America, and gave it contracts to build the railroad. They sold or gave shares in this ...read more
In 1862, the Pacific Railroad Act chartered the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific Railroad Companies, and tasked them with building a transcontinental railroad that would link the United States from east to west. Over the next seven years, the two companies would race toward ...read more
At a remote spot called Craigellachie in the mountains of British Columbia, the last spike is driven into Canada’s first transcontinental railway. In 1880, the Canadian government contracted the Canadian Pacific Railroad to construct the first all-Canadian line to the West Coast. ...read more
On this day in 1869, the presidents of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads meet in Promontory, Utah, and drive a ceremonial last spike into a rail line that connects their railroads. This made transcontinental railroad travel possible for the first time in U.S. ...read more
This new method of sticking up moving trains in remote locations low on law enforcement soon became popular in the American West, where the recently constructed transcontinental and regional railroads made attractive targets. With the western economy booming, trains often carried ...read more
On this day in 1858, the new Overland Mail Company sends out its first two stages, inaugurating government mail service between the eastern and western regions of the nation. With California booming, thanks to the 1849 Gold Rush, Americans east and west had been clamoring for ...read more
On this day in 1866, the brothers John and Simeon Reno stage the first train robbery in American history, making off with $13,000 from an Ohio and Mississippi railroad train in Jackson County, Indiana. Of course, trains had been robbed before the Reno brothers’ holdup. But these ...read more
The Southern Pacific Railroad completes its transcontinental “Sunset Route” from New Orleans to California, consolidating its dominance over rail traffic to the Pacific. One of the most powerful railroad companies of the 19th century, the “Espee” (as the railroad was often ...read more
At exactly noon on this day, American and Canadian railroads begin using four continental time zones to end the confusion of dealing with thousands of local times. The bold move was emblematic of the power shared by the railroad companies. The need for continental time zones ...read more
Edward Harriman, the controversial savior of the transcontinental Union Pacific Railroad, is born in Hempstead, New York. The son of an Episcopal minister, Harriman disliked school and dropped out to become a broker’s boy when he was 14. To the amazement of the stockbrokers on ...read more
At Promontory, Utah, California Governor Leland Stanford pounds in a ceremonial golden spike that completes the nation’s first transcontinental railway. After failing to hit the spike on his first attempt, Stanford raised the heavy sledgehammer again and struck a solid square ...read more
A mere 83 hours after leaving New York City, the Transcontinental Express train arrives in San Francisco. That any human being could travel across the entire nation in less than four days was inconceivable to previous generations of Americans. During the early 19th century, when ...read more
The members of the Dalton Gang stage an unsuccessful train robbery near Alila, California–an inauspicious beginning to their careers as serious criminals. Bob, Emmett, and Grat Dalton were only three of Lewis and Adeleine Dalton’s 10 sons. The brothers grew up on a succession of ...read more
Two commuter trains and a freight train collide near Tokyo, Japan, killing more than 160 people and injuring twice that number on this day in 1962. It was Constitution Day in Japan when a commuter train pulled out of Mikawashima station at 9:30 p.m. taking passengers out of ...read more
Two trains collide outside Nashville, Tennessee, killing 101 people, on this day in 1918. Despite the high death toll, the story was mainly ignored by the national press. Instead, the engineer headed out after a freight train passed by, a terrible mistake. Train No. 1 had ...read more
A passenger train collides with an oil-tanker train in the Gambar province of western Pakistan, killing 300 people and seriously injuring another 150 on this day in 1957. The passenger train, bound for Karachi from western Pakistan, was overcrowded, which was not unusual at the ...read more