This day in history...

First U.S. Railroad Chartered

The GRANITE RAILWAY, designed and built by engineer Gridley Bryant, was the first railroad chartered in the United States, on March 4, 1826. It began operations on October 7, 1826, hauling blocks of granite for three miles, from Quincy, Massachusetts, to the Neponset River. The Granite Railway eventually became part of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad.

Source: The History Channel (On this day)

 

Interesting! Does the line still exist?

 

The railway's incline was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 19 1973, and the railway itself was added on October 15 1973.


Parts of this Railroad can still be seen, and part of its original roadbed is at the present time in use, by the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad Co., and also by the Granite Railway Company.

 

Let put it this way from my digging around tonight using google searchs on GRANITE RAILWAY; which returns 1.65 Million hits.

First: Note this document is from 1924 which has the NYNH&H Reference.
http://www.catskillarchive.com/rrextra/abnegr1.Html

THE FIRST RAILROAD IN AMERICA
Compliments of the Granite City
B.P.O.E.—Quincy Lodge No. 943—1924

Second: I found this "A Brief History of Conrail" from 2003 which lists it as the owner
http://www.conrail.com/history.htm

The oldest segment of what became Conrail was the Granite Railway Co., built in 1826 to carry granite blocks for the Bunker Hill Monument in West Quincy, Massachusetts. Nearly 150 years later, scores of railroads in the Northeast and Midwest had been acquired or merged into six different lines: Central Railroad of New Jersey, Erie Lackawanna, Lehigh & Hudson River, Lehigh Valley, Penn Central, and Reading.

So, you might be right during some point of it's history...

Lot's of create reading on the Google Hits...

 

Here some information from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granite_Railroad

And some pictures at:

http://www.loc.gov/index.html

I thought that B&O was the oldest US railway!

 

This all depends on how you define the question. America's oldest continually operated transportation company is actually the Delaware and Hudson which began in 1823; before any railroads in America. The D&H also is known for having the first Steam Engine in North America (The Stourbridge Lion) which turned under steam on May 28, 1829. The D&H Gravity was started in April 1827 and pulled it's first load of coal on October 9, 1829. The D&H Railroad itself didn't happen until 1860.

The Eric Canal was proposed in 1808 and completed in 1825; if fact the construction of a canal was proposed as early as 1768. Benjamin Wright was the Principal Engineer of the Eric Canal as well as did the detailed appraisal of the D&H Canal route.

As for the B&O, on Feb. 12, 1827 leading citizens of Baltimore meet at the home of George Brown to discuss railroads and canals. Acts of incorporation was by passed by Maryland legislature on Feb. 28, 1827 and by Virginia on March 8, 1827. Given that they organized the railroad on April 4, 1827 and made the first "cut" in 1828.

There is a good Wikipedia on the oldest railroads in North America which does give credit to the B&O being the first railroad that evolved into a major system and hence it being refered to as the oldest railroad. but as you can see, there are older railraods depending on how you define it. This is why the GRANITE RAILWAY is listed as the First U.S. Railroad Chartered but you will find there are others that existed before that; as far back as 1764 in Lewiston, New York and
reportedly in 1720 in Louisburg, Nova Scotia; Canada.

 

Yes, one must be careful with Wikipedia but most of what I have listed as dates are from Eric, D&H, B&O, & Other Historical Society records; but the Wikipedia I referenced is a good summary.

Sad to say, allot of information on the interenet these days is questionalble so it's best to check several sources and take into account they might have gotten their information from a site that was wrong too.

 

I know. But I also have a wellknown encyclopedia on CD-rom that tells me about the NYC being a large railway in New York, today. Well, it is 2006 and NYC has left us 40 years ago. So I have more trust in Wikipedia than in the expensive encyclopedias (there has been some research about scientific facts in Wikipedia and a big name in the world of encyclopedias, and both had the same amount of mistakes in their content...)

Well, in Holland we do not have these problems: the first railroad started in 1839. There were no others. No discussion possible about this.

 

About the list: the oldest railroad depends on your definition of a railroad: is it a horse railroad, is it a chartered railroad, or is it a railroad that uses locomotives? In that case, the D&H has the right to be the first. But I choose the Granite Railway. Just because it became a part of the New Haven ))

 

You mean this one...

{Click on each image to enlarge}

 

Well, no, I don't mean this one. This is the central station of Amsterdam. The first railroad ran between Amsterdam and Haarlem, but the station in Amsterdam was to the west of the current station. It was called "d'Eenhonderd Roe" and was actually situated outside the city!



Sorry for the small picture, it was not possible to link to a larger one.