Railroads Eclipse a National Road

For several decades in the early 1800s, thousands of Conestoga wagons, known as “ships of inland commerce,” dominated the National Road. With sloping bodies, wheels taller than a man, and six-horse teams skillfully guided with a single “jerk line,” they could carry up to eight tons of freight. The railroad, a transportation revolution that came from Baltimore, soon put them out of business, along with the taverns, livery stables, wheelwrights, and blacksmiths that served them. In 1830, while the National Road was still under construction, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad introduced the first regular freight and passenger service in the United States here from the Roundhouse. By 1852, the B & O had spent $15 million to lay track as far as the Ohio River, cutting freight and travel time in half. The national road had moved onto rails.

Baltimore, Maryland · United States