WASHINGTON, Feb. 28, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:
MAKING TRACKS
Profile America — Saturday, February 28th. Although February is the calendar's shortest month, it looms large in America's history of railroad development. In 1815, the first state charter for a railroad was issued by New Jersey for a never-completed line between Trenton and New Brunswick. On this date in 1827, the famed Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was chartered to carry passengers and freight. And February 1830 saw the first charter for an interstate railroad to serve Virginia and North Carolina. The peak year for the number of railroads was 1907, with over 1,500 lines in operation, and the greatest extent of track mileage came in 1930 at nearly 430,000 miles. While the iron horse is no longer so singularly vital to transportation, nearly $16 billion worth of rolling stock are manufactured annually. Profile America is in its 18th year as a public service of the U.S. Census Bureau.
Sources:
Chartered railroads: Kane's Famous First Facts, 6317 & 6322
Baltimore & Ohio RR: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/feb28.html
Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1976, p. 728
http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ECN_2007_US_31I2&prodType=table NAICS 336510: http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ECN_2012_US_31I2&prodType=table
Profile America is produced by the Center for New Media and Promotions of the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look for "Multimedia Gallery" by the "Newsroom" button).
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SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau
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