Life And Times Of The Iron Horse (1959)

nowes you can whistle blow a milliones this TR what was America like before that long Lonesome Whistle echoed from one end of the country to the other how did people get around how did they transport the things they grew to where they might sell and trade them for the things they needed well in those days the cheapest and easiest Transportation was by water Pioneers west of the alagan including a young fellow by the name of Abe Lincoln used the current of the Mississippi River to float flat boats loaded with Farm produce down to New Orleans the trouble was the river's current made it strictly a one-way Road naturally men began to make their own Rivers they called them canals River Roads that permitted traffic in both directions a canal is a two Ro is a road it's slow in the summer ande in the C that's no way to move a payload no that's no way to move aad noad of course all the roads in those days weren't water roads there were roads on land dirt roads called turnpikes now a turnike could make an east west I could make an East West Hall but it was Dusty all summer M spring and a better way of building roads had to be developed roads made out of rails had been used in England in the coal mines since a horse could pull a much heavier load on a road of rails than on an ordinary dirt road folks felt that roads of rails could be built for General use but they still had to rely on the horse for power some men however were tinkering with the use of an entirely new kind of power for transportation the fact that water heated into steam occupies 1,600 times as much space as it did in liquid form was destined to be the most important fact in the conquest of the American continent was the back behind the steam engine it meant the discovery of a source of power to do things that men had always done by hand way back in 187 Robert Fulton proved that a steam engine could be made to turn paddle Wheels to drive a boat on water an Englishman named George Stevenson tackled the more difficult problem of harnessing steam power and making it Propel a wagon on land Stevenson set out to build a horse of iron successful steam locomotive the Iron Horse was born oh that brought it to America for the camb the Mohawk andson line and the Boston and a miraculous thing had happened people were able to hurdle through the American Countryside at break neck speeds sometimes even exceeding 20 M an hour of course folks had to put up with a few inconveniences coaches were tied together with chains when the locomotive started the coaches were jerked into motion and sometimes passengers were thrown off their seats the first roads of rails iron straps on wooden stringers supported by Granite blocks wore away quickly and often ripped loose when this happened the rail could be as deadly as a rattlesnake and they were called snakeheads snakeheads continued to Menace passengers until the railroad Builders began to use wooden cross ties in a bed of yielding gravel to support the rails but that only solved part of the problem Robert L Stevens builder of the first railroad in New Jersey went a good deal further he designed a rail shaped like a tea to be made entirely of iron the t-shape gave the best support for the amount of iron used and it could also be spiked directly to the ties his t-il design is still used today the locomotive too was changed to make it more suitable for American conditions American railroads were built with many curves because of the ruggedness of the countryside American Mechanics removed the stationary front axle of the English locomotives in its place they sub substituted a front truck with two axles and four wheels pivoted to the locomotive frame this made it possible for the machine to take curves with less wear and tear on Wheels and rails railroading in America quickly out distan the development of railroad transportation in the rest of the world and this was no accident probably No Other Nation at any time in history so needed cheap efficient Overland Transportation as the vast rugged land mass of the United States in the 19th century to the Inland Farmers the railroads meant the possibility of shipping their Surplus products directly to the east to the farmer's wife the railroads meant the possibility of buying and receiving the manufactured products of the city's factories Farm life was transformed the railroads provided a window to the world now that farmers could sell their Surplus products they gave up self-sufficient farming and raised crops and livestock for sale the cities too were transformed by the power and the magic of the Iron Horse as Farmers bought more manufactured goods more and bigger factories were built in the cities city populations doubled tripled quadrupled and the inexhaustible iron horse carried the food over long distances toed the city Folk the very face of America was changed the railroads pushed farther and farther west open New Frontiers spurring the settlement of what had been an almost uninhabited Wasteland but the iron Trail of the Iron Horse was not always the railroads were also freighted With Disaster on a and stormy night not a star sight and the wind line his a brave bringing that train and the black came for from the stack and the headlight set out a piercing beam as his train thundered down on the track as he rounded the hill his Brave Stood Still a shin his there was a bridge around the and he knew this was the end for the old Iron Bridge had crumbled out of place a clue to the Menace of the Iron Horse could be found in its name iron iron was not strong enough to stand the strain of constant use tremendous weight and power and sustained high speeds iron rails wore out too rapidly iron Bridges collapsed too often man already knew how to make steel but in those days steel could only be made in small batches by heating iron and a crucible for two weeks in order to drive out the carbon but then in the 1850s a remarkable new Fast and inexpensive method of making steel was discovered this was the besser process and it made it possible to produce tons and tons of steel in a few minutes steel for sturdier rails steel for stronger Bridges steel for more powerful locomotives and steel for heavier Rolling Stock soon a great network of Steel spanned the vast American continent the the Fantastic dream of a railroad going all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific was realized the last steel rails were fastened in place on May 10th 1869 symbolizing the final conquest of the American continent America was coming to maturity riding on the railroad ride on she goes from coast to coast you whistle blow [Music] million runs I'll be home Satur I'm many many miles myle blow that long lome train whistling down