The Lehigh Valley Railroad.

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* The Lehigh Valley railroad, a north east coal carrying railroad. A railroad that started because of a need to get a product to market. As long as wood was plentiful, and easy to get not many people were interested in coal. At the end of the 1820's things were changing. Wood was costing more. Coal was cheep. People now started to look to get coal and move it to places where it was needed. Wagons and canals were to only 2 choices aviable. Here in the north-east we have a thing called winter. That means it is not summer, spring, or fall. The 1830's were not a time of global warming. There was no highway system with lots of people operating snow plows keeping the roads open to cart and wagon traffic. The population was growing. Some new form of transportation was needed. Over in England, they were using steam powered engines to pull carts on rails of iron. Over there people were trying to make better more reliable engines to pull these carts from mines and farms to cities where food and coal could be distributed to warn homes and cook food. In industry steam engines were powering machines for producing all the necessities of the day. Here, we were just starting to wake up to the new industrial world . The railroads were made to get and keep this country moving.
* The Lehigh Valley railroad and all the other railroads did this well.