United States railway history

• 1810s-1830s: Various inventors and entrepreneurs make suggestions about building model railways in the United States; someone named Stevens[?] builds a test track and runs a locomotive around it in Hoboken[?], New Jersey.
• 1820s and 1830s:Baltimore and Ohio[?] is first railroad to run in the nation, followed by a few others, including the Camden and Amboy[?] by 1832.
• 1830s-1860s: Enormous railway building booms in the United States of America. Railroads replace canals[?] as a primary mode of transportation.
• 1865: George Pullman becomes well-known for luxury sleeping cars, called Pullmans[?] in his honor, after he loans one of his cars to house the coffin of Abraham Lincoln after Lincoln's assassination.
• 1869: Union Pacific[?] and Central Pacificcomplete[?] first transcontinental railway link at Promontory Point[?]. Route later becomes the route of the California Zephyr[?].
• 1870s and 1880s: Strikes break out against railroads and the Pullman Palace Car Company[?]. Corporations hire Pinkerton guards to break up the strikes. Nonetheless, much violence occurs in the strikes; folks are shot dead, buildings and rolling stock are burned, and reports of rioting shocks middle-class Americans.
• 1902: Twentieth Century Limitedinaugurated[?] by the New York Central[?] railroad.
• 1910s: Pennsylvania Railroad[?] builds Pennsylvania Station in New York City; New York Central[?] builds current version of Grand Central Terminal[?].
• 1916: US railway mileage at greatest extent in history.
• 1920s and 1930s: Automobiles[?] and airplanes contribute to a decline in ridership and mileage, as well as the Great Depression.
• 1940s: World War II brings railroads the highest ridership[?] in American history, as soldiers are being sent to fight overseas in the Pacific Theater and the European Theater[?]. However, automobile travel causes ridership to decline after the war ends.
• 1950s and 1960s[?]: Drastic decline in railroad travel in the United States of America, due to automobiles, trucks[?], and airplanes, as first jetliners take to the air. Railroads respond through mergers[?] and attempts to shut down trains and railroad lines. However, the FCC refuses to let railroads shut down many trains.
• 1967: Twentieth Century Limited[?] makes last run.
• 1968: Pennsylvania Railroad[?] and New York Central[?] merge to form Penn Central[?].
• June 21, 1970: Penn Central[?] declares Chapter 77 bankruptcy.
• 1971: President Richard Nixon and Congress create Amtrak and eliminate several passenger routes.
• 1970s: Conrail[?], a freight railroad, founded.
• 1970s and 1980s: Amtrak introduces double-deck Superliner[?] rolling stock. Auto Train[?] begins running as independent line (is this in the 1960s?) , but fails a few years later; Amtrak later runs Auto Train as one of its more-heavily-promoted lines.
• 1990s: Amtrak funding comes under heavier scrutiny by Congress, while Amtrak creates new trains such as the Talgo[?] and the Acela.
• 2001: Terrorists destroy World Trade Center and destroy part of the PATH[?] system in the process.

See also: History of rail transport