Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 February 1914 — RAILROAD TRAVEL IN 1846 [ARTICLE]

RAILROAD TRAVEL IN 1846

“Speed” at Which the Modern Engineer Would Laugh Was Then * Considered Wonderful. Prof. Edward L. Morse of Salem sends the following extract from a letter written by Louis Agassiz to his mother. The letter is dated Boston, December, 1846: “Leaving Boston the 16th of October, I went by railroad to New Haven, passing through Springfield. The rapidity of the locomotion is frightful to those who are unused to it, but you adapt yourself to the speed, and soon become like all the rest of the world, impatient of the slightest delay. I well understand that an antipathy for this mode'of travel is possible. There is something infernal in the irresistible power of steam, carrying such heavy masses along with the swiftness of lightning. The habits growing out of continued contact with ralroads and the influence they exert on a portion of the community, are far from agreeable until one is familiar with them. You would cry out in dismay did you see your baggage flung about pell-mell like logs of wood —trunks, chests, traveling bags, hat boxes, all in the same mill, and if here and there something goes to pieces, no one is astonished; never mind; we go fast —we gain time—that is the essential thing.” And this was on the Boston & Albany! And there was baggage smashing in 1846!