d. These
transcontinental roads really completed the work of Columbus. He sailed
to discover the western route to Cathay and found that his path was
blocked by a mighty continent. But the first train that crossed the
plains and ascended the Rockies and reached the Golden Gate assured
thenceforth a rapid and uninterrupted transit westward from Europe to
Asia.

CHAPTER II. THE COMMODORE AND THE NEW YORK CENTRAL

A story was told many years ago of Commodore Vanderbilt which, while
perhaps not strictly true, was pointed enough to warrant its constant
repetition for more than two generations. Back in the sixties, when this
grizzled railroad chieftain was the chief factor in the rapidly growing
New York Central Railroad system, whose backbone then consisted of a
continuous one-track line connecting Albany with the Great Lakes, the
president of a small cross-country road approached him one day and
requested an exchange of annual passes.

"Why, my dear sir," exclaimed the Commodore, "my railroad is more than
three hundred miles long, while yours is only seventeen miles."

"That may all be so," replied the other, "but my railroad is just as
wide as yours."

This statement was true. Practically no railroad, even as late as the
sixties, was wider than another. They were all single-tracked lines.
Even the New York Central system in 1866 was practically a single-track
road; and the Commodore could not claim to any particular superiority
over his neighbors and rivals in this particular. Instead of sneering
at his "seventeen-mile" colleague, Vanderbilt might have remembered that
his own fine system had grown up in less than two generations from
a modest narrow-gage track running from "nothing to nowhere." The
Vanderbilt lines, which today with their controlled and affiliated
systems comprise more than 13,000 miles of railroad--a large portion of
which is double-tracked, no mean amount being laid with third and fourth
tracks is the outgrowth of a little seventeen-mile line, first chartered
in 1826, and finished for traffic in 1831. This little railroad
was known as the Mohawk and Hudson, and it extended from Albany to
Schenectady. It was the second continuous section of railroad line
operated by steam in the United States, and on it the third locomotive
built in America, the De Witt Clinton, made a satisfactory trial trip in
August, 1831.

The success of this experiment created a sensation far and wide and led
to rapid rail