Railroads

 Travis Marsden

GEOG 101

Jan. 28, 2021

Response Paper 3

Railroad Space and Railroad Time

Railroads have had a major impact on transportation when they were invented in the 1800s. The early 19th century believed that it destroyed space and time because of the high speeds railroad transportation can accomplish. The fastest transportation before trains was stagecoaches, which had an average speed of eight miles per hour. In the 1840s most trains were able to reach speeds up to seventy miles per hour. Transportation speeds going from eight miles per hour to seventy is why they thought railroads broke space and time. All of a sudden people can travel ten times the distance then they normally would with stagecoaches. Also with stagecoaches, they had to switch the horses out regularly in order to keep the average eight mile per hour speed. While they believed it destroyed space and time, they also mentioned that it was expanded. The journey of space and time was destroyed, but was expanded by being able to travel greater distances.