This print of government land grants is dense with information about railways, canals, and wagon roads. The map itself is neat-looking, but it's also surrounded by bar graphs, some of which contain pretty bewildering data. First off, the bars for America, the United States, and Europe go waaay farther to the right. But let's have a look at those numbers. The United States, which saw a huge boom in railroad-building beginning in...
I was inspired to research railway history after checking out this very cool map of railroad growth in America the other day. One of the neatest stories I uncovered was that of the Mumbles Train, the very first fare-based passenger train in the whole wide world, which began running in 1807 in Wales. It carried passengers from Swansea to Oystermouth, two towns only about five miles apart, but without a road...
