The railroad has transformed North America. In just 30 years, 30,000 miles of track cross the continent. More than the rest of the world put together.
Thousands of new towns spring up around railroad stations, one every eight miles. Five rail lines link the east and west coasts. The railroad even changes time itself. Until now, Americans set their clocks by the sun.
8,000 different times along 500 rail lines. Scheduling trains becomes impossible. On November 18, 1883, the continental U.S. is reduced to just four time zones.
Standard time is four. The railroad is now the largest employer in America. Nearly a million workers.
One is a 23-year-old station agent from rural Minnesota. Richard Sears. With the U.S. adjusting to new railroad times, Sears turns entrepreneur and buys a batch of pocket watches.
He offers them to other station agents and waits. Bingo! An order comes through.
Followed by another, and then another. Within six months, Sears sells all his watches. 2,500, earning ten times his railroad salary. Realizing he can use the railroad for sales and distribution, Sears jumps on the opportunity with an idea that will transform the nation, the mail order catalog. I think Americans are naturally entrepreneurial.
and if you had good ideas and you were willing to make short-term sacrifices, you could succeed in this country. Next one, this is number one... Ten years after selling his first watch, Sears publishes a 700-page catalog. Now based in Chicago, he processes over 35,000 orders a day, delivering refrigerators, pianos, in one year, over 100,000 sewing machines. Using the railroad, Sears can sell virtually virtually anything, anywhere in the country.
What really transformed this country wasn't just the westward migration and the development of cities in the east, but the ability to move products across great distances. Linking together what had previously been very disparate little settlements that had to be largely self-sufficient. The By the end of the 19th century, America has 200,000 miles of railroad track, linking the local markets and creating a national economy.
Over the next 40 years, the amount of freight carried by rail shoots from 55 to nearly 700 million tons. Resources from the Midwest feed the country's growing industries in the East. The United States overtakes Britain as the largest manufacturer on Earth, soon producing 30% of the world's goods.
The railroads laid the basis for the creation of the single largest market in world economy. And this made it possible for the United States to become the global economic power that it did by the end of the 19th century. In 20 years, the U.S. population doubles to 80 million. The number of cities triples. 7 million Americans leave the country for the nation's booming urban centers.
Where Buffalo once roamed, now rises the modern world.