Railroads In The 1910s: Peak Mileage, Adamson, USRA & the War

Last revised: September 8, 2026

American railroads reached their greatest extent during the 1910s, then ran that map as a single machine for a world war. John Stover, in The Routledge Historical Atlas of the American Railroads, put 240,293 miles of first track in 1910 and the all-time peak of 254,037 in 1916. Interurbans peaked the same year, at 15,580 miles. Congress wrote an eight-hour day for train-service employees to avert a national strike. After the United States entered the war, Atlantic terminals clogged and a car shortage ran into the six figures. President Wilson placed the roads under the United States Railroad Administration on December 28, 1917. They returned to private operation on March 1, 1920.

The previous decade had already given the Interstate Commerce Commission real rate power through the Elkins, Hepburn, and Mann-Elkins acts, and Pennsylvania had opened its Manhattan station in 1910. What follows here is 1910 through 1920. Federal control in detail is covered on the USRA page. Wartime traffic and troop movements are on Railroads During World War I. The full national arc is the history hub.

Santa Fe 4-4-0 number 0120 short passenger train at the depot in Medicine Lodge Kansas 1913

Santa Fe 4-4-0 No. 0120 with a short passenger train at the depot in Medicine Lodge, Kansas, 1913. American-Rails.com collection.

On this page: At a glance · Peak mileage · Adamson Act · Highways and the automobile · Grand Central, Key West, Hell Gate · World War I · USRA · Return to private operation · Early diesels · Interurbans

At a glance

Item	Detail
Miles of first track, 1910	240,293 (Stover / ICC). Period tables also print 241,340
Peak miles	254,037 in 1916. About 400 miles abandoned that same year
New construction	About 4,122 miles built in 1910; about 19,205 built 1910–19; about 6,000 built 1920–29 (DeNevi)
Interurban miles	12,806 (1910); peak 15,580 (1916); 15,337 (1920). Hilton and Due dated maturity about 1912 and decline after 1918
Adamson Act	Signed September 3 and 5, 1916. Eight-hour standard day for interstate train-service employees from January 1, 1917. Upheld, Wilson v. New, March 19, 1917
Federal Aid Road Act	July 11, 1916. $75 million, 50–50 with the states
U.S. in the war	April 6, 1917. Car shortage about 158,000 by November 1917
USRA	Proclamation December 26, 1917; control December 28, 1917. Federal Control Act March 21, 1918. Returned March 1, 1920
Transportation Act	Esch–Cummins, February 28, 1920. ICC authority over mergers and abandonments
Grand Central Terminal	Opened February 2, 1913. Electric service into Grand Central had begun in 1906
Key West Extension	First train January 22, 1912
Hell Gate Bridge	Opened March 9, 1917
Early diesel	GE for Jay Street Connecting No. 4, delivered late 1918 and returned within months
Deaths	J.P. Morgan, March 31, 1913; James J. Hill, May 29, 1916. E.H. Harriman had died September 9, 1909; Collis Huntington in 1900

Mileage is the Stover / ICC first-track series. New construction and net miles are different figures. Information compiled September 8, 2026.

Peak mileage

The network stood at 240,293 miles in 1910. It kept growing for six more years, then stopped. Stover’s 254,037 miles in 1916 is the national peak. About 400 miles came up that same year, the first notable abandonments, and mileage has declined in the long run ever since.

Construction and net miles are easy to mix. Don DeNevi noted about 4,122 miles built in 1910, the heaviest construction year of the decade, and about 19,205 miles built from 1910 through 1919. That is new track, not the size of the finished map. Net growth from 1910 to 1916 was on the order of 13,700 miles. The 1920s built only about 6,000. After that the country spent the rest of the century taking rail up.

Stover’s wartime shares—about 98 percent of commercial intercity passengers and 77 percent of intercity freight—describe this era. The automobile had not yet taken the local passenger. The truck had not yet taken less-than-carload freight. About 1.7 million people worked for the railroads. Average annual wages ran about $886. Operating revenues were about $3.353 billion, with some $21 billion invested in the plant. LCL still amounted to about 51 million tons in 1919. By 1915, Stover noted, more than 40,000 miles sat in default or receivership. The map was never all solvent. It was, for one year, as large as it would ever be.

Two Baltimore and Ohio passenger trains collided head-on at Bens Run West Virginia August 1 1910

Two Baltimore & Ohio passenger trains collided head-on at Bens Run, West Virginia, August 1, 1910. Author’s collection.

The Adamson Act

In 1916 the brotherhoods of engineers, firemen, conductors, and brakemen demanded an eight-hour day as the measure of a day’s pay, with overtime beyond it. The railroads refused. A national strike was set for early September. President Wilson asked Congress for a statute. Representative William C. Adamson of Georgia sponsored the bill. Wilson signed it in his private car at Union Station on Sunday, September 3, 1916, and signed again on the 5th so the Sunday signature would not be questioned.

Beginning January 1, 1917, eight hours became the standard day for train-service employees of interstate railroads. Roads under 100 miles, street railways, and interurbans were excluded. Pay for the old ten-hour day was not to be cut pending a commission report. Overtime was pro rata, not time-and-a-half. The Supreme Court upheld the act in Wilson v. New on March 19, 1917.

The Hours of Service Act of March 4, 1907, had already limited how long an engineman or dispatcher could remain on duty. Adamson was different: a wage-basis law, written in a matter of days, to keep the trains running. It was the first federal statute to set hours for private railroad employees in train service.

Highways and the automobile

Henry Ford’s Model T had appeared on October 1, 1908. By 1917 about 5 million motor vehicles were in use. Wilson signed the Federal Aid Road Act (Bankhead–Shackleford) on July 11, 1916, providing $75 million on a fifty-fifty match with the states to improve roadways. Concrete did not replace rail in this decade, but the federal government had begun paying for pavement. Vehicle registrations and the Interstate Highway Act of 1956 belong to later years. The St. Petersburg–Tampa airboat line of January 1914 is usually called the first scheduled commercial airline in the United States. It remained a curiosity, not a passenger competitor.

Grand Central, Key West, and Hell Gate

New York Central had begun electric service into Grand Central in 1906. The present Grand Central Terminal opened on February 2, 1913. Pennsylvania Station had opened in 1910—Long Island trains on September 8, Pennsylvania trains on November 27. The Detroit Publishing view below shows the east facade about 1912. Chicago Union Station followed in 1925. In 1912 the Pennsylvania renamed the Pennsylvania Special the Broadway Limited.

Henry Flagler’s Florida East Coast put a railroad over open water. The first train over the Key West Extension ran on January 22, 1912. The New Haven’s Hell Gate Bridge opened on March 9, 1917, completing an all-rail route into the East River.

Florida East Coast Railway, Seven Mile Bridge, Moser Channel drawbridge, looking northwest toward Pigeon Key. Harry Wolfe photograph. First train to Key West, January 22, 1912. American-Rails.com collection.

World War I

Europe had been at war since the summer of 1914, and American railroads were already moving export freight east. The United States declared war on April 6, 1917. Priority shipments for the Army filled the Atlantic terminals. Empty cars did not come back west. The ICC still held rates. A requested increase was denied; a 5 percent allowance did not cover costs. Average freight sat about 0.73¢ a ton-mile. By November 1917 the car shortage stood on the order of 158,000. The roads were large, regulated, and not a single system. Wilson reached for an administrator instead of another tariff case. Troop trains, ports, and wartime operations are covered on Railroads During World War I.

The United States Railroad Administration

Wilson’s proclamation is dated December 26, 1917. Federal control began at 12:01 a.m. on December 28. William G. McAdoo, Secretary of the Treasury, directed the United States Railroad Administration. The government did not take title. It rented the roads, paid compensation, and ended competition for the duration. The Federal Control Act of March 21, 1918, required return within 21 months of a peace treaty. The Armistice came on November 11, 1918. The roads went back on March 1, 1920.

McAdoo centralized shops and terminals, cut passenger trains that did not serve the war, and ran the corridors hard. Freight rates and passenger fares rose under federal control as costs rose. In 1918 the USRA handled only about 2 percent more ton-miles than 1917 under private operation. What lasted was standardization: locomotive diagrams (heavy and light 2-8-2 Mikados the most numerous), freight-car designs, and something closer to a national boxcar. On the order of 2,000 locomotives and 100,000 freight cars were built to those standards. Organization, compensation, and the locomotive types themselves are treated on the USRA page.

Pennsylvania Railroad Pennsylvania Station New York east facade circa 1912

Pennsylvania Station, New York, east facade, circa 1912. Detroit Publishing Company. The station had opened in 1910. Library of Congress / American-Rails.com collection.

Return to private operation

Private management came back to worn rail, deferred shop work, and a wage bill written in wartime. The roads spent the early 1920s putting the plant back together. When the country entered World War II they were determined to avoid a second federal takeover.

They also came home to a new statute. The Transportation Act of February 28, 1920 (Esch–Cummins) wrote a fair-return idea into law, gave the ICC power to approve or block mergers, and required a showing before a line could be abandoned. Duplicate branches from the 1880s building boom now had a federal lock. That framework governed the industry through the 1920s and 1930s.

E.H. Harriman had died on September 9, 1909. J.P. Morgan died on March 31, 1913. James J. Hill died on May 29, 1916, the same year the national map peaked. Collis Huntington had died in 1900. The men who had built the late-nineteenth-century systems were gone. Their successors ran a regulated industry into a war.

Early diesels

Main-line electric traction was already in service: Baltimore & Ohio through the Howard Street Tunnel in 1895, New York Central into Grand Central in 1906. Internal combustion on a freight locomotive was still an experiment. General Electric outshopped a diesel-electric for the Jay Street Connecting Railroad in Brooklyn as No. 4 (GE construction number 6206), delivered late in 1918—about 200 to 225 horsepower, B-B, a boxy steeple-cab. Jay Street sent it back within about six months. Jerry Pinkepank and the industrial-locomotive record treat the 1918 GE trio as experimental. The Alco–GE–Ingersoll-Rand boxcabs that actually sold appeared in 1925. For the later story see General Electric locomotives and diesel locomotives.

Interurbans

George W. Hilton and John F. Due remain the standard account. Interurban construction had run hot between 1901 and 1908. Mileage stood at 12,806 in 1910, peaked at 15,580 in 1916, and slipped to 15,337 by 1920. Hilton and Due dated the industry’s final shape at about 1912 and a marked decline from about 1918. Most of these companies, they concluded, should never have been built. The Model T and the 1916 road act did not wreck the steam railroad in this decade. They wrecked the interurban’s prospectus. The Depression finished most of what remained. The lines that lasted did so as freight railroads. The national overview is Interurbans & Streetcars.

The 1910s closed with a peak map, a wartime administration, an eight-hour day, and a highway program just getting started. The 1920s opened under the Transportation Act, with switcher diesels that stayed on the property and an interurban network already shrinking. Streamliners belong to the 1930s. The second war is covered on Railroads In World War II.

Sources

Stover, John F. The Routledge Historical Atlas of the American Railroads. New York: Routledge, 1999. ICC first-track owned: 240,293 (1910); 254,037 (1916). About 400 miles abandoned in 1916. Wartime traffic shares; more than 40,000 miles in default or receivership by 1915
DeNevi, Don. America’s Fighting Railroads: A World War II Pictorial History. Construction about 4,122 miles in 1910; about 19,205 miles built 1910–19; about 6,000 in 1920–29
Adamson Act, Sept. 3 and 5, 1916, ch. 436, 39 Stat. 721. Eight-hour standard day from January 1, 1917. Wilson v. New, 243 U.S. 332 (March 19, 1917)
Federal Aid Road Act (Bankhead–Shackleford), July 11, 1916
Wilson proclamation, December 26, 1917; federal control, December 28, 1917. Federal Control Act, March 21, 1918. Return March 1, 1920
Transportation Act (Esch–Cummins), February 28, 1920
Hilton, George W., and John F. Due. The Electric Interurban Railways in America. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1960. 12,806 (1910); peak 15,580 (1916); 15,337 (1920)
Boyd, Jim. The American Freight Train. Osceola, Wis.: MBI, 2001
Grand Central Terminal opened February 2, 1913. Pennsylvania Station opened 1910
Florida East Coast Key West Extension, first train January 22, 1912
Hell Gate Bridge opened March 9, 1917
E.H. Harriman died September 9, 1909. J.P. Morgan died March 31, 1913. James J. Hill died May 29, 1916
Jay Street Connecting GE diesel No. 4, c/n 6206, delivered late 1918, returned 1919. Pinkepank, Jerry A. The Diesel Spotter’s Guide
Mann-Elkins Act, June 18, 1910
Schafer, Mike. Vintage Diesel Locomotives

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