Railroad Mile.
A long, lonely stretch of railway in a remote area is one of the most beautiful things. The railroad has become the perfect illustration for all of our challenges, successes, and unpredictable future. Walking across a tall, unoccupied rail bridge can capture the imagination; you gain a new appreciation for life when you walk a mile or two along a remote stretch of train track. Consider the vision, design, engineering marvel, hard work, and history that has gone into building every single mile of a railway; those miles are powerful reminders of where we have come – and where we are going.
Over a hundred years ago it took almost five days to travel by train from New York City to San Francisco. Today, you can comfortably fly and make that same trip in less than five hours. Everything changes over time. Change is much faster today than back in November, 1989 when Tim Berners-Lee, a rather quiet computer scientist and professor at both Oxford University and MIT, had an interesting idea. Tim created Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), and sent the first email from a client to a server. That was the moment the World Wide Web was born and changed everything on this planet - once again. He sparked a new “electronic railroad system” that first connected two personal computers, and then eventually connected over 30 billion devices around the globe without having to build a single mile of railroad through the Rocky Mountains.
The original railroad systems were the early foundations of our modern national economies. An Englishman named Thomas Savey invented the steam engine in 1698, and another Englishman named George Stephenson leveraged that technology in 1830 to build the world’s first locomotive, named the Locomotion No. 1. England built the Liverpool and Manchester Railroad line, then the railroad fever made its way across the ocean to America. In 1862, during a bloody and brutal Civil War, Congress passed the Pacific Railway Act that initiated the building of the Transcontinental Railroad to connect the American East Coast with the West Coast. During this same period, England’s British North America colony was renamed Canada; on July 1, 1867, the first official day of the new country, Sir John A MacDonald, Canada’s first Prime Minister, started an ambitious project to build a railroad to connect a large, vast new country and provide a dependable link for both travel and commerce to flow between Toronto and Vancouver. By 1900, America had completed almost 250,000 miles of rail from sea to shining sea; and Canada had completed more than 10,000 miles from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. In addition to the start of the American Industrial Revolution in the 1870s, and the growing industries and emerging robber barons of steel, oil, and mining, the building of the railroads across North America was a critical step in our remarkable story.
The railroad is the perfect illustration of our past and future. Unstoppable vision of how to harness the rugged landscape, brilliant engineering, hard work and teamwork, and big thinking. Our entire society and lifestyles are still based on the past and current success of the railroad networks. The railroads have proven to be timeless. Next time you have a pocket of time, find an interesting, long, remote stretch of railway and take a walk. You will probably be flooded with thoughts, ideas and plenty of inspiration. Walk with a friend and talk about bold ideas and explore what is possible. Remember, the first new mile of a new railroad-type system of one kind or another is beginning today, somewhere. I am sure it will take us to new places we never could have imagined just a few months ago.