Transportation Timeline

Prior to 1800, transportation as we know it today was almost non-existent. Railroads covered far less territory. Trains were much smaller. Horse-drawn carts moved food and all other items on land, and barges moved them on rivers.

	1769	Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot (France) built the first self-propelled vehicle, a military tractor that ran on steam. It could go 2.5 miles per hour.

	1787	John Fitch (United States) successfully tested his invention, a 45 foot steamboat, in the Delaware River.

	1832-1839	Robert Anderson (Scotland) built the first electric car.

	1840	The railroad was just getting started with only 3000 miles of track in the entire country.

	1860	The railway system in the United States had grown to over 30,000 miles of track.

	1870	By 1870, railroads had been built from coast-to-coast. Railroad companies continued to build hundreds of thousands of miles of new tracks over the next 30 years. Railroads provided a connection between rural areas and cities, and allowed farmers to sell there produce in far away places.

	1880-1905	Electric street car/trolley systems were built in Washington D.C. and other U.S. cities. Streetcars made it easier for people to travel farther distances and encouraged the creation of new suburbs.

	1885-1886	Karl Friedrich Benz (Germany) built the first gasoline powered automobile. It was a three wheeler.

	1876-1895	George Baldwin Selden (United States) invented and patented a horseless carriage powered with an internal combustion engine. The vehicle was never manufactured.

	1893	Charles and Frank Duryea, who were brothers, started the first U.S. car company. Their company produced a gasoline powered limousine until 1920.

	1908	Henry Ford (United States) first produced the Model T car. It was designed to use ethanol, gasoline, or any combination of the two fuels. Cities began switching from street cars to buses for public transportation.

	1910	The St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line was America’s first airline. The company went out of business after only three months.

	1918	The U.S. Post Office used airplanes to move the mail in order to establish an air transportation system. Lt. James Edgerton flew the mail from Philadelphia to Washington during the first scheduled air mail flight on May 15.

	1920	The Ford Motor Company manufactured the Model T in large numbers. Americans owned 8 million cars.

	1927	The airline business got its start when the U.S. Post Office turned over air mail delivery to private companies. Charles Lindbergh was the first lone pilot to fly non-stop from New York to Paris. His plane was called the Spirit of St. Louis.

	1944	Rail travel grew during World War II, reaching a record 98 billion passenger-miles.

	1950	Oil surpassed coal as the country’s number one fuel source. Americans owned 50 million cars.

	1955	More Americans traveled by air than by train.

	1956	Malcom McLean, a trucking magnate, loaded trailers onto a ship and sent them by sea for less than the cost of trucking them overland. He was credited with shipping the first load of containers (truck trailers) aboard a cargo ship, from New Jersey to Texas. President Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, which established the Interstate Highway System.
	1958	Pan American ushered in the Jet Age with the Boeing 707. The "Jet Age" began when airline companies began replacing propeller planes with jet planes. Jet engines had far fewer moving parts; so were more reliable, safer, and cheaper to operate. They used kerosene, which was less expensive than gasoline, and produced tremendous thrust for their weight.

	1969	80 percent of working men could drive. 86 percent of working women could drive.

	1970	The Boeing 747 was the first "jumbo jet" with 4 engines and 400 seats. Freight moved by train surpassed the World War II peak of 771 billion ton-miles.

	1971	Congress relieved railroads of the costs of running passenger trains. Amtrak, the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, started operations in 1971, taking over long-distance train service from nearly all of the rail carriers.
	1974	President Richard Nixon signed The Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act, which was part of a nationwide effort to reduce oil consumption.

	1975	U.S. Congress passed The Energy Policy and Conservation Act, which required car makers to begin building more fuel efficient cars. By 1985, the Act required new cars and trucks to meet an average Corporate Average Fuel (CAFÉ) Standard of 27.5 miles per gallon.
	By 1978	The Energy Tax Act of 1978 established a gas guzzler tax, a tax ranging from $1,000 to $7,700 per vehicle on gas-guzzling automobiles. President Jimmy Carter signed The Airline Deregulation Act, which increased competition among airlines. New car fleets were to have an overall average of 18 miles per gallon of gasoline.

	1980	President Jimmy Carter signed The Staggers Rail Act and The Motor Carrier Act, which were efforts to deregulate the railroad and trucking industries.

	By 1985	New cars and light trucks were required to meet a Corporate Average Fuel (CAFÉ) Standard for fuel economy of 27.5 miles per gallon.

	1990	95 percent of working men could drive, compared to 80 percent in 1969. 86 percent of working women could drive, compared to 61 percent in 1969.

	1994	The Trucking Industry Regulatory Reform Act continued the deregulation of the trucking inducstry.

	1995	88 percent of working men could drive, down from 95 percent in 1990. 80 percent of working women could drive, down from 86 percent in 1990. 80 percent of households had at least one vehicle per driver.

	1999	The first hybrid electric vehicle, powered by both a rechargeable battery and gasoline, became available in the United States.

	2000	Americans owned 220 million cars.

	2001	98.8 million households (92 percent) owned or possessed a light-duty vehicle (car, small truck, or motorcycle).

	2003	Sport utility vehicles (SUVs) accounted for 27 percent of all light-duty vehicle sales, up 6.8 percent from 1990.

	2005	Trucking accounted for 65 percent of energy used for transporting freight. Water transportation accounted for 18 percent, natural gas pipelines for 9 percent, and Class I railroads for 8 percent.

	2007	The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 set a new corporate average fleet efficiency (CAFE) standard for cars and light trucks. The new standard will require car makers to meet a fleet wide average of at least 35 miles per gallon by 2020, a 40 percent increase over the old standard. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 also set renewable fuel standards requiring an increase in the use of ethanol blended into gasoline. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration finalized new fuel economy (CAFE) standards for light trucks, which are to be phased in by 2011.

Last revised: December 2008
Sources: U.S. Library of Congress, Everyday Mysteries � Who Invented the Automobile? (http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/mysteries/auto.html ), March 2007.
Smithsonian National Museum of American History, America on the Move (http://americanhistory.si.edu/onthemove/), June 2008.
Smithsonian National Museum of American History, America by Air (http://www.nasm.si.edu/americabyair/ ), June 2008.