These gaps were not accidental -- every one was caused by the city businessmen and politicians wanting to force spending in their city. City ordinances were adopted that prevented the running of trains on the city streets -- and it was not possible to run a railroad into a town and connect to another railroad without crossing streets. Railroads in the same town were encouraged to configure their passenger train schedules so that passengers had to spend the night in town. The distance between stations gave work to cargo handlers at both stations and draymen to haul the goods from station to station {sample, sample, sample}. Of course, this was very inefficient to the through movement of goods and troops, but local demands died hard. Even in Richmond, the connection of some roads was allowed for only emergency movement of locomotives to prevent them being captured. Running locomotives through town was also a way to accidentally start serious fires and had been prevented for that reason in many towns.

The details of closing these gaps are here.

Total mileage

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