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Show First American Railroad. Although America's railroad history Is recorded as beginning when the Baltimore & Ohio laid its first rails in 1S2S, a pair of rusted strips of ron still visible in eastern Massachusetts tell of a pioneer transporation line whose inauguration antedated that event by two years. From the granite quarries of West Quincy the old road ran four miles to tidewater on the N'eponset river, and carried granite for the building of the Bunker Hill monument. monu-ment. The rails, of hand-forged iron, two inches vide and three-quarter inch thick, were held by hand-forged spikes to the granite roadbed. Mules were the locomotives, assisted by a cable where the grade was heavy. |