How did the railroads effect America?

Answer 1

The role the trains played was very important. Trains provided transportation of people and goods. People could easily get to the West, or send cattle and wheat east. This quickly expanded the US's economy on the East Coast by having more places to sell to and having more places to buy from.

Trains provided easy and fast transportation of goods, taking more people out to the West and improving or creating the economy. It helped to settle the West by making travel short and relatively safe.

Answer 2

With the growth of cities, food was needed to feed the people that left the farms to work in factories. Cattle was shipped by train to Chicago where it was slaughtered and sent east. Wheat was sent from the west to be made into flour.

When the Civil War came, the Union moved troops by railroad and sent ammunition and supplies to them. It was one of the reasons that the Union won the war.

The transcontinental railroad also meant that the bison were in the way of the trains. Thousands of them were killed just to rot near the tracks. The Native Americans who depended on the bison for food and clothing were forced into reservations where they had to try to grow food and raise cattle on some of the worst land available.