3-011-839 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Railway Station at the Franklin Petroleum Oil Works, Pennsylvania, 1864. 'The casks or barrels of crude oil are conveyed from the Franklin and Titusville stations by the Atlantic and Great Western Railway...Two hundred miles of railway were constructed in as many days before the end of 1862, and 145 miles were added [in] 1863. The line is now opened throughout its entire length, traversing the fertile States of Pennsylvania and Ohio, and enabling goods or passengers to travel from New York to St. Louis, near the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri, without a change of carriage...During the past year the Atlantic and Great Western Railway has carried more than half a million barrels of petroleum oil, which is not one third of the product of this wonderful region. The petroleum oil is sent from America in a crude state, just as it pours out of the earth. The business of refining and preparing it for use is extensively carried on in England and France...It has been proved that a given quantity of this substance will generate, in half the time, as much steam as could be produced by burning twice the weight of coal. It seems likely that the introduction of this portable fuel will have a great effect upon the development of steam navigation'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.