The New Jersey Legislature chartered the Camden and Amboy Rail Road and Transportation Company (C&A) in February 1830. This was the first railroad in New Jersey and the third in the United States. The C&A's corporate architect, first president and chief engineer was Robert L. Stevens (1787–1856), who was also the country’s leading builder of steamboats. The new railroad and its sister entity, the Delaware and Raritan Canal Company, were created to service a heavily traveled passenger and freight route across New Jersey.

Albany industrialist and Mohawk Valley Railroad owner Erastus Corning managed to unite the Albany and Schenectady Railroad, the Utica and Schenectady Railroad, the Syracuse and Utica Railroad, the Auburn and Syracuse Railroad, the Buffalo and Rochester Railroad, the  Schenectady and Troy Railroad, the L

The "Little Railroad that Could"

Construction of railroads caught the interest of rail fans, business entrepreneurs and investors west of the Allegheny Mountains in America in the early 1800s.

The Northern Indiana Railroad Company, not to be confused with a later company of the same name, began with a charter for The Buffalo and Mississippi Railroad Company.  The BMR Company was chartered to run from the navigable water at the west end of Lake Erie (head of Maumee Bay) to the navigable water below the rapids of the Illinois River (Ottawa, Illinois).  In 1837 the Indiana Legislature amended the original act, renaming the company Northern Indiana Railroad Company.

On July 8, 1853, the Ohio and Indiana companies merged, and on February 7, 1855, the Northern Indiana and Chicago Railroad and the Buffalo and Mississippi Railroad were merged into the Northern Indiana Railroad. On April 25, 1855, that company in turn merged with the Michigan Southern Rail Road to form the Michigan Southern and Northern Indiana Railroad.

St. Louis, Alton and Chicago Railroad c.1857-1861 Alton – Joliet