The invention of the steam locomotive permanently changed how people travel and ship goods, enabling them to travel long distances in relatively short amounts of time. Before the invention of steam-powered trains, people had to rely on boats and horse-drawn carriages for travel and shipping. These means of transportation were unreliable, cumbersome, and often very expensive.

Then, in 1869, the United States completed the transcontinental railroad, which connected the United States by rail, allowing America to transform from a war-torn nation rebuilding from the recently concluded Civil War to a global superpower with major ports along both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Prior to the completion of the transcontinental railroad, people and goods either had to take boats that traveled all

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