By the sound practical sense and the unconquerable will of George
Stephenson, the numerous inventions which together make up the locomotive
engine had been collected into a machine which, in combination with the
improved roadway, was to revolutionize the transportation of the world. The
railroad, as a machine, was invented. It remained to apply the new
invention in such a manner as to make it a success, and not a failure. To
do this in a new country like America required infinite skill, unbounded
energy, the most careful study of local conditions, and the exercise of
well matured, sound business judgment. To see how well the great invention
has been applied in the United States, we have only to look at the network
of iron roads which now reaches from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico,
and from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

With all the experience we have had, it is not an easy problem, even at the
present time, to determine how much money we are authorized to spend upon
the construction of a given railroad. To secure the utmost benefit at the
least outlay, regarding both the first cost of building the road and the
perpetual cost of operating it, is the railroad problem which is perhaps
less understood at the present day than any other. It was an equally
important problem fifty years ago, and certainly not less difficult at that
time. It was the fathers of the railroad system in the United States who
first perceived the importance of this problem, and who, adapting
themselves to the new conditions presented in this country, undertook to
solve it. Among the pioneers in this branch of engineering no one has done
more to establish correct methods, nor has left behind a more enviable or
more enduring fame, than Major George W. Whistler.

The Whistler family is of English origin, and is found toward the end of
the 15th century in Oxfordshire, at Goring and Whitchurch, on the Thames.