Transportation has changed drastically in the past several hundred years and here in the United States we’ve experienced a variety of ways to get from point A to point B. 200 years ago, the most practical way to travel was through our nation’s waterways which is why so many settlements were tied to the nation’s coasts and rivers. Fast forward 100 years later and we were riding the railroads along thousands of miles of track and large ships transported passengers and freight across the oceans. The twentieth century brought us trolley lines and, of course, mass production and the automobile, which changed everything.
So take a break today and learn about some fun and interesting transportation facts:
- Both the horse and donkey were domesticated for transportation about 4000 BC; the horse in Mesopotamia and the donkey in Egypt.
- In 1900, Americans owned 8,000 cars, in 1920, they owned 8 million, and in the year 2000, there were more than 220 million – more than one car for every person over the age of 18.
- There are 3,980,817 miles of roads in the United States, 2,605,331 miles paved and 1,375,486 miles unpaved.
- 40% of the world’s freight is transported via trains and that number continues to grow each year.
- The most popular car color is white.
- In 1833, Andrew Jackson traveled from Baltimore to Ellicott’s Mills, becoming the first U.S. sitting president to ride the rails.
- Charles Freuhauf invented the first tractor-trailer over 100 years ago in 1914 when a customer wanted a vehicle that could haul a boat.
- Approximately 15.7 million trucks are currently in use in the U.S. If you lined up all of those trucks end-to-end, they would reach the moon!
- The trucking industry moves approximately 70% of all freight transported annually in the U.S.
- Biodiesel was invented in the 1890s by Rudolph Diesel, when he created the diesel engine that could run on a variety of fuels including peanut oil.
As you can see, transportation is an ever evolving industry and G&D’s transportation offerings are always evolving to meet our customers’ needs and today’s challenges. Let us know how we can help you out with your transportation needs today.
Resources featured in this blog:
www.aar.org
www.factmonster.com
www.greencarreports.com
About the author:
Susan Himes is a Marketing Specialist at G&D Integrated.