80-524: Hettick is a village in Macoupin County , Illinois , United States . The population was 149 at the 2020 census, down from 181 in 2010. Hettick is located in northwestern Macoupin County at 39°21′19″N 90°02′14″W / 39.355234°N 90.037146°W / 39.355234; -90.037146 , 13 miles (21 km) northwest of Carlinville , the county seat . Illinois Route 111 passes through
160-680: A common carrier and tourist road from the 1890s to 1937. Lasting 111 years, the SH&;MC is described by some to be the world's first roller coaster . The first purpose-built common carrier railroad in the northeast was the Mohawk & Hudson Railroad ; incorporated in 1826. It began operating in August 1831. Soon, a second passenger line, the Saratoga & Schenectady Railroad , started service in June 1832. In 1835,
240-402: A certain area. U.S. freight railroads operate in a highly competitive marketplace. According to a 2010 FRA report, within the U.S., railroads carried 39.5% of freight by ton-mile, followed by trucks (28.6%), oil pipelines (19.6%), barges (12%) and air (0.3%). However, railroads' revenue share has been slowly falling for decades, a reflection of the intensity of the competition they face and of
320-506: A city square layout, with the main county building occupying the central city block. This building houses all the offices of the county. Typically, churches of the various denominations will lie within two or three blocks of the town square, or sometimes will lie mainly along a single street near the town's center. With modern roads easily accessible, some towns in the northern part of the county became virtual bedroom communities as people commuted to Springfield to work and shop, hastening
400-462: A dozen metropolitan areas, but these systems are not extensively interconnected, so commuter rail cannot be used alone to traverse the country. Commuter systems have been proposed in approximately two dozen other cities, but interplays between various local-government administrative bottlenecks and ripple effects from the Great Recession have generally pushed such projects farther and farther into
480-473: A female householder with no husband present, and 33.7% were non-families. 31.3% of all households were made up of individuals, and 15.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.19 and the average family size was 2.73. In the village, the population was spread out, with 22.0% under the age of 18, 9.3% from 18 to 24, 26.9% from 25 to 44, 25.3% from 45 to 64, and 16.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age
560-516: A formidable barrier to change. Overregulation, management and unions formed an "iron triangle" of stagnation, frustrating the efforts of leaders such as the New York Central 's Alfred E. Perlman . In particular, the dense rail network in the Northeastern U.S. was in need of radical pruning and consolidation. A spectacularly unsuccessful beginning was the 1968 formation and subsequent bankruptcy of
640-601: A large proportion of this difference is due to external factors such as geography and higher use of goods like coal. In ton-miles, railroads annually move more than 25% of the United States' freight and connect businesses with each other across the country and with markets overseas. In 2018, US rail freight had a transport energy efficiency of 473 tons.miles per gallon of fuel. In recent years, railroads have gradually been losing intermodal traffic to trucking. U.S. freight railroads are separated into three classes, set by
720-528: A major change in these voting patterns due to the county's conservative population. The 2012 election saw Illinoisan Barack Obama become the first Democrat to win the presidency without carrying Macoupin County, and in 2016 Hillary Clinton won less than thirty percent of the vote in this once traditionally Democratic county – a figure eleven percent worse than McGovern's in his landslide defeat. 39°16′N 89°55′W / 39.26°N 89.92°W / 39.26; -89.92 Rail transport in
800-656: A nationwide mechanized transportation network that revolutionized the population and economy of the American West , catalyzing the transition from the wagon trains of previous decades to a modern transportation system. It was the first transcontinental railroad by connecting myriad eastern U.S. railroads to the Pacific Ocean. However it was not the world's longest railroad, as Canada 's Grand Trunk Railway (GTR) had, by 1867, already accumulated more than 2,055 kilometres (1,277 mi) of track by connecting Portland, Maine , and
880-449: Is both Amtrak and commuter. New York City itself is noteworthy for high usage of passenger rail transport, both subway and commuter rail ( Long Island Rail Road , Metro-North Railroad , New Jersey Transit ). The subway system is used by one third of all U.S. mass transit users. Chicago also sees high rail ridership, with a local elevated system , one of the world's last interurban lines , and fourth most-ridden commuter rail system in
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#1732873326277960-409: Is descended from both of the original railroads. Many Canadian and U.S. railroads originally used various broad gauges, but most were converted to 4 ft 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 in ( 1,435 mm ) by 1886, when the conversion of much of the southern rail network from 5 ft ( 1,524 mm ) gauge took place. This and the standardization of couplings and air brakes enabled
1040-735: Is divided into twenty-six townships : As part of the rural German Catholic belt surrounding the Illinois section of the St. Louis metropolitan area, Macoupin County traditionally favored the Democratic Party. Up to and including the 2000 election, Macoupin voted for the Republican nominee only in six major landslide victories, and no Republican gained an absolute majority of the county's vote until Richard Nixon ’s 3,000-plus-county landslides victory over George McGovern in 1972. The twenty-first century has seen
1120-714: Is land and 4.7 square miles (12 km ) (0.5%) is water. In recent years, average temperatures in the county seat of Carlinville have ranged from a low of 17 °F (−8 °C) in January to a high of 87 °F (31 °C) in July, although a record low of −23 °F (−31 °C) was recorded in February 1905 and a record high of 113 °F (45 °C) was recorded in July 1954. Average monthly precipitation ranged from 1.95 inches (50 mm) in February to 4.25 inches (108 mm) in May. As of
1200-413: Is now little to see of this once-major industry. Towns were (and still are) characterized either by a midwestern town square layout or by a main street layout. In the former, a central city block may be a small park with a gazebo , with the small businesses of the town surrounding it. In the latter, a single street will have the small businesses of the town lining either side of it. Carlinville has
1280-521: The 2010 United States Census , there were 47,765 people, 19,381 households, and 13,224 families residing in the county. The population density was 55.4 inhabitants per square mile (21.4/km ). There were 21,584 housing units at an average density of 25.0 per square mile (9.7/km ). The racial makeup of the county was 97.6% white, 0.8% black or African American, 0.3% Asian, 0.3% American Indian, 0.2% from other races, and 0.9% from two or more races. Those of Hispanic or Latino origin made up 0.9% of
1360-583: The Alabama cities of Decatur and Tuscumbia . Soon, other roads that would themselves be purchased or merged into larger entities, were formed. The Camden & Amboy Railroad (C&A), the first railroad built in New Jersey , completed its route between its namesake cities in 1834. The C&A ran successfully for decades connecting New York City to the Delaware Valley , and would eventually become part of
1440-601: The East Coast . Intercity passenger service was once a large and vital part of the nation's passenger transportation network, but passenger service shrank in the 20th century as commercial air traffic and the Interstate Highway System made commercial air and road transport a practical option throughout the United States. The nation's earliest railroads were built in the 1820s and 1830s, primarily in New England and
1520-465: The Great Depression , the failure of most Interurbans by that time left many cities without suburban passenger railroads, although the largest cities such as New York City, Chicago , Boston and Philadelphia continued to have suburban service. The major railroads passenger flagship services included multi-day journeys on luxury trains resembling hotels, which were unable to compete with airlines in
1600-465: The Great Depression in the United States , and some lines were abandoned. A great increase in traffic during World War II brought a reprieve, but after the war railroads faced intense competition from automobiles and aircraft and began a long decline. Passenger service was especially hard hit; in 1971 the federal government created Amtrak , to take over responsibility for intercity passenger travel. Numerous railroad companies went bankrupt starting in
1680-611: The Mid-Atlantic states . The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad , chartered in 1827, was the nation's first common-carrier railroad. By 1850, an extensive railroad network had taken shape in the rapidly industrializing Northeastern United States and the Midwest, while fewer railroads were built in the South , which was more agricultural than other regions. During and after the American Civil War ,
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#17328733262771760-573: The Niagara Portage in Lewiston, New York . Between the 1820s and 1840s, Americans closely watched the development of railways in Great Britain . There, the main competition came from canals, many of which operated under state ownership and from privately owned steamboats plying the nation's vast river system. In 1829, Massachusetts prepared an elaborate rail plan. Government support, most especially
1840-566: The Penn Central , barely two years later. On routes where a single railroad has had an undisputed monopoly, passenger service was as spartan and as expensive as the market and ICC regulation would bear, since such railroads had no need to advertise their freight services. However, on routes where two or three railroads were in direct competition with each other for freight business, such railroads would spare no expense to make their passenger trains as fast, luxurious, and affordable as possible, as it
1920-580: The Pennsylvania Railroad . By 1850, over 9,000 miles (14,000 km) of railroad lines had been built. The B&O's westward route reached the Ohio River in 1852, the first eastern seaboard railroad to do so. Railroad companies in the North and Midwest constructed networks that linked nearly every major city by 1860. Large railroad companies, including the New York Central , Grand Trunk Railway , and
2000-552: The Rail Passenger Service Act of 1970, Congress created the National Railroad Passenger Corporation (NRPC) to subsidize and oversee the operation of intercity passenger trains. The Act provided that: The original working brand name for NRPC was Railpax , which eventually became Amtrak . At the time, many Washington insiders viewed the corporation as a face-saving way to give passenger trains
2080-476: The Rock Island , with two intrastate Illinois trains, was too far gone to be included into Amtrak. Freight transportation continued to labor under regulations developed when rail transport had a monopoly on intercity traffic, and railroads only competed with one another. An entire generation of rail managers had been trained to operate under this regulatory regime. Labor unions and their work rules were likewise
2160-562: The Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890. Industrialists such as Cornelius Vanderbilt and Jay Gould became wealthy through railroad ownerships. The First Transcontinental Railroad in the U.S. was built in the 1860s, linking the railroad network of the eastern U.S. with California on the Pacific coast. Completed on May 10, 1869, at the Golden spike event at Promontory Summit, Utah , it created
2240-576: The Southern Pacific , spanned several states. In response to monopolistic practices, such as price fixing and other excesses of some railroads and their owners, Congress created the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) in 1887. The ICC indirectly controlled the business activities of the railroads through issuance of extensive regulations . Congress also enacted antitrust legislation to prevent railroad monopolies, beginning with
2320-623: The Surface Transportation Board , based on annual revenues: In 2013, the U.S. moved more oil out of North Dakota by rail than by the Trans-Alaska pipeline. This trend—tenfold in two years and 40-fold in five years—is forecast to increase. There are four different classes of freight railroads: Class I , regional, local line haul, and switching & terminal. Class I railroads are defined as those with revenue of at least $ 346.8 million in 2006. They comprise just one percent of
2400-485: The Texas Central Railway is currently developing plans for a proposed greenfield high-speed rail line using Japanese Shinkansen trains between Dallas and Houston . Construction was expected to begin in 2020 for a 2026 opening, but a major lawsuit delayed the project and as of February 2023 there are no signs of construction activity. The basic design of a passenger car was standardized by 1870. By 1900,
2480-649: The United Mine Workers rose to power, and was again prominent during the internecine war between the UMW and the Progressive Miners of America of the 1930s. Agriculture remained the county's prime economic activity, but farming became a large-scale corporate enterprise, with small family farms rapidly disappearing. Coal mining decreased and has almost disappeared entirely. Buildings and structures related to coal mining were torn down as they were wasted away, so there
Hettick, Illinois - Misplaced Pages Continue
2560-464: The census of 2000, there were 182 people, 83 households, and 55 families residing in the village. The population density was 548.9 inhabitants per square mile (211.9/km). There were 89 housing units at an average density of 268.4 per square mile (103.6/km). The racial makeup of the village was 100.00% White . There were 83 households, of which 27.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 51.8% were married couples living together, 12.0% had
2640-663: The first transcontinental railroad was built, to join California with the rest of the national network, at a connection in Iowa . Railroads expanded throughout the rest of the 19th century, eventually reaching nearly every corner of the nation. The railroads were temporarily nationalized between 1917 and 1920 by the United States Railroad Administration , because of American entry into World War I . Railroad mileage peaked at this time. Railroads were affected deeply by
2720-436: The poverty line , including 17.6% of those under the age of eighteen and 15.4% of those 65 or over. Macoupin County, Illinois Macoupin County is a county located in the U.S. state of Illinois . According to the 2020 census , it had a population of 44,967. The county seat is Carlinville . The primary industry is agriculture , consisting of crops of corn (maize), soybeans , and some wheat . The region
2800-564: The "3R Act". The act was an attempt to salvage viable freight operations from the bankrupt Penn Central and other lines in the northeast, mid-Atlantic and Midwestern regions. The law created the Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail), a government-owned corporation, which began operations in 1976. Another law, the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1976 (the "4R Act"), provided more specifics for
2880-517: The 1950s. Rural communities were served by slow trains no more than twice a day. They survived until the 1960s because the same train hauled the Railway Post Office cars, paid for by the US Post Office . RPOs were withdrawn when mail sorting was mechanized. As early as the 1930s, automobile travel had begun to cut into the rail passenger market, somewhat reducing economies of scale , but it
2960-650: The 1960s, most notably Penn Central Transportation Company in 1971, in the largest bankruptcy in the nation's history at the time. Once again, the federal government intervened, forming Conrail , in 1976, to assume control of bankrupt railroads in the northeast. Railroads' fortunes changed after the passage of the Staggers Rail Act (1980), which deregulated railroad companies, who had previously faced much stronger regulation than other modes of transportation. With innovations such as trailer-on-flatcar and intermodal freight transport , railroad traffic increased. After
3040-509: The American freight market rose to 43%. U.S. railroads still play a major role in the nation's freight shipping. They carried 750 billion ton-miles by 1975 which doubled to 1.5 trillion ton-miles in 2005. In the 1950s, the U.S. and Europe moved roughly the same percentage of freight by rail; by 2000, the share of U.S. rail freight was 38% while in Europe only 8% of freight traveled by rail;
3120-400: The American population outside of the eastern regions. The principal mainline railroads concentrated their efforts on moving freight and passengers over long distances. But many had suburban services near large cities, which might also be served by Streetcar and Interurban lines. The Interurban was a concept which relied almost exclusively on passenger traffic for revenue. Unable to survive
3200-552: The B&;O completed a branch from Baltimore southward to Washington, D.C. The Boston & Providence Railroad was incorporated in 1831 to build a railroad between Boston and Providence, Rhode Island ; the road was completed in 1835 with the completion of the Canton Viaduct in Canton, Massachusetts . Numerous short lines were built, especially in the south, to provide connections to
3280-675: The Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway. The freight industry continued its decline until Congress passed the Staggers Rail Act in 1980, which largely deregulated the rail industry. Since then, U.S. freight railroads have reorganized, discontinued their lightly used routes and returned to profitability. Freight railroads play an important role in the U.S. economy, especially for moving imports and exports using containers, and for shipments of coal and oil. Productivity rose 172% between 1981 and 2000, while rates decreased by 55%, after accounting for inflation. Rail's share of
Hettick, Illinois - Misplaced Pages Continue
3360-600: The Conrail acquisitions and set the stage for more comprehensive deregulation of the railroad industry. Portions of the Penn Central , Erie Lackawanna , Reading Railroad , Ann Arbor Railroad , Central Railroad of New Jersey , Lehigh Valley , and Lehigh and Hudson River were merged into Conrail. On December 31, 1996, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway merged with the Burlington Northern Railroad , creating
3440-617: The Staggers Act, many railroads merged, forming major systems, such as CSX and Norfolk Southern , in the Eastern United States, and BNSF Railway , in the Western United States; Union Pacific Railroad also purchased some competitors. Another result of the Staggers Act was the rise of shortline railroads , which formed to operate lines that major railroads had abandoned or sold off. Hundreds of these companies were formed by
3520-558: The U.S. was provided by the same companies that provided freight service. When Amtrak was formed, in return for government permission to exit the passenger rail business, freight railroads donated passenger equipment to Amtrak and helped it get started with a capital infusion of some $ 200 million. The vast majority of the 22,000 or so miles over which Amtrak operates are actually owned by freight railroads. By law, freight railroads must grant Amtrak access to their track upon request. In return, Amtrak pays fees to freight railroads to cover
3600-544: The United States Rail transportation in the United States consists primarily of freight shipments along a well integrated network of standard gauge private freight railroads that also extend into Canada and Mexico . The United States has the largest rail transport network of any country in the world, about 160,000 miles (260,000 km). Passenger service is a mass transit option for Americans with commuter rail in most major American cities, especially on
3680-550: The United States beyond a few highly populated corridors. The final blow for passenger trains in the U.S. came with the loss of railroad post offices in the 1960s. On May 1, 1971, with only a few exceptions, the federally-funded Amtrak took over all intercity passenger rail service in the continental United States. The Rio Grande , with its Denver - Ogden Rio Grande Zephyr and the Southern with its Washington, D.C.– New Orleans Southern Crescent chose to stay out of Amtrak, and
3760-655: The United States: Metra . Other major cities with substantial rail infrastructure include Philadelphia 's SEPTA , Boston 's MBTA , and Washington, D.C.'s network of commuter rail and rapid transit. Denver , Colorado constructed a new electrified commuter rail system in the 2000s to complement the city's light rail system. The commuter rail systems of San Diego and Los Angeles, Coaster and Metrolink , connect in Oceanside, California . The San Francisco Bay Area additionally hosts several local passenger rail operators,
3840-491: The business corporation and gave a limited right of eminent domain , allowing the railroad to buy needed land, even over the owner's objections. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) was chartered in 1827 to build a steam railroad west from Baltimore , Maryland, to a point on the Ohio River and began scheduled freight service over its first section on May 24, 1830. The first railroad to carry passengers, and, by accident,
3920-428: The county. With coal underlying the entire region, the most economical development was to place mines alongside the railroad tracks (for transportation of coal) and located in or near already-existing towns. By the twentieth century, there were mines in many towns, all of them with substantial populations of foreign-born miners from everywhere in Europe . During the twentieth century, agriculture and coal mining remained
4000-549: The decline of small businesses in the towns. The same effect was felt in the southernmost part of the county, and in 2005, the U.S. Census Bureau included the county in the St. Louis Metropolitan Statistical Area due to increased commuting patterns and employment in St. Louis and the Metro-East . According to the U.S. Census Bureau , the county has a total area of 868 square miles (2,250 km ), of which 863 square miles (2,240 km )
4080-456: The detailing of officers from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – the nation's only source of civil engineering expertise – was crucial in assisting private enterprise in building nearly all the country's railroads. Army Engineer officers surveyed and selected routes, planned, designed, and constructed rights-of-way, track, and structures, and introduced the Army's system of reports and accountability to
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#17328733262774160-480: The end of the century. Freight railroads invested in modernization and greater capacity as they entered the 21st century, and intermodal transport continued to grow, while traditional traffic, such as coal, fell. Between 1762 and 1764 a gravity railroad ( mechanized tramway ) ( Montresor's Tramway ) was built by British Army engineers up the steep riverside terrain near the Niagara River waterfall's escarpment at
4240-630: The first tourist railroad, began operating in 1827. Named the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company , initially a gravity road feeding anthracite coal downhill to the Lehigh Canal , using mule-power to return nine miles up the mountain; but, by the summer of 1829, as newspapers documented, it regularly carried passengers. In 1843, renamed the Summit Hill & Mauch Chunk Railroad , it added a steam powered cable-return track for true two-way operation and ran as
4320-535: The future, or have even sometimes mothballed them entirely. The most culturally notable and physically evident exception to the general lack of significant passenger rail transport in the U.S. is the Northeast Corridor between Washington , Baltimore , Philadelphia , New York City , and Boston , with significant branches in Connecticut and Massachusetts . The corridor handles frequent passenger service that
4400-413: The incremental costs of Amtrak's use of freight railroad tracks. The sole long-distance intercity passenger railroad in the continental U.S. is Amtrak , and multiple current commuter rail systems provide regional intercity services such as New York-New Haven, and Stockton-San Jose. In Alaska, intercity service is provided by Alaska Railroad instead of Amtrak. Commuter rail systems exist in more than
4480-524: The large rate reductions railroads have passed through to their customers over the years. In 2011, North American railroads operated 1,471,736 freight cars and 31,875 locomotives, with 215,985 employees. They originated 39.53 million carloads (averaging 63 tons each) and generated $ 81.7 billion in freight revenue of present 2014. The average haul was 917 miles. The largest (Class 1) U.S. railroads carried 10.17 million intermodal containers and 1.72 million piggyback trailers. Intermodal traffic
4560-575: The largest of which are Caltrain , the Altamont Corridor Express , Sonoma–Marin Area Rail Transit , and Bay Area Rapid Transit . Privately run inter-city passenger rail operations have also been restarted since 2018 in south Florida, with additional routes under development. Brightline is a higher-speed rail train, run by All Aboard Florida. It began service in January 2018 between Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach ; its service
4640-401: The mainstays of the county's economy, and the county's fortunes rose and fell with them. Farming was still family based . Macoupin County was often at the center of major labor disputes between mine owners and miners and was a hotbed of union activity. The county had previously played a significant role in violent 1890s disputes that brought unwanted national attention, was at center stage when
4720-669: The major rivers. The main European settlement was from the southwest, as people moved inland from the established transportation route of the Mississippi River . Macoupin County was established on January 17, 1829. It was formed out of Greene and Madison Counties and was named after Macoupin Creek , which runs near Carlinville and meanders southwest to the Illinois River . The economy was based on subsistence agriculture , and communication
4800-911: The number of freight railroads , but account for 67 percent of the industry's mileage, 90 percent of its employees, and 93 percent of its freight revenue. A regional railroad is a line haul railroad with at least 350 miles (560 km) and/or revenue between $ 40 million and the Class I threshold. There were 33 regional railroads in 2006. Most have between 75 and 500 employees. Local line haul railroads operate less than 350 miles (560 km) and earn less than $ 40 million per year (most earn less than $ 5 million per year). In 2006, there were 323 local line haul railroads. They generally perform point-to-point service over short distances. Switching and terminal (S&T) carriers are railroads that primarily provide switching and/or terminal services, regardless of revenue. They perform pick up and delivery services within
4880-556: The one "last hurrah" demanded by the public, but expected that the NRPC would quietly disappear in a few years as public interest waned. However, while Amtrak's political and financial support have often been shaky, popular and political support for Amtrak has allowed it to survive into the 21st century. To preserve a declining freight rail industry, Congress passed the Regional Rail Reorganization Act of 1973, sometimes called
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#17328733262774960-434: The pooling and interchange of locomotives and rolling stock. The railroad had its largest impact on the American transportation system during the second half of the 19th century. The standard historical interpretation holds that the railroads were central to the development of a national market in the United States and served as a model of how to organize, finance and manage a large corporation, along with allowing growth of
5040-649: The populating of the West by homesteaders , leading to rapid cultivation of new farm lands. The Central Pacific and the Southern Pacific Railroad combined operations in 1870 and formally merged in 1885; the Union Pacific originally bought the Southern Pacific in 1901 and was forced to divest it in 1913, but took it over again in 1996. Much of the original roadbed is still in use today and owned by UP, which
5120-447: The population. In terms of ancestry, 35.8% were German , 16.2% were Irish , 13.9% were English , 9.5% were American , and 8.0% were Italian . Of the 19,381 households, 30.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 53.5% were married couples living together, 9.8% had a female householder with no husband present, 31.8% were non-families, and 27.0% of all households were made up of individuals. The average household size
5200-491: The railroad companies. More than one in ten of the then 1,058 graduates from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point between 1802 and 1866 became corporate presidents, chief engineers, treasurers, superintendents and general managers of railroad companies. Among the Army officers who thus assisted the building and managing of the first American railroads were Stephen Harriman Long , George Washington Whistler , and Herman Haupt . State governments granted charters that created
5280-447: The railroad industry. The proponents were aided by the fact that few in the federal government wanted to be held responsible for the seemingly inevitable extinction of the passenger train, which most regarded as tantamount to political suicide. The urgent need to solve the passenger train disaster was heightened by the bankruptcy filing of the Penn Central , the dominant railroad in the Northeastern United States , on June 21, 1970. Under
5360-437: The railroad required enormous feats of engineering and labor in the crossing of the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains by the westbound Union Pacific Railroad (UP) and eastbound Central Pacific Railroad , the two federally chartered enterprises that built the line. The building of the railroad was motivated in part to bind the Union together following the strife of the American Civil War . It substantially accelerated
5440-429: The river systems and the river boats common to the era. In Louisiana , the Pontchartrain Rail-Road , a 5-mile (8.0 km) route connecting the Mississippi River with Lake Pontchartrain at New Orleans was completed in 1831 and provided over a century of operation. Completed in 1830, the Tuscumbia, Courtland & Decatur Railroad became the first railroad constructed west of the Appalachian Mountains ; it connected
5520-486: The three northern New England states with the Canadian Atlantic provinces , and west as far as Port Huron, Michigan , through Sarnia, Ontario . Authorized by the Pacific Railway Act of 1862 and heavily backed by the federal government , the first transcontinental railroad was the culmination of a decades-long movement to build such a line and was one of the crowning achievements of the presidency of Abraham Lincoln , completed five years after his death. The building of
5600-425: The village as Main Street, leading north 6 miles (10 km) to Palmyra and south 7 miles (11 km) to Chesterfield . According to the U.S. Census Bureau , Hettick has a total area of 0.37 square miles (0.96 km), all land. The village sits on a ridge that drains northwest to Solomon Creek and southeast to Nassa Creek, both part of the Macoupin Creek watershed leading west to the Illinois River . As of
5680-477: Was 2.42 and the average family size was 2.90. The median age was 41.7 years. The median income for a household in the county was $ 47,178 and the median income for a family was $ 59,700. Males had a median income of $ 48,878 versus $ 30,748 for females. The per capita income for the county was $ 23,222. About 9.7% of families and 12.0% of the population were below the poverty line , including 17.4% of those under age 18 and 5.5% of those age 65 or over. Macoupin County
5760-415: Was 36 years. For every 100 females, there were 104.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 105.8 males. The median income for a household in the village was $ 30,417, and the median income for a family was $ 35,313. Males had a median income of $ 31,667 versus $ 23,750 for females. The per capita income for the village was $ 14,117. About 5.6% of families and 10.5% of the population were below
5840-742: Was 6.2% of tonnage originated and 12.6% of revenue. The largest commodities were coal, chemicals, farm products, nonmetallic minerals and intermodal. Other major commodities carried include lumber, automobiles, and waste materials. Coal alone was 43.3% of tonnage and 24.7% of revenue. Coal accounted for roughly half of U.S. electricity generation and was a major export. As natural gas became cheaper than coal, coal supplies dropped 11% in 2015 but coal rail freight dropped by up to 40%, allowing an increase in car transport by rail, some in tri-level railcars. US coal consumption dwindled from over 1,100 million tons in 2008 to 687 million tons in 2018. Prior to Amtrak's creation in 1970, intercity passenger rail service in
5920-411: Was considered to be the most effective way of advertising their profitable freight services. The National Association of Railroad Passengers (NARP) was formed in 1967 to lobby for the continuation of passenger trains. Its lobbying efforts were hampered somewhat by Democratic opposition to any sort of rail subsidies to the privately owned railroads, and Republican opposition to nationalization of
6000-478: Was extended to Miami in May 2018, and an extension to Orlando International Airport opened for daily service on September 22, 2023, which includes a segment of brand new rail line from Orlando eastward toward the Atlantic coast. Brightline has also proposed a further extension of its service from Orlando to Tampa via Walt Disney World , and a high-speed rail service from Los Angeles to Las Vegas . In addition,
6080-515: Was inhabited by Illinoisan Indians when the first white explorers arrived. Macoupin is an adaptation of the Miami-Illinois term for the American lotus Nelumbo lutea . None of the native Indians remain, although some descendants of the earliest European settlers claim partial ancestry. The first European contact was by French explorers in the seventeenth century, travelling southward down
6160-569: Was little point in operating passenger trains to advertise freight service when those who made decisions about freight shipping traveled by car and by air, and when the railroads' chief competitors for that market were interstate trucking companies. Soon, the only things keeping most passenger trains running were legal obligations. Meanwhile, companies who were interested in using railroads for profitable freight traffic were looking for ways to get out of those legal obligations, and it looked like intercity passenger rail service would soon become extinct in
6240-412: Was now easier market access. Towns were small and sparsely distributed, and any new communities were founded along the railroad lines that provided transportation. Culturally, the county remained closer to its historical ties with St. Louis than to more northerly areas. Agriculture remained a mainstay of the economy, but this was joined by coal mining , an industry that partially changed the complexion of
6320-494: Was the development of the Interstate Highway System and of commercial aviation in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as increasingly restrictive regulation, that dealt the most damaging blows to rail transportation, both passenger and freight. General Motors and others were convicted of running the streetcar industry into the ground purposefully in what is referred to as the Great American Streetcar Scandal . There
6400-433: Was to the southwest. In the middle 19th century, Illinois developed and changed rapidly. The greatest change was in the building of railroads , and Macoupin County was on the rail and road transportation link between St. Louis and the still-young metropolis of Chicago . The county lies midway between St. Louis and the relocated state capital of Springfield . The economy was still based entirely on agriculture , but there
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