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, while Union Pacific Railroad purchased a number of competitors as well. Another result of the Staggers Act was the rise of shortline railroads, which formed to operate lines that major railroads abandoned or sold off. Hundreds of these companies were formed by the end of the century. Freight railroads invested in modernization and capacity improvements as they entered the 21st century, and intermodal transport continued to grow, while traditional traffic such as coal fell. History To 1850 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 the Niagara Portage (which the local Senecas called "Crawl on All Fours.") in Lewiston, New York. In the 1820s–1840s, Americans closely watched the development of railways in Great Britain. The main competition came from canals, many of which were in operation under state ownership, and from privately owned steamboats plying the nation's vast river system. In 1829, Massachusetts prepared an elaborate plan. Government support, most especially the detailing of officers from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – the nation's only repository 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 the railroad companies. More than one in ten of the 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 the business corporation and gave a limited right of eminent domain, allowing the railroad to buy needed land, even if the owner objected. 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. It began scheduled freight service over its first section on May 24, 1830. The first railroad to carry passengers, and, by accident, the