Before the mid-1860’s, the impact of the railroads in the United States was

游客2024-10-27 1

问题 Before the mid-1860’s, the impact of the railroads in the United States was limited, in the sense that the tracks ended at the Missouri River, approximately the center of the country. At the point the trains turned their freight, mail, and passengers over to steamboats, wagons, and stage coaches. This meant that wagon freighting, stage-coaching, and steam-boating did not come to an end when the first train appeared; rather they became supplements or feeders. Each new "end-of-track" became a center for animal drawn or waterborne transportation. The major effect of the railroad was to shorten the distance that had to be covered by the older, slower, and more costly means. Wagon freighters continued operating throughout the 1870’s and 1880’s and into the 1890’s. Although over constantly shrinking routes, coaches and wagons continued to crisscross the West wherever the rails had not yet been laid. The beginning of a major change was foreshadowed in the later 1860’s, when the Union Pacific Railroad at last began to build westward from the Central Plains city of Omaha to meet the Central Pacific Railroad advancing eastward from California through the formidable barrier of the Sierra Nevada. Although President Abraham Lincoln signed the original Pacific Railroad bill in 1862 and a revised, financially much more generous version in 1864, little construction was completed until 1865 on the Central Pacific and 1866 on the Union Pacific. The primary reason was skepticism that a railroad built through so challenging and thinly settled a stretch of desert, mountain, and semiarid plain could pay a profit. In the words of an economist, this was a case of "premature enterprise", where not only the cost of construction but also the very high risk deterred private investment. In discussing the Pacific Railroad bill, the chair of the congressional committee bluntly stated that without government subsidy no one would undertake so unpromising a venture; yet it was a national necessity to link the East and the West together. [br] Which of the following factors account for the limited impact of railroads in the 1860s?

选项 A、Other modes of transportation did not come to an end when the first train appeared.
B、There was little government subsidy.
C、People doubted that railroads stretching desert, mountain, and semiarid plain could be profitable.
D、Economists and congressmen strongly opposed the idea of linking the East and West together through railroads.

答案 C

解析文章结尾指出经济学家、铁路公司等都对发展铁路能否创造经济效益表示怀疑。选项D具有迷惑性，经济学家等说的话只是反映了人们的疑虑，并非阻碍铁路发展的原因。

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