[3] He studied mechanical engineering at the Sorbonne in Paris[4] and traveled to England to observe the construction of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway led by George Stephenson.

[5] While traveling in England, he met two young Americans, Henry Seybert and Nathaniel Chauncey, who were politically connected and were able to secure Robinson a position with the Pennsylvania canal commission upon his return to the United States.

Three years later, the Virginia Board of Public Works hired Robinson to assist in locating an extension for the James River Canal.

[8] In 1829, Pennsylvania's "Main Line of Public Works" hired Robinson to survey part of the canal and railroad route from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh.

While building one of the short coal railroads of the anthracite region, Robinson also served as post master of Port Clinton, Pennsylvania, where an early home of his still stands.

Though Robinson held patents on incline systems, from the beginning, he recommended British built locomotives for railroads, especially the recently perfected 0-4-0s with Bury fire box.

By the mid-1830s, American mechanics had perfected the 4-2-0, with its lead swivel truck or pilot wheels – designed by John B Jervis for the Mohawk & Hudson – and Robinson recommended these for steeper grade railroads during the late 1830s, in Virginia and Pennsylvania.

The most powerful locomotive up to that time was built by Eastwick & Harrison of Philadelphia, and proved ideal for the coal fields tapped by the Reading.

In 1839, with Benjamin Latrobe, John Jervis, J Edgar Thomson, Claudius Crozet, Horatio Allen, Henry Campbell (and others), Robinson helped organize the American Society of Civil Engineers in Philadelphia.

[5] In 1842, he was hired by the United States Government to consult in the construction of the enormous dry dock at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

[17] Moncure Robinson, his son John Moncure Robinson, former Confederate general William Mahone and North Carolina businessman Alexander Boyd Andrews successfully worked with investors to consolidate a series of short-line railroads into what became the Seaboard Air Line Railroad and ship system.

Instead, John Moncure Robinson became superintendent then president of this major, 800-mile (1,300 km) southern trunk line, from Norfolk and Richmond, Virginia to Atlanta, Georgia and Birmingham, Alabama.

Called "one of the most distinguished civil engineers in the United States"[5] and the "genius of America's earliest railways,"[27] Robinson was instrumental in the early development and growth of the country's great railroad system.

[6] He influenced Frederick List, called the "Father of German Railroads" and Michel Chevalier, the Minister of Public Works under Louis Philippe and the most eminent engineer in France.