Oldest railroads in North America

This is a list of the earliest railroads in North America, including various railroad-like precursors to the general modern form of a company or government agency operating locomotive-drawn trains on metal tracks.

While private railroads are legally free to choose their jobs and customers, common carriers must charge fair rates to all comers.

Any effort to arrange early common-carrier railroads in chronological order must choose among various possible criterion dates, including applying for a state charter, receiving a charter, forming a company to build a railroad, beginning construction, opening operations, and so forth.

Selected railroads chartered since 1832:

A Gilded Age train station sits at the summit terminus of what was one of the most important nine miles of railroad in the United States in the 1830s: the Mauch Chunk and Summit Hill Railroad, which later became the Mauch Chunk Switchback Railway . The Victorian building replaced the original offices, becoming one of the first train stations to host travelers. The first documented passenger traffic arrived in the later half of 1827 when the area down to Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania was known as "the Switzerland of America"; regular passenger trains transported urban tourists from 1829 until early 1932.
1934 photo of the incline section of the Granite Railway
Historical Marker of the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad , incorporated in 1826 and opened in 1831
U.S. railroads in 1835
The New Orleans and Carrollton Railroad in 1835
The expanded Park Avenue Tunnel in 1941