The decade 1840-1850 was marked by slow growth of the railway net,--everywhere except in New England, where the main lines were being rapidly laid down. The doom of the canal as a competitor had been sealed, to be sure; but the dearth of private capital, except in New England, rendered progress slow until aid from the government was invoked. Until this time private enterprise had been the main reliance. Several important undertakings were now launched. The Pennsylvania Railroad was chartered in 1846, but was not completed to Pittsburg till 1852. The Boston & Albany line was built; and Buffalo had been reached. But neither the Baltimore & Ohio, nor the Erie had yet been pushed to completion. The possibilities of the great Northwest had not dawned upon the people. At the opening of the decade, St. Louis was still almost three times as large as Chicago. Cincinnati was the most important western centre, its prestige being enhanced by the first all-rail line to the Great Lakes at Sandusky, opened in 1848. The relative importance of these inland centres is indicated by their populations. In 1850 these were as follows: Cincinnati, 115,000; Chicago, 30,000; St. Louis, 78,000; and Louisville, 43,000. Cincinnati retained its preëminence until after the Civil War; but by 1880 had dropped to a low third in rank, only half the size of Chicago and two-thirds the size of St. Louis.[4] During the decade to 1850, the Ann Arbor line from Detroit also was pushed on to Chicago in 1852, to cut off the roundabout trip by lake;[5] but St. Louis was still isolated; Indianapolis was barely connected with the Ohio river. The river trade thus still dominated the western situation. In the South one important enterprise monopolized all attention, namely the construction by the state of Georgia of the Western & Atlantic road over the mountains from Atlanta to Chattanooga on the Tennessee river.[6] Atlanta was to become the western terminus of the coast roads, built, as has been said, to provide an outlet to the sea for the Piedmont cotton belt. This new enterprise was to open up a direct route, not alone to the new western South but to the entire Northwest by connecting with a navigable branch of the Ohio. It is an odd fact that at this time the southern ports were nearer the West than the cities of the North Atlantic. Part of the first rush of the Forty-niners to California was by way of Charleston and thence west over the Charleston & Hamburg line. From 1837 on, the Western & Atlantic line was under construction. In the meantime Atlanta had been reached from the east; so that at the beginning of the next decade, two at least of the main arteries of the southern net were ready for business.