E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, David Cortesi, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 27701-h.htm or 27701-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/7/7/0/27701/27701-h/27701-h.htm) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/7/7/0/27701/27701-h.zip) Transcriber's note: The footnote to the first entry says that in the train schedules, times from noon to midnight are shown in "dark-face type." In this plain-text edition that cannot be done, so the letters "p" and "a" have been appended to each time to indicate AM and PM hours. Minor typographical errors have been corrected: employes to employees on p. 1, 129, and 130; nagivation to navigation on p. 48; conferation to confederation on p. 46. Inconsistent hyphenation in the original has been retained. In this plain-ASCII edition, accented and special characters have been replaced as follows: The sterling currency symbol with L; e-acute with ['e]; e-grave with [`e]; o-umlaut with [:o]; i-umlaut with [:i]; e-circumflex with [^e]. Owing to the method used to scan this work, in a few cases the first or last letters of a line were lost and had to be found from other sources or inferred from context. Where an inference is not certain, the presumed missing letters are in parentheses with a question mark, for example "p(art?)". In each of the numbers in the table on page 130 ("Passengers carried annually," etc.) the final digit cannot be determined and has been replaced with 0. THE GREATEST HIGHWAY IN THE WORLD Historical, Industrial and Descriptive Information of the Towns, Cities and Country passed through between New York and Chicago via The New York Central Lines Illustrated Based on the Encyclopaedia Britannica FOREWORD In furtherance of giving the utmost service to the public, the New York Central Lines asked the editors of the Encyclopaedia Britannica to prepare this booklet descriptive of and vivifying the historical development of what has been termed "The Greatest Highway in the World." It is presented to you in the hope that it may prove a pleasant companion on a journey over our Lines. The information will afford a new appreciation of the historical significance and industrial importance of the cities, towns and country which the New York Central Lines serve. The New York Central Lines enter twelve states and serve territory containing 51,530,784 inhabitants or 50.3 per cent of the nation's population. This rich and busy territory produces 64 per cent of the country's manufactured products and mines a similar proportion of its coal.