J. Edgar ThomsonBorn 10 Feb 1808; died 27 May 1874 at age 66.John Edgar Thomson was an American civil engineer and third president of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company who consolidated a network of railroad lines from Philadelphia to various cities in the Midwest and the South, extending as far as Chicago and Norfolk, Va. His principal projects included completing the road across the Alleghenies, double tracking its main line and experimenting with coal-burning locomotives. In an unprecedented expansion program, though leases and purchases, Thomson controlled over six thousand miles of railroad by 1873. Thomson also invested in transcontinental lines as well as coal companies, iron and steel works, lumber operations, and land companies. |
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