How fast did Civil War era steam engines go? - Trains Magazine
Express trains in the north could run at speeds up to 60 mph if the track was well maintained and the line was well funded by its owners, however these were usually short runs by today s standards, NYC to Boston, NYC to Philly, NYC to DC. get farther west or south and the standards got worse, speeds got slower. For many of the same reasons that I'll mention below.
In the South, most lines were still quite primative often using strap rail, namely a metal plate that was layed on top of a wooden "rail" cheap to make but lousy for speed, so slow speed were the flavor of the day, 15-20mph was likely tops on these lines. These also had a common habit of wearing loose where it was nailed down to the rail with large spike nails, wheel action would cause the strap to coil up violently even ripping up thru the bottom of cars, RRers referred to these as "snakeheads". Where solid iron rail or pressed U rail ( shet of metal pressed into an inverted U shape with flanges for spiking) was found speeds could be increased but not by much, Iron rail was still weak and the U rail wasnt very strong either, likely 20-30 mph tops even for Express trains. Alot of these slow speeds are also the result of less that perfect ballasting on many southern lines, mostly due to the limited budgets many of these RR's were built to during the Ante-bellum days. When to Union forces occupied an area, they would often face RRs that had been burned or damaged, and that were built to whatever gauge the owners wanted 5' was most common. When they rebuilt these lines after the war they were often rebuilt by northers engineers who used the technics and standards common up north, the gauges were standardized and the general operational standards and construction standards overall were improved on all southern RRs as a result. As a result of these modernization and rebuilding practices and using the newer stronger steel rails both in the south and also in the north by the 1870's high speed 40-60 mph travel was almost common between almost all northern and southern cities east of the Mississippi.
Other lines that were not in the line of fire often operated right to and after the war with scant a hint of disturbance, though almost all the broad guage trains reguaged to standard by the end of the 19th century. However many of the narrow guage lumber and industrial lines, and their quite a few, operated right up to the end of their days .
