Providence (RI) Journal, 3/28:
Tracks of commerce: As the Providence & Worcester Railroad passes through the city, tracks fan out like the delta of a river
That train coming around the curve from the Port of Providence toward the Roger Williams Park Zoo is part of the Providence & Worcester Railroad, which traces its origins to John Brown and the Blackstone River Canal.
The canal, first proposed in 1796, wasn't built until 1829, long after the Providence businessman, slave trader and cofounder of Brown University died in 1803.
Once only 45 miles of track laid mostly along the canal's former towpath, the regional railroad now includes 516 miles of track in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York.
Train cars leaving the Port of Providence might connect with the Norfolk Southern Railway, which serves most of the United States east of the Mississippi, or with the Canadian National Railway, which crosses Canada to the Pacific, circles the Great Lakes and reaches down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.
Continue here.