Any one who owned a cart with flanged wheels could drive it on the rails and compete with the locomotives.

There was a happy-go-lucky jumble of trains and wagons, all held back by the slowest team; and this continued on some railways until as late as 1857.

By that time the people saw that com-petition on a railway track was absurd.

They allowed each track to be monopolized by one company, and the era of expansion began.
No one, certainly, at the present time, regrets the passing of the independent teamster.

He was much more arbitrary and expensive than any railroad has ever dared to be; and as the country grew, he became impossible.