<Dl> <Dt> A warming pot, 1810s--1830s </Dt> </Dl> <Dt> A warming pot, 1810s--1830s </Dt> <Ul> <Li> 1800 - 1825 Various inventors and entrepreneurs make suggestions about building model railways in the United States . Around Coalbrookdale in the U.K., mining railways become increasingly common . An early steam locomotive is given a test run in 1804, but is then wrecked carelessly . For unknown reasons, the inventor does not rebuild it for nearly two decades . </Li> <Li> 1809 Scottsman quarry owner Thomas Leiper, in 1809 when denied a charter to build a canal along the Crum Creek from his quarry to the docks in the tidewater, commissions a short temporary 60 yards (55 m) railroad test track in the yard of the Bull's Head Tavern in Philadelphia . The track had a grade of one inch and a half to the yard, with a 4% grade to test whether a horse could successfully pull 10,000 pounds (4,500 kg) against the slope . </Li> <Li> 1810 - 1829 The Leiper Railroad was a short horse drawn railroad of three quarters of a mile opens in 1810 after the quarry owner, Thomas Leiper, failed to obtain a charter with legal rights - of - way to instead build his desired canal along Crum Creek . The quarry man's' make - do' railroad solution was the continent's first chartered railway, first operational non-temporary railway, first well documented railroad, and first constructed railroad also meant to be permanent . It was perhaps the only railroad replaced by a canal, and also one of the first to close, and of those, perhaps is alone in reopening again in 1858 . </Li> </Ul> <Li> 1800 - 1825 Various inventors and entrepreneurs make suggestions about building model railways in the United States . Around Coalbrookdale in the U.K., mining railways become increasingly common . An early steam locomotive is given a test run in 1804, but is then wrecked carelessly . For unknown reasons, the inventor does not rebuild it for nearly two decades . </Li>

Where was the first railroad built in the us