Hi good Day!
This is my first question and I hope I am following the guidelines. It has to deal with railway history in 1863. Specifically the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. I am currently co-authoring a novel, and I have found that we can get our protagonist from Washington DC to St. Joseph MO by rail in 1863 (He needs to go to California), however, my quandary lies in the speed of the trip itself. In my research, I cannot find the actual miles of the rail lines (I believe it might be 1190 miles), nor the speed of the locomotives of the time. As well, as I understand, the locomotives would pull into a town so passengers could grab food supplies for the next days journey. Any help would be appreciated about how long this trip would take would be appreciated. I understand weather, ground conditions, etc would all play factors.
Edited for clarification:
My Research efforts have included;
Library of Congress, Federal Highway Administration as well as the B&O Rail Historical Museum
Thank you in advance!
V/R
Rich
Perhaps you could try the following primary sources: http://railroads.unl.edu/topics/passengers.php. This website has digitized a number of mid-nineteenth century train route maps and timetables. While I can't find one for the the exact route you're looking for, they might give you some idea of travel speed that you could use to extrapolate for your project.