Providence and Worcester Railroad

==== Delays in construction ====

==== Delays in construction ====

Local enthusiasm was high for the new railroad, with one Providence resident quoted as saying “[it is] not so much what will the projected route add to the prosperity of Providence, as can we do without it?”<ref name=”:1″>{{Cite news|date=July 28, 1845|title=Saturday Morning, July 26, 1845|work=Manufacturers and Farmers Journal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5dViAAAAIBAJ&pg=PA1|access-date=October 22, 2021}}</ref> The city’s residents feared that without a railroad to connect their city to others, Providence would be reduced in importance compared to other cities in the region.<ref name=”:1″ /> Despite high local support, in July 1845 the railroad was still short $200,000, out of a needed sum of $1,000,000 per the company’s charter, and had not begun construction.<ref name=”:1″ /> Residents began to doubt the railroad would ever be built, with one citizen writing in a [[letter to the editor]] to a local newspaper that “…any hope of its completion, founded upon the present condition of the corporation, is desperate indeed.”<ref>{{Cite news|date=August 4, 1845|title=Providence and Worcester Railroad|work=Manufacturers and Farmers Journal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=59ViAAAAIBAJ&pg=PA1|access-date=October 22, 2021}}</ref>

Local enthusiasm was high for the new railroad, with one Providence resident quoted as saying “[it is] not so much what will the projected route add to the prosperity of Providence, as can we do without it?”<ref name=”:1″>{{Cite news|date=July 28, 1845|title=Saturday Morning, July 26, 1845|work=Manufacturers and Farmers Journal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5dViAAAAIBAJ&pg=PA1|access-date=October 22, 2021}}</ref> The city’s residents feared that without a railroad to connect their city to others, Providence would be reduced in importance compared to other cities in the region.<ref name=”:1″ /> Despite high local support, in July 1845 the railroad was still short $200,000, out of a needed sum of $1,000,000 per the company’s charter, and had not begun construction.<ref name=”:1″ /> Residents began to doubt the railroad would ever be built, with one citizen writing in a [[letter to the editor]] to a local newspaper that “…any hope of its completion, founded upon the present condition of the corporation, is desperate indeed.”<ref>{{Cite news|date=August 4, 1845|title=Providence and Worcester Railroad|work=Manufacturers and Farmers Journal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=59ViAAAAIBAJ&pg=PA1|access-date=October 22, 2021}}</ref>

By September 1845, residents worried over rumors that investors from [[Boston]] were planning to build a new railroad between [[Woonsocket, Rhode Island]] and [[Dedham, Massachusetts]], which would not serve Providence.<ref>{{Cite news|date=September 11, 1845|title=Worcester Railroad|work=Manufacturers and Farmers Journal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=79ViAAAAIBAJ&pg=PA1|access-date=October 22, 2021}}</ref> Despite fears the company would fail, it announced on October 8, 1845 that the requisite $1,000,000 in funding had been reached, plus a further $100,000 for the Massachusetts section of the line, and that construction would begin immediately.<ref>{{Cite news|date=October 9, 1845|title=Providence and Worcester Railroad|work=Manufacturers and Farmers Journal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9dViAAAAIBAJ&pg=PA2|access-date=October 22, 2021}}</ref>

==== Construction and operations ====

==== Construction and operations ====