Thoreau and Railroads

While reading "The Transcendental Railroad", I paid close attention to Thoreau's thoughts about the railroad.  The following are some of the quotes/points I deemed worth noticing:

It seems as though Thoreau had a more negative view of the railroad.  Yet he "would not deny that the railroad was accomplishing much at the material level" (316).  This article portrays Thoreau as a
"Thoreau, more full of questions than of answers, voiced misgivings over this particular manifestation of 'progress'" (306).
"Of greater concern to him [Thoreau] were the effects of the railroad.  At what ever level he examined them, however, an ambivalence was nearly always present in his attitude...Thoreau demurred that the Iron Horse, which required wood for fuel and for ties, had 'browsed off all the woods on Walden shore' and 'muddied the Boiling Spring with his foot'" (316).

Thoreau had a negative view of not only the railroad itself, but almost of the industrial boom that it created. "But much as commerce was accomplishing and respectable as it might be in itself, it was contaminated by what Thoreau called, 'the commercial spirit' - that is, an undue interest in trade, to the exclusion of higher concerns" (317).  And while he held this view for awhile, "Thoreau's attention eventually centered less upon the economic repercussions of the railroad and more upon its effects on the spirit and activity of people in general" (317).

Thoreau also "condemned' the fancy attributes of the railroad car.  "'in the railroad car we are inclined to spend more on luxury than on safety and convenience.' There was something demeaning about this effeminate travel" (318).  Even though Thoreau said this, he did himself "ride the cars" to several different locations.

The article provides the reader with a great sentence to help fully summarize Thoreau's attitude towards the railroad: "The continuing and consistent note in Thoreau's remarks about the railroad is his mistrust of the contemporary pursuit of material rather than spiritual values" (319).