# American rails

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**American rails** was a special section of the [London Stock Exchange](/source/London_Stock_Exchange) where American railroad stocks and bonds were traded.[1]

While in the earlier 19th century American railway bonds were often given to British iron producers in part payment for physical rails, later in the century, and especially after the [American Civil War](/source/American_Civil_War), British capital investment increasingly became a factor in the [expansion of American railroads](/source/History_of_rail_transport_in_the_United_States#Expansion_and_consolidation_(1878–1916)).[2] The London market in American railroad securities was particularly active between 1873 and 1893,[3] and was central to the late-19th-century development of Anglo-American investment banking, including the success of [J. S. Morgan & Co.](/source/J._S._Morgan_%26_Co.)[4] *[The Economist](/source/The_Economist)*, the *[Financial Times](/source/Financial_Times)*, and the *[New York Times](/source/New_York_Times)* all reported on London trading in American rails.

## References

1. Mira Wilkins, "Conduits for Long-Term Foreign Investment in the Gold Standard Era", in *International Financial History in the Twentieth Century: System and Anarchy*, edited by Marc Flandreau, Carl-Ludwig Holtfreich and Harold James (Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 60.

1. Dorothy Adler, *British Investment in American Railways, 1824-1898*, edited by Muriel E. Hidy (University Press of Virginia, 1970).

1. A. W. Currie, "British Attitudes Toward Investment in North American Railroads", *Business History Review*, 34:1 (1960), pp. 194-216.

1. Lance E. Davis and Robert E. Gallman, *Evolving Financial Markets and International Capital Flows: Britain, the Americas, and Australia, 1865–1914* (Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 181-182.

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