Gentlemen,

The following publication may serve as an example that the interchangeable use of the terms "railway” and ”railroad” were present and in general use in England in 1843 and doesn’t quite seem to be uniquely American as thought.

From: Project Gutenberg [EBook #14753]
Format: Plain Text; Character Set Encoding ISO-8859-1
Publication: BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
No. CCCXXXV. SEPTEMBER, 1843.   VOL. LIV.
(No. 335, September 1843, Volume 54)

Article Title: A PLEA FOR ANCIENT TOWNS AGAINST RAILWAYS.

While I’m new to railroad history and terminology, and by no stretch of the imagination could I claim to be knowledgeable, however...

QuoteOriginally posted by: SteamGene

How many railroads are actually railways?<snip…>

Being that the original question posed by the topic seemed to be more along the lines of the frequency of use of the term “railroad” as opposed to the term “railway.”

I would think this would wind up being really difficult to arrive at an even semi-accurate answer.

Firstly, it would have to be qualified as to a specific era. Secondly, another decision that would have to be made is, which name would take precedence; i.e. the name the company was incorporated under or the name that it did business and operated under (DBA), not to mention those companies that operated (DBA) under multiple names.

In checking just a few present day railroads/railways, I’ve come across that fact that some are both railroads and railways at the same time, when you look at the incorporated name and the DBA name.

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QuoteOriginally posted by: Seasaltchap

<snip…> My interest in this string is how the terms evolved. <snip…>

With regard to the evolution of the terms “Railway” and “Railroad.” I would think that Railway would have come first. The reason I believe this, is in reading various old texts (i.e. circa 1700 â€" 1900) terms that predated railways/railroads e.g. pathway, roadway, wagonway, tramway, & highway etc. All had the suffix way in common. While in common everyday use these terms may have very well have been shortened to path, & road etc. for example.

However, in proper (or maybe formal) usage the suffix could imply a legal standing of the various types of routes. If I’m not mistaken in the UK there is a legal term Way-leave, which describes the legal right granted by the owner of the land to another individual for a specific type use (e.g. Iter = A foot-way, Adus = A foot-way and/or Horse-way, Via = A foot-way, horse-way, and/or cart-way) of a specified portion of their land, usually for a fee. My understanding is that Way-leave is similar to (but not exactly the same) the term easement in the U.S.

Another interesting point that I’ve run across is that in the UK the only private or governmental entity that can/could charter a ”Railway’ was by an act of Parliament. While tramways and such could be granted permission by a local governing body, if sharing a public road, or by private agreement (i.e. Way-leave) if the route didn’t cross public lands. Even though some so-called tramways operated in the same fashion as a railway carrying both freight and passenger traffic.

Just some interesting things I've run across in trying to find an answer.