Railroad Pie

In the mid-19th century, most trains would stop for 20-30 minutes at mealtimes in whatever city or town they happened to be passing through. In the cities, competition between multiple eating establishments seems to have raised the quality of the food. However, the majority of these meal stops were made in places where hungry passengers had few options to choose from and a short time to do it. With no competition, one can only imagine the poor quality of food offered to captive passengers. Food historian James D. Porterfield describes the offered repasts:

James D. Porterfield, Dining by Rail:
The History and Recipes of America's
Golden Age of Railroad Cuisine

"These early eating stops were nearly always described as terrible. The bitter black coffee may have been brewed only once a week. The ham could be dry, salty, and tough. Hard-cooked eggs were stored for an indeterminate period of time in limed water to keep them from discoloring. Fried eggs may have been cooked in rancid grease and certainly were served on stale bread. Here also one found leaden biscuits--their nickname, 'sinkers', giving a clue as to their quality--and something which earned the euphemism 'railroad pie'. The recipe was thought to be to take two crusts of cardboard and fill them with thickened glue." (58) --John P. Hankey, "Riding on the Rail,"  Rails Across America: A History of Railroads in North America, quoting James D. Porterfield's Dining by Rail: The History and the Recipes of America's Golden Age of Railroad Cuisine

Traveling at "the heady speed of 18mph"

In 1830, Peter Cooper, a New York businessman, invested in an experimental steam locomotive, the Tom Thumb, to prove that steam power was a viable option for moving passengers and goods by rail. Investors in the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad believed that the sharp curves on their tracks precluded the use of a steam locomotive.

A 1927 replica of the locomotive "Tom Thumb."
(From: Wikipedia)

"Cooper set out to prove them wrong. His engine, assembled by a team of Baltimore mechanics, weighed about one ton, and was not much larger than a railroad handcar. The locomotive boasted a vertical, multi-tubular boiler, a single cylinder, drive gears, and rode on the 'friction wheels' designed by Ross Winans, who compared the engine's power favorably to the Rocket [a British steam locomotive predating the Tom Thumb]. With Cooper at the controls, the engine managed to achieve the heady speed of 18 mph; some of the passengers pulled out notebooks and wrote down their thoughts to prove that human beings could function normally at such high velocities." (10) --James D. Dilts, "The Early Days," Rails Across America: A History of Railroads in North America, William L. Withuhn, ed.