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First Transcontinental Railroad

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Railway transport

   The official poster announcing the Pacific Railroad's grand opening.
   Enlarge
   The official poster announcing the Pacific Railroad's grand opening.

   The First Transcontinental Railroad in the United States was built
   across North America in the 1860s, linking the railway network of the
   Eastern United States with California on the Pacific coast.
   Ceremonially completed on May 10, 1869, at the famous " golden spike"
   event at Promontory Summit, Utah, it created a nationwide mechanized
   transportation network that revolutionized the population and economy
   of the American West, catalyzing the transition from the wagon trains
   of previous decades to a modern transportation system.

   Authorized by the Pacific Railway Act of 1862 and heavily backed by the
   federal government, it was the culmination of a decades-long movement
   to build such a line and was one of the crowning achievements of the
   presidency of Abraham Lincoln, completed four years after his death.
   The building of the railway required enormous feats of engineering and
   labor in the crossing of plains and high mountains by the Union Pacific
   Railroad and Central Pacific Railroad, the two privately chartered
   federally backed enterprises that built the line westward and eastward
   respectively.

   The building of the railroad was motivated in part to bind the Union
   together during the strife of the American Civil War. It substantially
   accelerated the populating of the West by white homesteaders, while
   contributing to the decline of the Native Americans in these regions.
   In 1879, the Supreme Court of the United States formally established,
   in its decision regarding Union Pacific Railroad vs. United States (99
   U.S. 402), the official "date of completion" of the Transcontinental
   Railroad as November 6, 1869.

   The Central Pacific and the Southern Pacific Railroad combined
   operations in 1870 and formally merged in 1885. Union Pacific
   originally bought the Southern Pacific in 1901 but was forced to divest
   it in 1913; the company once again acquired the Southern Pacific in
   1996. Much of the original right-of-way is still in use today and owned
   by the Union Pacific.

Description

   In 1859, the railway network of the eastern United States reached as
   far west as eastern Iowa. To connect the rail network with the Pacific
   coast, the Central Pacific Railroad was built from Sacramento,
   California, eastward and the Union Pacific Railroad from Omaha,
   Nebraska, westward until they met. (During construction, the eastern
   rail network expanded from eastern Iowa to Omaha, Nebraska.)

   The railroad was considered the greatest technological feat of the 19th
   century. It served as a vital link for trade, commerce and travel that
   joined the eastern and western halves of late 19th century United
   States. The transcontinental railroad quickly ended the romantic yet
   far slower and more hazardous Pony Express and stagecoach lines which
   had preceded it. The subsequent march of "Manifest Destiny" and
   proliferation of the so-called "Iron Horse" across Native American land
   greatly accelerated the demise of Great Plains Indian culture.

   This line was not the first railroad to connect the Atlantic with the
   Pacific; that honour goes to the Panama Railway, completed in 1855,
   which ran 48 miles (77 km) across Panama. Other transcontinental
   railroads followed: the Canadian Pacific Railway, completed in 1885;
   the Trans-Siberian Railroad, completed in 1905; the first
   trans-Australian rail line, completed in 1917; and the first
   north-south trans-Australia line, completed in 2003.

Route

   Route of the first American transcontinental railroad from Sacramento,
   California, to Omaha, Nebraska.
   Enlarge
   Route of the first American transcontinental railroad from Sacramento,
   California, to Omaha, Nebraska.

   The route followed the main trails used for the opening of the West
   pioneered by the Oregon, Mormon, California Trails and the Pony
   Express. Going from Omaha it followed the Platte River through
   Nebraska, crossed the Rocky Mountains at South Pass and then cut down
   through northern Utah and Nevada to Sacramento.

   When it started it was not directly connected to the Eastern U.S. rail
   network. Instead trains had to be ferried across the Missouri River. In
   1872, the Union Pacific Missouri River Bridge opened and directly
   connected the East and West.

   When construction on the transcontinental line began, the furthest west
   point for a rail service was the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad
   connection at the Missouri River at St. Joseph, Missouri. However,
   Missouri as a border state was considered too strategically vulnerable
   in the Civil War, and so the decision was made to build the line
   further north.

   The Central Pacific laid 690 miles (1,110 km) of track, starting in
   Sacramento, California, and continuing through California ( Newcastle
   and Truckee), Nevada ( Reno, Wadsworth, Winnemucca, Battle Mountain,
   Elko, Humboldt-Wells), and connecting with the Union Pacific line at
   Promontory Summit in the Utah Territory. Later, the route was extended
   to the Alameda Terminal in Alameda, California, and shortly thereafter,
   to the Oakland Long Wharf in Oakland, California.

   The Union Pacific laid 1,087 miles (1,749 km) of track, starting in
   Omaha, Nebraska, and continuing through Nebraska ( Elkhorn, Grand
   Island, North Platte, Ogallala, Sidney, Nebraska), the Colorado
   Territory ( Julesburg), the Wyoming Territory ( Cheyenne, Laramie,
   Green River, Evanston), the Utah Territory ( Ogden, Brigham City,
   Corinne), and connecting with the Central Pacific at Promontory Summit.

Laborers

   The majority of the Union Pacific track was built by Irish laborers,
   veterans of both the Union and Confederate armies, and Mormons who
   wished to see the railroad pass through Ogden and Salt Lake City, Utah.
   Mostly Chinese ( coolies) built the Central Pacific track. Even though
   at first they were thought to be too weak or fragile to do this type of
   work, after the first day in which Chinese were on the line, the
   decision was made to hire as many as could be found in California
   (where most were gold miners or in service industries such as laundries
   and kitchens), plus many more were imported from China. Most of the men
   received between one and three dollars per day, but the workers from
   China received much less. Eventually, they went on strike and gained a
   small increase in salary.

   In addition to track laying (which employed approximately 25% of the
   labor force), the operation also required the efforts of hundreds of
   blacksmiths, carpenters, engineers, masons, surveyors, teamsters,
   telegraphers, and even cooks, to name just a few of the trades involved
   in this monumental task.

History

Pacific Railroad Act

   Although Theodore Judah is considered to be the "father" of the First
   Transcontinental Railroad, Asa Whitney made what some consider the
   first concerted attempt to get the government to seriously consider
   such a great project. He was not the first or only man of his time to
   conceive of a railroad running across the frontier from the Great Lakes
   to the Pacific coast, but he was the first to lead a team of eight men
   in June 1845 along the proposed route.

   Whitney's team assessed available resources, such as stone and wood,
   attempted to determine how many bridges, cuts and tunnels would be
   necessary, and estimated the amount of arable land. Additionally,
   Whitney traveled widely to solicit support from businessmen and
   politicians, printed maps and pamphlets, and submitted several
   carefully considered proposals to Congress, all at his own expense. The
   Mexican-American War obstructed his efforts over a period of six years.

   Theodore Judah was perhaps no more committed than Whitney, but he had
   advantages and opportunities that Whitney never got. He became the
   chief engineer for the newly-formed Sacramento Valley Railroad in 1852,
   surveyed the route for the road, and oversaw its construction. Judah
   was convinced that from Sacramento, a rail line could be laid over the
   Sierra Nevada mountains, and he wanted to be the engineer to do it.

   Interest payments bankrupted the Sacramento Valley Railroad, though, so
   Judah had to find another way to build the road. He traveled to
   Washington, D.C. in 1856, hoping to learn how to lobby Congress for his
   project. He wrote a 13,000-word proposal in support of a Pacific
   railroad, had it printed, and distributed it to Cabinent secretaries,
   congressmen, and other influential people.

   Judah was chosen to be the accredited lobbyist for the Pacific Railroad
   Convention, first assembled in San Francisco in September 1859.
   Although factional bickering threatened to derail the Convention
   proceedings, Judah rallied them to adopt his plan to survey, finance,
   and engineer the road. Judah returned to Washington in December 1859,
   where he was given an office in the United States Capitol, an audience
   with President James Buchanan, and he represented the Convention before
   Congress. Iowa Representative Samuel Curtis introduced a bill in
   February 1860, which called for finances and land grants to support the
   Pacific road, but it was not passed by the House until December that
   year, and came to nothing when it could not be reconciled with rival
   bills.

   Judah returned to California in 1860 and split his time between raising
   enough money to live and scouting the Sierra Nevada mountains in search
   of a pass suitable for a railroad, convinced that if he found it, no
   one could deny the worth of his project. That summer, a local miner,
   Daniel Strong, had surveyed a route over the Sierras for a wagon road,
   a route he realized would also suit a railroad. He described his
   discovery in a letter to Judah, and together they formed an association
   to solicit subscriptions from local merchants and businessmen to
   support their paper railroad.

   Collis Huntington, a prosperous Sacramento hardware merchant, heard
   Theodore Judah lecture at the St. Charles Hotel in November 1860, and
   he invited Judah to his office to hear his proposal in detail.
   Huntington was savvy enough to realize the importance of a
   transcontinental railroad to business. He also knew that selling
   subscriptions door to door was no way to raise money for such a grand
   enterprise, so he found four partners to invest $1,500 each and form a
   board of directors: Mark Hopkins, his business partner; James Bailey, a
   jeweler; Leland Stanford, a grocer and the future governor of
   California; and Charles Crocker, a dry-goods merchant.

   From January or February 1861 until July, the party of ten led by Judah
   and Strong surveyed the route for the railroad over the Sierra Nevada,
   through Clipper Gap, Emigrant Gap, Donner Pass, and south to Truckee.
   While he charted the road's line, Leland Stanford met with President
   Abraham Lincoln in Washington, and a special congressional session was
   convened where the Pacific Railway bill was reintroduced by Curtis.
   Congress was more concerned with issues surround the Civil War,
   however, and the bill was not passed until the next session.

   Judah traveled to Washington in October 1861 to lobby for the Pacific
   Railroad Act with Aaron Sargent, once a newspaper editor and one of
   Judah's strongest supporters, now a freshman Congressman assigned to
   the House Pacific Railroad Committee. Judah was named the committee's
   clerk. While they helped push the Pacific Railroad bill through
   committee, Stanford and Crocker traveled to Nevada to secure a
   franchise from the Nevada legislature to build the Central Pacific
   through the territory.

   The Pacific Railroad bill passed the House of Representatives on May 6,
   1862, and the Senate on June 20. Lincoln signed it into law on July 1.
   The act called for several companies to build the railroad: from the
   west, the Central Pacific, and from the east, the newly-chartered Union
   Pacific. Each was required to build only 50 miles (80 km) in the first
   year; after that, only 50 miles (80 km) more were required each year.
   Besides land grants along the right-of-way, each railroad was
   subsidized $16,000 per mile ($9.94/m) built over an easy grade, $32,000
   mile ($19.88/m) in the high plains, and $48,000 per mile ($29.83/m) in
   the mountains. The race was on to see which railroad company could
   build the longest section of track.

Construction

   The Jupiter, which carried Leland Stanford (one of the "Big Four"
   owners of the Central Pacific) and other railway officials to the
   Golden Spike Ceremony.
   Enlarge
   The Jupiter, which carried Leland Stanford (one of the "Big Four"
   owners of the Central Pacific) and other railway officials to the
   Golden Spike Ceremony.

   Because of the nature of the way money was given to the companies
   building the railroad, they were sometimes known to sabotage each
   other's railroads to claim that land as their own. When they first came
   close to meeting, they changed paths to be nearly parallel, so that
   each company could claim subsidies from the government over the same
   plot of land. Fed up with the fighting, Congress eventually declared
   where and when the railways should meet. Survey teams closely followed
   by work crews from each railroad passed each other, eager to lay as
   much track as possible. The leading Central Pacific road crew set a
   record by laying 10 miles (16 km) of track in a single day,
   commemorating the event with a signpost beside the track for passing
   trains to see.

Central Pacific

   Chinese railroad workers perform their duties in the snow.
   Enlarge
   Chinese railroad workers perform their duties in the snow.

   Six months later, on January 8, 1863 Governor Leland Stanford
   ceremoniously broke ground in Sacramento, California, to begin
   construction of the Central Pacific Railroad. The Central Pacific made
   great progress along the Sacramento Valley. However construction was
   slowed, first by the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, then by the
   mountains themselves and most importantly by winter snow storms. As a
   result, the Central Pacific expanded its efforts to hire immigrant
   laborers (many of whom were Chinese). The immigrants seemed to be more
   willing to tolerate the horrible conditions, and progress continued.
   The increasing necessity for tunneling then began to slow progress of
   the line yet again. To combat this, Central Pacific began to use the
   newly-invented and very unstable nitroglycerin explosives—which
   accelerated both the rate of construction and the mortality of the
   laborers. Appalled by the losses, the Central Pacific began to use less
   volatile explosives and developed a method of placing the explosives in
   which the Chinese blasters worked from large suspended baskets which
   were then rapidly pulled to safety after the fuses were lit.
   Construction began again in earnest.

Union Pacific

   The major investor in the Union Pacific was Thomas Clark Durant , who
   had made his stake money by smuggling Confederate cotton with the aid
   of Grenville M. Dodge. Durant chose routes that would favour places
   where he held land, and he announced connections to other lines at
   times that suited his share dealings. Durant paid an associate to
   submit the construction bid who then handed it over to another company
   controlled by Durant, Crédit Mobilier. Durant then manipulated the
   finances and government subsidies, making himself another fortune.
   Durant hired Dodge as chief engineer and Jack Casement as construction
   boss.

   In the east, the progress started in Omaha, Nebraska, by the Union
   Pacific Railroad proceeded very quickly because of the open terrain of
   the Great Plains. However, they soon became subject to slowdowns as
   they entered Indian-held lands. The Native Americans living there saw
   the addition of the railroad as a violation of their treaties with the
   United States. War parties began to raid the moving labor camps that
   followed the progress of the line. Union Pacific responded by
   increasing security and by hiring marksmen to kill American Bison—which
   were both a physical threat to trains and the primary food source for
   many of the Plains Indians. The Native Americans then began killing
   laborers when they realized that the so-called "Iron Horse" threatened
   their existence. Security measures were further strengthened, and
   progress on the railroad continued.

Completion

   Six years after the groundbreaking, laborers of the Central Pacific
   Railroad from the west and the Union Pacific Railroad from the east met
   at Promontory Summit, Utah. It was here on May 10, 1869 that Stanford
   drove the golden spike (which is now located at the Stanford University
   Museum ) that symbolized the completion of the transcontinental
   railroad. In perhaps the world's first live mass-media event, the
   hammers and spike were wired to the telegraph line so that each
   hammerstroke would be heard as a click at telegraph stations
   nationwide—the hammerstrokes were missed, so the clicks were sent by
   the telegraph operator. As soon as the ceremonial spike had been
   replaced by an ordinary iron spike, a message was transmitted to both
   the East Coast and West Coast that simply read, "DONE." The country
   erupted in celebration upon receipt of this message. Complete travel
   from coast to coast was reduced from six or more months to just one
   week.

   Between 1865 and 1869, the Union Pacific laid 1,087 miles (1,749 km)
   and the Central Pacific 690 miles (1,110 km) of track. The years
   immediately following the construction of the railway were years of
   astounding growth for the United States, largely because of the speed
   and ease of travel this railroad provided. For example, on June 4,
   1876, an express train called the Transcontinental Express arrived in
   San Francisco via the First Transcontinental Railroad only 83 hours and
   39 minutes after it left from New York City. Only ten years before the
   same journey would have taken months overland or weeks on ship.

Visible remains

   Visible remains of the historic line are still easily located—hundreds
   of miles are still in service today, especially through the Sierra
   Nevada Mountains and canyons in Utah and Wyoming. While the original
   rail has long since been replaced because of age and wear, and the
   roadbed upgraded and repaired, the lines generally run on top of the
   original, handmade grade. Vista points on Interstate 80 through
   California's Truckee Canyon provide a panoramic view of many miles of
   the original Central Pacific line and of the snow sheds which make
   winter train travel safe and practical.

   In areas where the original line has been bypassed and abandoned,
   primarily in Utah, the road grade is still obvious, as are numerous
   cuts and fills, especially the Big Fill a few miles east of Promontory.
   Promontory was bypassed and that portion of the route closed in 1942
   and the site ignored for over two decades. In 1965, the site was
   established as the Golden Spike National Historic Site with a National
   Park Service visitor centre. The sweeping curve which connected to the
   east end of the Big Fill now passes a Thiokol rocket research and
   development facility.

Current passenger service

   Amtrak runs a daily service from Emeryville, California ( San Francisco
   Bay Area) to Chicago, the California Zephyr. The Zephyr consistently
   uses the original First Transcontinental Railroad track from Sacramento
   to Winnemucca, Nevada. The Zephyr usually uses the original track on
   the westbound runs from Winnemucca to Wells, Nevada. The eastbound runs
   between these towns usually use tracks built by the Western Pacific
   Railroad. This is because the Union Pacific Railroad now owns both
   tracks, and it routes trains on either track.

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