First Transcontinental Railroad (North America)





The First Transcontinental Railroad in North America was finished in 1869.
Since 1859 the most westerly railroad from the Atlantic coast reached Omaha,
Nebraska. To connect it with the Pacific coast the Central Pacific Railroad
was built from Sacramento, California eastward and the Union Pacific
Railroad from Omaha westward, until they met.

It was considered by many to be 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 the late-19th-century United
States. The establishment of this first transcontinental railroad would
quickly end the romantic, yet far slower and more dangerous Pony Express and
Stagecoach Lines. In addition, the march of "Manifest Destiny" and the
establishment of the so-called "Iron Horse" across Native American land
would greatly accelerate the demise of great plains Indian culture.

History

Theodore Judah is considered to be the father of the First Transcontinental
Railroad.

On July 1st, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Pacific Railroad Act
and thus began the "Great Railroad Race" between the Union Pacific Railroad
and the Central Pacific Railroad: each wanted to complete as large a share
of the total distance as they could.

Six months later, on January 8th, 1863 in Sacramento, California, Governor
Leland Stanford ceremoniously broke ground to begin construction of the
Central Pacific Railroad. The Central Pacific made great progress along the
Sacramento Valley, however construction was later 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 which were Chinese). The
immigrants seemed to be more willing to tolerate the horrible conditions,
and progress continued. Unfortunately, the increasing necessity for
tunneling then began to slow progess 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. Construction began again in earnest.

In the East, the progress started in Omaha by the Union Pacific Railroad,
proceeded very quickly due to the featureless terrain of the Great Plains.
However, they too would soon become subject to slowdowns as they entered
Indian-held lands. The Native Americans living there saw the addition of the
rail-line 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 buffalo -- which were both a physical threat to trains, and
were the primary food on the Plains Indians. The Native Americans then began
killing laborers when they realized that the so-called "Iron Horse"
threatened their very existence as a culture. Security measures were further
strengthened, and progress on the rail-line continued.

Six years after ground-breaking, laborers of the Central Pacific Railroad
from the west and the Union Pacific Railroad from the east, met at
Promontory Point, Utah. It was here on May 10, 1869, that Stanford drove the
gold spike that symbolized the completion of the First Transcontinental
Railroad in North America. As soon as the ceremonial spike had been replaced
by an ordinary iron spike, a telegraph message was transmitted to both east
and west coasts that simply read, "Done". The country erupted in celebration
upon receipt of this message (which was the first coast-to-coast broadcast
of a media event in the United States). Now travel from coast to coast was
reduced from four or more months to just one week.

Between 1865 and 1869 the Union Pacific laid 1,086 miles and the Central
Pacific 689 miles of track. The years immediately following the construction
of the railway were years of astounding growth for the United States.

Laborers

The majority of the track was built by Irish laborers from the East, Chinese
who entered the country from the West, veterans of both the Union and
Confederate armies, and Mormons who wished to see the railroad pass through
Ogden and Salt Lake City, Utah. The men worked for an average of between one
and three dollars a day.

Mostly Irish worked for the Union Pacific and mostly Chinese worked for the
Central Pacific even though at first they were thought to be too
weak/fragile to do this type of work.

Current passenger service

Amtrak runs a daily service from Emeryville, California to Chicago, Illinois
along this railroad. The trip takes some more than 2 days.

In the north of the U.S.A. Amtrak runs a service on another transcontinental
railroad, in the south on two more.