land granted to the Little Rock & First he touted rumors that his fledgling M&M Railroad had a deal in the works, while secretly buying stock in the depressed Cedar Rapids and Missouri Railroad. In 1852, Judah was chief engineer for the newly formed Sacramento Valley Railroad, the first railroad built west of the Mississippi River. [44] Most of the semi-skilled workers on the Union Pacific were recruited from the many soldiers discharged from the Union and Confederate armies along with emigrant Irishmen. Both groups of financiers formed independent companies to complete the project, and they controlled management of the new companies along with the railroad ventures. The rails just in front of the rail car would be placed first, measured for the correct gauge with gauge sticks and then nailed down on the ties with spike mauls. The two crews met at a point called Comanche Crossing, Kansas Territory, on August 15, 1870. To speed up construction as much as possible, Union Pacific contracted several thousand Mormon workers to cut, fill, trestle, bridge, blast and tunnel its way down the rugged Weber River Canyon to Ogden, Utah, ahead of the railroad construction. One crew worked drilling holes on the faces and another crew collected and removed the loosened rock after each explosion. True. Most Caucasians in California preferred to work in the mines or agriculture. [87] After the first few days of trial with a few workers, with noticeably positive results, Crocker decided to hire as many as he could, looking primarily at the California labor force, where the majority of Chinese worked as independent gold miners or in the service industries (e.g. Temporary sidings were often installed where it could be easily done to expedite getting needed supplies to the railhead. [100], "On the ground in the West, Gen. Philip Henry Sheridan, assuming Shermans command, took to his task much as he had done in the Shenandoah Valley during the Civil War, when he ordered the scorched earth tactics that presaged Sherman's March to the Sea. The 1939 movie is said to have inspired the Union Pacific Western television series starring Jeff Morrow, Judson Pratt and Susan Cummings which aired in syndication from 1958 until 1959. Working and living in winter in the presence of snow slides and avalanches caused some deaths. The California Gold Rush and Nevada Silver Rush pushed U.S. Americans further and further west with the promise of economic prosperity. They were immigrants. The spike is now on display at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, while a second "Last" Golden Spike is also on display at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento. To finance the project, the act authorized the federal government to issue 30-year U.S. government bonds (at 6% interest). Ideally, these cuts would be matched with valley fills that could use the dug out material to bring the road bed up to gradecut and fill construction. The Central Pacific road crew set a track-laying record by laying 10mi (16km) of track in a single day, commemorating the event with a signpost beside the track for passing trains to see.[83]. The emigrant trails were closed in winter. Coal shipments by rail were also looked on as a potentially major source of incomethis potential is still being realized. These two companies then began constructing what would become the transcontinental railroad. The Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) was the first transcontinental railway in Canada. The CPRR route passed through Newcastle and Truckee in California, Reno, Wadsworth, Winnemucca, Battle Mountain, Elko and Wells in Nevada (with many more fuel and water stops), before connecting with the Union Pacific line at Promontory Summit in the Utah Territory. The bonds would be paid back by the sale of government-granted land, as well as prospective passenger and freight income. But much of the south had adopted a 5ft (1,524mm) gauge. In addition to the track-laying crews, other crews were busy setting up stations with provisions for loading fuel, water and often also mail, passengers and freight. This self-dealing allowed them to build in generous profit margins paid out by the railroad companies. One of the few subscribers was The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints leader Brigham Young, who also supplied crews for building much of the railroad through Utah. Although the railroad later went bankrupt once the easy placer gold deposits around Placerville, California were depleted, Judah was convinced that a properly financed railroad could pass from Sacramento through the Sierra Nevada mountains to reach the Great Basin and hook up with rail lines coming from the East. Ties were typically unloaded from horse-drawn or mule-drawn wagons and then placed on the track ballast and levelled to get ready for the rails. [43], Many of the civil engineers and surveyors who were hired by the Union Pacific had been employed during the American Civil War to repair and operate the over 2,000 miles (3,200km) of railroad line the U.S. Military Railroad controlled by the end of the war. The Central Pacific broke ground on January 8, 1863. The first talk of a transcontinental railroad started around 1830. Before the CPRR was completed, developers were building other feeder railroads like the Virginia and Truckee Railroad to the Comstock Lode diggings in Virginia City, Nevada, and several different extensions in California and Nevada to reach other cities there. Most of the engineers and surveyors who figured out how and where to build the railroad on the Union Pacific were engineering college trained. Water for the steam locomotives was provided by wells, springs, or pipelines to nearby water sources. The increasing necessity for tunneling as they proceeded up the mountains then began to slow progress of the line yet again. The main line was officially completed on May 10, 1869. [48] Despite their small stature[49] and lack of experience, the Chinese laborers were responsible for most of the heavy manual labor since only a very limited amount of that work could be done by animals, simple machines, or black powder. The route along the North Platte was also further from Denver, Colorado, and went across difficult terrain, while a railroad connection to that City was already being planned for and surveyed. On September 6, 1869, the first transcontinental rail passengers arrived at the Pacific Railroad's original western terminus on the east side of San Francisco Bay at the Alameda Terminal, where they transferred to the steamer Alameda for transport across the Bay to San Francisco. The major investor in the Union Pacific was Thomas Clark Durant,[99] who had made his stake money by smuggling Confederate cotton with the aid of Grenville M. Dodge. Coordinators made sure that construction and other supplies were provided when and where needed, and additional supplies were ordered as the railroad construction consumed the supplies. "The charter of the last-named Company [Western Pacific Railroad] contemplated a line from Sacramento toward San Francisco, making the circuit of the Bay of that name [to San Jos]. In order to keep the CPRR's Sierra grade open during the winter months, beginning in 1867, 37 miles (60km) of massive wooden snow sheds and galleries were built between Blue Caon and Truckee, covering cuts and other points where there was danger of avalanches. These surveys showed that a railroad could follow any one of the routes, and that the 32nd parallel route was the least expensive. The original route from the Central Valley to the Bay skirted the Delta by heading south out of Sacramento through Stockton and crossing the San Joaquin River at Mossdale, then climbed over the Altamont Pass and reached the east side of the San Francisco Bay through Niles Canyon. This changed, however, as the work entered Indian-held lands, as the railroad was a violation of Native American treaties with the United States. Trains were initially transported across the Missouri River by ferry before they could access the western tracks beginning in Omaha, Nebraska Territory. He envisioned a route from Chicago and the Great Lakes to northern California, paid for by the sale of land to settlers along the route. In June 1864, the Central Pacific railroad entrepreneurs opened Dutch Flat and Donner Lake Wagon Road (DFDLWR). Ambrose, Nothing Like It in the World, pp. In the final days of working in the Sierras, the recently invented nitroglycerin explosive was introduced and used on the last tunnels including Summit Tunnel.[89]. These were about 32 feet (10 m) high and 16 feet (5 m) wide. The 1850s were a time of westward expansion for the United States. Congress finally took action, outlawing the killing of any birds or animals in Yellowstone National Park, where the only surviving buffalo herd could be protected. [90] Consequently, after a trial crew of Chinese workers was hired and found to work successfully, the Central Pacific expanded its efforts to hire more emigrant laborersmostly Chinese. government. In advance of the track layers, surveyors consulting with engineers determined where the track would go. In 1869, the Kansas Pacific Railway started building the Hannibal Bridge, a swing bridge across the Missouri River between Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas City, Kansas which connected railroads on both sides of the Missouri while still allowing passage of paddle steamers on the river. The two railroads would once again unite in 1996 when the Southern Pacific was sold to the Union Pacific. In 1826 a commercial tramroad was surveyed and constructed at Quincy, Massachusetts, by Gridley Bryant, with the machinery for it developed by Solomon Willard. The railroad has started in two places, Sacramento California and in Council Bluffs, Iowa and is to meet somewhere in Utah. The route down the eastern Sierras was done on the south side of Donner Lake with a series of switchbacks carved into the mountain. The Transcontinental Railroad stated from Sacremonto California and Western sides of the United States and met in Promontory Summit, Utah. People wanted to move out west, and the easiest way to travel there, as well as deliver and send materials across country was through an in depth system. June, 1870, Tables 215, 216, "Report on the Pacific Railroads", US House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, House Ex. When a gang was small or the men were needed elsewhere, the bottoms were worked with fewer men or stopped so as to keep the headings going. Whitney traveled widely to solicit support from businessmen and politicians, printed maps and pamphlets, and submitted several proposals to Congress, all at his own expense. The purpose of the Homestead Act was to develop the West. In 1867, he wrote to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, we are not going to let thieving, ragged Indians check and stop the progress of the railroads. [68], The tracks reached Ogden, Utah, on March 8, 1869,[69] although finishing work would continue on the tracks, tunnels and bridges in Weber Canyon for over a year. Using paddle steamers to and from Panama, this shortcut could be traveled in as little as 40 days. Fort Smith Railway, The Beginnings of American Railroads and Mapping, Geography and Map Reading Room, Guide to the Collections. The possibility of railroads connecting the Atlantic and Pacific coasts was discussed in the Congress even before the treaty with England which settled the question of the Oregon boundary in 1846. [30], Judah returned to California in 1860. As they progressed higher in the mountains, winter snowstorms and a shortage of reliable labor compounded the problems. By December 1865, the Union Pacific had only completed 40 miles (64km) of track, reaching Fremont, Nebraska, and a further 10 miles (16km) of roadbed. Construction got a slow start in Omaha, Nebraska, eastern terminus of the Union Pacific Railroad. Travel from coast to coast was reduced from six months or more to just one week. A steam engine off an old locomotive was brought up with much effort over the wagon road and used as a winch driver to help remove loosened rock from the vertical shaft and two working faces. The route over South Pass's main advantage for wagons pulled by oxen or mules was a shorter elevation over an "easy" pass to cross and its "easy" connection to nearby river valleys on both sides of the continental divide for water and grass. Unfortunately, living quarters would have to be built outside and getting new supplies was difficult. This line later merged with the Southern Pacific. Hills or ridges in front of the railroad road bed would have to have a flat-bottomed, V-shaped "cut" made to get the railroad through the ridge or hill. Finance officers made sure the supplies were paid for and men paid for their work. Alternatively, cargo was offloaded and reloaded, a time-consuming effort that delayed cargo shipments. To get from Sacramento to the Pacific, the Central Pacific purchased the struggling Western Pacific Railroad (unrelated to the railroad of the same name that would later parallel its route) and in summer 1869 resumed construction on it, which had halted in 1866 due to funding troubles. Many of Union Pacific engineers and surveyors were Union Army veterans (including two generals) who had learned their railroad trade keeping the trains running and tracks maintained during the U.S. Civil War. Some tunnels took almost a year to finish and the Summit Tunnel, the longest, took almost two years. Once the hole was about 10 inches (25cm) deep, it would be filled with black powder, a fuse set and then ignited from a safe distance. This route closely approximated that proposed by Asa Whitney. In 1865, each railroad set its own time to minimize scheduling errors. The feat is depicted in various movies, including the 1939 film Union Pacific, starring Joel McCrea and Barbara Stanwyck and directed by Cecil B. DeMille, which depicts the fictional Central Pacific investor Asa Barrows obstructing attempts of the Union Pacific to reach Ogden, Utah. Most of the other deviations are in mountainous areas where interstate highways allow for grades up to six-percent grades, which allows them to go many places the railroads had to go around, since their goal was to hold their grades to less than two percent. They were also granted alternate sections of government-owned lands6,400 acres (2,600ha) per mile (1.6km)for 10 miles (16km) on both sides of the track, forming a checkerboard pattern. The route down the rugged Truckee River Canyon, including required bridges, was done ahead of the main summit tunnel completion. A more direct route was obtained with the purchase of the California Pacific Railroad, crossing the Sacramento River and proceeding southwest through Davis to Benicia, where it crossed the Carquinez Strait by means of an enormous train ferry, then followed the shores of the San Pablo and San Francisco bays to Richmond and the Port of Oakland (paralleling U.S. Route 40 which ultimately became Interstate 80). Subsequent to the railhead's meeting at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory, the San Joaquin River Bridge at Mossdale Crossing (near present-day Lathrop, California) was completed on September 8, 1869. The elevation change from Sacramento (elev. Hunters were hired to provide buffalo meat from the large herds of American bison. These lines eventually superseded the original First Transcontinental Telegraph which followed much of the Mormon Trail up the North Platte River and across the very thinly populated Central Nevada Route through central Utah and Nevada. [25] Three routes were considered: Once the central route was chosen, it was immediately obvious that the western terminus should be Sacramento. [48]:49 J. O. Wilder, a Central Pacific-Southern Pacific employee, commented that "The Chinese were as steady, hard-working a set of men as could be found. By 1867, a new route was found and surveyed that went along part of the South Platte River in western Nebraska and after entering what is now the state of Wyoming, ascended a gradual sloping ridge between Lodgepole Creek and Crow Creek to the 8,200-foot (2,500m) Evans pass (also called Sherman's Pass) which was discovered by the Union Pacific employed English surveyor and engineer, James Evans, in about 1864. Since the Central Pacific was in a hurry, they were profligate users of black powder to blast their way through the hills. Proposed lines also extended from St. Louis to San Francisco and from Independence, Missouri, to New Mexico and the Arkansas River. In 1862, the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific Railroad Companies began building a transcontinental railroad that would link the United States from east to west. The first step of construction was to survey the route and determine the locations where large excavations, tunnels and bridges would be needed. The type of material determined the slope of the V and how much material would have to be removed. [20][21][N 5], Congress agreed to support the idea. transcontinental railroad Throughout the expansion westward and the Industrial Revolution, it became clear that the rail system was the ticket to a more unified and advanced society. Most of the early work on the Central Pacific consisted of constructing the railroad track bed, cutting and/or blasting through or around hills, filling in washes, building bridges or trestles, digging and blasting tunnels and then laying the rails over the Sierra Nevada (U.S.) mountains. The Federal donation of right-of-way saved money and time as it did not have to be purchased from others. The railroad also hired some black people escaping the aftermath of the American Civil War. 40ft or 12m) to Donner Summit (elev. Due to the lack of transportation alternatives from the manufacturing centers on the east coast, virtually all of their tools and machinery including rails, railroad switches, railroad turntables, freight and passenger cars, and steam locomotives were transported first by train to east coast ports. This process began with a ceremonial "undriving" at the Last Spike location.[104]. From Wells, Nevada to Promontory Summit, the Railroad left the Humboldt and proceeded across the Nevada and Utah desert. Temporary tracks were laid around it and Tunnels 3 (508 feet or 155 metres), 4 (297 feet or 91 metres) and 5 (579 feet or 176 metres) to continue work on the tracks west of the tunnels. War parties began to raid the moving labor camps that followed the progress of the line. [108], The joining of the Union Pacific line with the Central Pacific line in May 1869 at Promontory Summit, Utah, was one of the major inspirations for French writer Jules Verne's book entitled Around the World in Eighty Days, published in 1873.[109]. Several years after the end of the Civil War, the competing railroads coming from Missouri finally realized their initial strategic advantage and a building boom ensued. The main character in The Claim (2000) is a surveyor for the Central Pacific Railroad, and the film is partially about the efforts of a frontier mayor to have the railroad routed through his town. The Dale Creek Crossing was one of their more difficult railroad engineering challenges. Nearly all other tunnels were worked on both tunnel faces and met in the middle. It's estimated his scams produced over $5 million in profits for him and his cohorts.[36]. ", "Report of the Select Committee on the Pacific Railroad and Telegraph", "PBS American Experience Transcontinental Railroad Whitney Biography", "Thomas Clark Durant - American Experience - Official Site - PBS", "An Act to aid in the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri river to the Pacific ocean, and to secure to the government the use of the same for postal, military, and other purposes, "Financing the Transcontinental Railroad", "PBS American Experience Transcontinental Railroad Durant Biography", Lewis Metzler Clement: A Pioneer of the Central Pacific Railroad, "Chinese Laborers and the Construction of the Central Pacific", Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad, "Sun Pictures of Rocky Mountain Scenery, Photographic Collection", "PBS General Article: Workers of the Central Pacific Railroad", "CPRR Summit Tunnel (#6), Tunnels #7 & #8, Snowsheds, "Chinese" Walls, Donner Trail, and Dutch Flat Donner - Lake Wagon Road at Donner Pass", "Period construction images of snowsheds at Cisco and Donner Summit", "People & Events: Thomas Clark Durant (18201885)", "Where the Buffalo No Longer Roamed: The Transcontinental Railroad connected East and Westand accelerated the destruction of what had been in the center of North America", "See the "Lost" Golden Spike at the Museum", "People & Events: Oakes Ames (18041873) American Experience Transcontinental Railroad", "Everlasting Steam: The Story of Jupiter and No. [citation needed], "Gen. William Tecumseh Shermans first postwar command (Military Division of the Mississippi) covered the territory west of the Mississippi and east of the Rocky Mountains, and his top priority was to protect the construction of the railroads. Among the cooks serving the film's cast and crew between shots were some of the Chinese laborers who worked on the Central Pacific section of the railroad. [59] Here they built the "railroad" town of North Platte, Nebraska in December 1866 after completing about 240 miles (390km) of track that year. Major repairs and maintenance on the Central Pacific rolling stock was done in their Sacramento maintenance yard. "[88] After a flatcar was unloaded, it would usually be hooked to a small locomotive and pulled back to a siding, so another flatcar with rails etc. To build the new railroad, detailed surveys had to be run that showed where the cuts, fills, trestles, bridges and tunnels would have to be built. The tunnels were all made with the new dangerous nitroglycerine explosive, which expedited work but caused some fatal accidents. Near where the Platte River splits into the North Platte River and South Platte River, the railroad bridged the North Platte River over a 2,600-foot-long (790m) bridge (nicknamed mile bridge). For maps and railroad pictures of this era shortly after the advent of photography see: The first railroad in the United States to reach the Pacific coast from the eastern states, 18631869: Union Pacific built west (blue line), Central Pacific built east (red line) and Western Pacific built the last leg (green line) to complete the railroad. The Trans-Asian Railway is a project to link Singapore to Istanbul and is to a large degree complete with missing pieces primarily in Myanmar. [61] The new route surveyed across Wyoming was over 150 miles (240km) shorter, had a flatter profile, allowing for cheaper and easier railroad construction, and also went closer by Denver and the known coalfields in the Wasatch and Laramie Ranges. [3] Surveying, mapping, and construction started on the Baltimore and Ohio in 1830, and fourteen miles of track were opened before the year ended. Only partial payment was secured through court actions against Union Pacific.[66]. In the 1860s there was no heavy equipment that could be used to make these cuts or haul it away to make the fills. floods. financier. Under Durant's guidance, Crdit Mobilier was charging Union Pacific often twice or more the customary cost for track work (thus in effect paying himself to build the railroad). At first hand-powered derricks were used to help remove loose rocks up the vertical shafts. On January 7, 1865, a want ad for 5,000 laborers was placed in the Sacramento Union. This party reconducted topographical surveys to locate passes through the Sierra Nevadas and the Coast Range in California in order to determine a route that would connect California, Oregon, and Washington were made under the direction of Lt. Robert S. Williamson[12]. 119", "Central Pacific Jupiter and Union Pacific 119 at Promontory, Utah, June 8, 2009", "Steam locomotives Jupiter and Union Pacific No. The total value of the thirty year 6% US Government subsidy bonds issued to the three companies was $55,092,192 and the amount of federal lands specified by Pacific Railroad Acts of 1862 and 1864 to which the UPRR, CPRR and WPRR were entitled was 21,100,000 acres (8,500,000 hectares) of which 2,390,009 acres (967,202 hectares) had been patented as of March 1876. All became substantially wealthy from their association with the railroad. On one memorable occasion, not far from Promontory, the Central Pacific crews organized an army of workers and five train loads of construction material, and laid 10 miles (16km) of track on a prepared rail bed in one day-a record that still stands today. How far did The Transcontinental Railroad run? [ 8] Chief promoter of a transcontinental railroad was Asa Whitney, a New York merchant active in the China trade who was obsessed with the idea of a railroad to the Pacific. It was at Promontory Summit on May 10, 1869, that Leland Stanford drove The Last Spike (or golden spike) that joined the rails of the transcontinental railroad. Because this rail line currently operates in a directional running setup across most of Nevada, the California Zephyr will switch to the Central Corridor at either Winnemucca or Wells. The financial incentives and bonds would hopefully cover most of the initial capital investment needed to build the railroad.