El primer ferrocarril transcontinental de América del Norte (conocido originalmente como " Pacific Railroad " y más tarde " Overland Route ") fue una línea ferroviaria continua de 1.912 millas (3.077 km) construida entre 1863 y 1869 que conectaba la red ferroviaria del este de EE. UU. Existente en Council Bluffs, Iowa con la costa del Pacífico en Oakland Long Wharf en la Bahía de San Francisco . [1] La línea ferroviaria fue construida por tres empresas privadas sobre terrenos públicos proporcionados por extensas concesiones de tierras estadounidenses . [2] La construcción se financió con bonos de subvención del gobierno estatal y de los Estados Unidos, así como con bonos hipotecarios emitidos por la empresa. [3][4] [5] [N 1] La Western Pacific Railroad Company construyó 132 millas (212 km) de vía desde el terminal occidental de la carretera en Alameda / Oakland hasta Sacramento, California . La Central Pacific Railroad Company of California (CPRR) construyó 690 millas (1,110 km) hacia el este desde Sacramento hasta Promontory Summit, Territorio de Utah . El Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) construyó 1.085 millas (1.746 km) desde el extremo este de la carretera en losasentamientos del río Missouri de Council Bluffs y Omaha, Nebraska hacia el oeste hasta Promontory Summit. [7] [8] [9]
Primer ferrocarril transcontinental | |||
---|---|---|---|
Descripción general | |||
Otros nombres) | Ferrocarril del Pacífico | ||
Dueño | Gobierno de los Estados Unidos | ||
Lugar | Estados Unidos de América | ||
Termini | Council Bluffs, Iowa ( Omaha, Nebraska ) Alameda Terminal , a partir del 6 de septiembre de 1869; Oakland Long Wharf , a partir del 8 de noviembre de 1869 ( Bahía de San Francisco ) | ||
Servicio | |||
Operador (es) | Pacífico Central Unión Pacífico | ||
Historia | |||
Abrió | 10 de mayo de 1869 | ||
Técnico | |||
Longitud de la línea | 1.912 millas (3.077 km) | ||
Ancho de vía | 4 pies 8+1 / 2 en(1435 mm) de calibre estándar | ||
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El ferrocarril se abrió para el tráfico entre Sacramento y Omaha el 10 de mayo de 1869, cuando el presidente de la CPRR, Leland Stanford , golpeó ceremonialmente el "Último pico" de oro (más tarde conocido como el " Pico de oro ") con un martillo de plata en Promontory Summit . [10] [11] [N 2] En los siguientes seis meses, se completó el último tramo de Sacramento a la Bahía de San Francisco. La conexión ferroviaria de costa a costa resultante revolucionó el asentamiento y la economía del oeste estadounidense . [N 3] [N 4] Puso a los estados y territorios occidentales en alineación con los estados del norte de la Unión e hizo que el transporte de pasajeros y mercancías de costa a costa fuera considerablemente más rápido, más seguro y menos costoso.
Los primeros pasajeros ferroviarios transcontinentales llegaron a la terminal occidental original de Pacific Railroad en la Terminal Alameda el 6 de septiembre de 1869, donde se trasladaron al vapor Alameda para su transporte a través de la Bahía a San Francisco. La terminal ferroviaria de la carretera se trasladó dos meses más tarde a Oakland Long Wharf , aproximadamente una milla al norte, cuando se completó su expansión y se abrió para los pasajeros el 8 de noviembre de 1869. [15] [16] [N 5] Servicio entre San Francisco y Oakland Pier continuaron siendo proporcionados por ferry.
El CPRR finalmente compró 53 millas (85 km) de grado construido por UPRR de Promontory Summit (MP 828) a Ogden, Territorio de Utah (MP 881), que se convirtió en el punto de intercambio entre los trenes de las dos carreteras. La línea transcontinental pasó a ser conocida popularmente como la ruta terrestre por el nombre del principal servicio ferroviario de pasajeros a Chicago que operó a lo largo de la línea hasta 1962. [19]
Orígenes
Entre los primeros defensores de la construcción de una línea ferroviaria que conectaría las costas de los Estados Unidos se encontraba el Dr. Hartwell Carver , quien en 1847 presentó al Congreso de los Estados Unidos una "Propuesta de una Carta para construir un ferrocarril desde el lago Michigan hasta el Océano Pacífico". , buscando una carta del Congreso para apoyar su idea. [20] [21] [N 6]
Exploración preliminar
El Congreso acordó apoyar la idea. Bajo la dirección del Departamento de Guerra , los Estudios de Ferrocarriles del Pacífico se llevaron a cabo desde 1853 hasta 1855. Estos incluyeron una extensa serie de expediciones del oeste americano en busca de posibles rutas. Un informe sobre las exploraciones describía rutas alternativas e incluía una inmensa cantidad de información sobre el oeste americano , que cubría al menos 400.000 millas cuadradas (1.000.000 km 2 ). Incluía la historia natural de la región y las ilustraciones de reptiles, anfibios, aves y mamíferos. [22]
Sin embargo, el informe no incluyó mapas topográficos detallados de las rutas potenciales necesarias para estimar la viabilidad, el costo y seleccionar la mejor ruta. El estudio fue lo suficientemente detallado como para determinar que la mejor ruta sur se encuentra al sur del límite del río Gila con México en un desierto mayormente vacío, a través de los futuros territorios de Arizona y Nuevo México . Esto motivó en parte a Estados Unidos a completar la Compra de Gadsden . [23]
En 1856, el Comité Selecto de Ferrocarriles y Telégrafos del Pacífico de la Cámara de Representantes de EE. UU. Publicó un informe recomendando el apoyo a una propuesta de ley de ferrocarriles del Pacífico:
La necesidad que existe ahora de construir líneas de comunicación ferroviaria y telegráfica entre las costas atlántica y pacífica de este continente ya no es un tema de discusión; es concedido por todos. Para mantener nuestra posición actual en el Pacífico, debemos tener algún medio de intercambio más rápido y directo que el que ofrece actualmente la ruta a través de las posesiones de una potencia extranjera. [24]
Posibles rutas
El Congreso de los Estados Unidos estaba fuertemente dividido sobre dónde debería estar el extremo oriental del ferrocarril: en una ciudad del sur o del norte. [25] Se consideraron tres rutas:
- Una ruta del norte aproximadamente a lo largo del río Missouri a través del actual norte de Montana hasta el Territorio de Oregon . Esto se consideró poco práctico debido al terreno accidentado y las extensas nieves invernales. [N 7]
- Una ruta central que sigue el río Platte en Nebraska hasta el South Pass en Wyoming , siguiendo la mayor parte del Oregon Trail . La nieve en esta ruta siguió siendo una preocupación.
- Una ruta al sur a través de Texas , Territorio de Nuevo México , el desierto de Sonora , que conecta con Los Ángeles , California. Los topógrafos descubrieron durante una encuesta de 1848 que la mejor ruta se encontraba al sur de la frontera entre Estados Unidos y México. Esto fue resuelto por la compra de Gadsden en 1853. [26] [N 8]
Una vez que se eligió la ruta central, fue inmediatamente obvio que el término occidental debería ser Sacramento. Pero hubo una considerable diferencia de opinión sobre el término oriental. Se consideraron tres ubicaciones a lo largo de 250 millas (400 km) del río Missouri:
- Se accede a St. Joseph, Missouri , a través del ferrocarril Hannibal and St. Joseph .
- Kansas City, Kansas / Leavenworth, Kansas se accede a través de Leavenworth, Pawnee y Western Railroad , controlado por Thomas Ewing Jr. y más tarde por John C. Frémont .
- Council Bluffs, Iowa / Omaha, Nebraska , al que se accede a través de una extensión del ferrocarril propuesto por el financista de Union Pacific Thomas C. Durant en Mississippi y Missouri Railroad y el nuevo Union Pacific Railroad , también controlado por Durant.
Council Bluffs tenía varias ventajas: estaba bien al norte de la Guerra Civil que luchaba en Missouri; era la ruta más corta a South Pass en las Montañas Rocosas de Wyoming; y seguiría un río fértil que fomentaría el asentamiento. Durant había contratado al futuro presidente Abraham Lincoln en 1857 cuando era abogado para representarlo en un asunto comercial sobre un puente sobre el Missouri. Ahora Lincoln era el responsable de elegir el término del este y confiaba en el consejo de Durant. Durant abogó por Omaha y estaba tan seguro de la elección que comenzó a comprar tierras en Nebraska. [ cita requerida ]
Individuos clave
Asa Whitney
Uno de los campeones más destacados del ferrocarril de ruta central fue Asa Whitney . Imaginó una ruta desde Chicago y los Grandes Lagos hasta el norte de California, pagada con la venta de tierras a los colonos a lo largo de la ruta. Whitney viajó mucho para solicitar el apoyo de empresarios y políticos, imprimió mapas y folletos y presentó varias propuestas al Congreso , todo por su cuenta. En junio de 1845, dirigió un equipo a lo largo de parte de la ruta propuesta para evaluar su viabilidad. [27]
La legislación para comenzar la construcción del Pacific Railroad (llamado Memorial de Asa Whitney ) fue presentada por primera vez al Congreso por el Representante Zadock Pratt . [28] El Congreso no actuó de inmediato sobre la propuesta de Whitney.
Theodore Judah
Theodore Judah era un ferviente partidario del ferrocarril de ruta central. Cabildeó vigorosamente a favor del proyecto y emprendió el relevamiento de la ruta a través de la escarpada Sierra Nevada, uno de los principales obstáculos del proyecto.
En 1852, Judah fue ingeniero jefe del recién formado Sacramento Valley Railroad , el primer ferrocarril construido al oeste del río Mississippi . Aunque el ferrocarril más tarde quebró una vez que se agotaron los depósitos de oro de placer alrededor de Placerville, California , Judah estaba convencido de que un ferrocarril debidamente financiado podría pasar desde Sacramento a través de las montañas de Sierra Nevada para llegar a la Gran Cuenca y conectarse con las líneas ferroviarias provenientes del Este. [29]
En 1856, Judah escribió una propuesta de 13.000 palabras en apoyo de un ferrocarril del Pacífico y la distribuyó a los secretarios del gabinete, congresistas y otras personas influyentes. En septiembre de 1859, Judah fue elegido para ser el cabildero acreditado de la Convención del Ferrocarril del Pacífico, que de hecho aprobó su plan para inspeccionar, financiar y diseñar la carretera. Judah regresó a Washington en diciembre de 1859. Tenía una oficina de cabildeo en el Capitolio de los Estados Unidos , recibió una audiencia con el presidente James Buchanan y representó a la Convención ante el Congreso. [30]
Judá regresó a California en 1860. Continuó buscando una ruta más práctica a través de la Sierra adecuada para un ferrocarril. A mediados de 1860, el minero local Daniel Strong había estudiado una ruta sobre la Sierra para una carretera de peaje de vagones, que se dio cuenta de que también se adaptaría a un ferrocarril. Describió su descubrimiento en una carta a Judá. Juntos, formaron una asociación para solicitar suscripciones de comerciantes y empresarios locales para apoyar su propuesta de ferrocarril. [30]
Desde enero o febrero de 1861 hasta julio, Judah y Strong dirigieron una expedición de 10 personas para inspeccionar la ruta del ferrocarril sobre Sierra Nevada a través de Clipper Gap y Emigrant Gap , sobre Donner Pass y al sur hasta Truckee . Descubrieron un camino a través de las Sierras que era lo suficientemente gradual como para ser adecuado para un ferrocarril, aunque todavía necesitaba mucho trabajo. [30]
Los cuatro grandes
- Artículos principales: Los Cuatro Grandes y el Ferrocarril del Pacífico Central
Cuatro empresarios del norte de California formaron el Ferrocarril del Pacífico Central : Leland Stanford , (1824–1893), presidente; Collis Potter Huntington , (1821-1900), vicepresidente; Mark Hopkins , (1813–1878), tesorero; Charles Crocker , (1822–1888), supervisor de construcción. Todos se hicieron sustancialmente ricos gracias a su asociación con el ferrocarril.
Thomas Durant
El ex oftalmólogo Dr. Thomas Clark "Doc" Durant era nominalmente sólo un vicepresidente de Union Pacific, por lo que instaló a una serie de hombres respetados como John Adams Dix como presidente del ferrocarril. Durant y sus arreglos financieros estaban, a diferencia de los de la CPRR, sumidos en controversias y escándalos. [31]
Autorización y financiación
En febrero de 1860, el representante de Iowa, Samuel Curtis, presentó un proyecto de ley para financiar el ferrocarril. Pasó la Cámara pero murió cuando no pudo conciliarse con la versión del Senado debido a la oposición de los estados del sur que querían una ruta del sur cerca del paralelo 42 . [30] [se necesita aclaración ] Curtis lo intentó y fracasó nuevamente en 1861. Después de que los estados del sur se separaron de la Unión, la Cámara de Representantes aprobó el proyecto de ley el 6 de mayo de 1862 y el Senado el 20 de junio. Lincoln firmó la Ley de Ferrocarriles del Pacífico. de 1862 se convirtió en ley el 1 de julio. Autorizó la creación de dos empresas, Central Pacific en el oeste y Union Pacific en el medio oeste, para construir el ferrocarril. La legislación exigía la construcción y operación de un nuevo ferrocarril desde el río Missouri en Council Bluffs, Iowa , al oeste hasta Sacramento, California , y luego hasta la bahía de San Francisco . [32] Otra ley para complementar la primera se aprobó en 1864. [33] La Ley de Ferrocarriles del Pacífico de 1863 estableció el ancho estándar que se utilizará en estos ferrocarriles financiados por el gobierno federal.
Financiamiento federal
Para financiar el proyecto, la ley autorizó al gobierno federal a emitir bonos del gobierno de Estados Unidos a 30 años (al 6% de interés). A las compañías ferroviarias se les pagó $ 16,000 por milla (aproximadamente $ 461,000 por milla hoy) por vías colocadas en un nivel nivelado, $ 32,000 por milla (aproximadamente $ 922,000 por milla hoy) por vías colocadas en las colinas y $ 48,000 por milla (o aproximadamente $ 1,383,000 por milla en la actualidad). ) para pista tendida en montaña. Las dos compañías ferroviarias vendieron cantidades similares de bonos y acciones respaldados por la compañía. [34]
Financiamiento de Union Pacific
Si bien la legislación federal de Union Pacific requería que ningún socio poseyera más del 10 por ciento de las acciones, Union Pacific tuvo problemas para vender sus acciones. Uno de los pocos suscriptores fue el líder de La Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Últimos Días, Brigham Young , quien también proporcionó equipos para construir gran parte del ferrocarril a través de Utah. [35] Durant atrajo a otros inversores al ofrecer dinero por adelantado por las acciones que compraron a su nombre. Este esquema permitió a Durant controlar aproximadamente la mitad del stock de ferrocarriles. La construcción inicial de la tierra atravesada de grado Union Pacific propiedad de Durant. El ferrocarril de Durant se pagaba por milla y, para aumentar aún más sus ganancias, Union Pacific construyó meandros de vías innecesarias y, para el 4 de julio de 1865, solo había llegado a 40 millas (64 km) de Omaha después de dos años y medio de construcción. [ cita requerida ]
Durant manipuló los precios de mercado de sus acciones al difundir rumores sobre qué ferrocarriles en los que tenía interés estaban siendo considerados para conectarse con Union Pacific. Primero promocionó los rumores de que su incipiente M&M Railroad tenía un trato en las obras, mientras compraba en secreto acciones en los deprimidos Cedar Rapids y Missouri Railroad . Luego hizo circular rumores de que CR&M tenía planes de conectarse a Union Pacific, momento en el que comenzó a recomprar las acciones de M&M a precios deprimidos. Se estima que sus estafas produjeron más de $ 5 millones en ganancias para él y sus seguidores. [36]
Financiamiento del Pacífico Central
Collis Huntington , un comerciante de hardware de Sacramento , escuchó la presentación de Judah sobre el ferrocarril en el Hotel St. Charles en noviembre de 1860. Invitó a Judah a su oficina para escuchar su propuesta en detalle. Huntington persuadió a Judah para que aceptara financiación de él mismo y de otras cuatro personas: Mark Hopkins , su socio comercial; James Bailey, joyero; Leland Stanford , un tendero; y Charles Crocker , un comerciante de productos secos. Inicialmente invirtieron $ 1,500 cada uno y formaron una junta directiva. Estos inversores se conocieron como Los Cuatro Grandes , y su ferrocarril se llamó Central Pacific Railroad . Cada uno eventualmente ganó millones de dólares con sus inversiones y control del Ferrocarril del Pacífico Central.
Antes de que pudiera comenzar una construcción importante, Judah viajó de regreso a la ciudad de Nueva York para recaudar fondos para comprar The Big Four. Sin embargo, poco después de llegar a Nueva York, Judah murió el 2 de noviembre de 1863 de la fiebre amarilla que había contraído mientras viajaba sobre el tránsito del Ferrocarril de Panamá por el Istmo de Panamá . [37] El Departamento de Ingeniería de CPRR fue asumido por su sucesor, Samuel S. Montegue, así como por el ingeniero asistente jefe entrenado canadiense (más tarde ingeniero jefe interino) Lewis Metzler Clement, quien también se convirtió en superintendente de pista. [30] [38]
Concesiones de tierras
Para permitir que las empresas recauden capital adicional, el Congreso otorgó a las vías férreas un corredor de derecho de vía de 200 pies (61 m) , terrenos para instalaciones adicionales como apartaderos y patios de mantenimiento. También se les otorgó secciones alternas de tierras de propiedad del gobierno —6,400 acres (2,600 ha) por milla (1,6 km) - por 10 millas (16 km) a ambos lados de la pista, formando un patrón de tablero de ajedrez . Las compañías ferroviarias recibieron las secciones impares, mientras que el gobierno federal retuvo las secciones pares. La excepción fue en ciudades, ríos o propiedades no gubernamentales. [39] Los ferrocarriles vendieron bonos basados en el valor de las tierras, y en áreas con buenas tierras como el Valle de Sacramento y Nebraska [40] vendieron las tierras a los colonos, contribuyendo a un rápido asentamiento de Occidente. [41] [ verificación necesaria ] El área total de las concesiones de tierras a Union Pacific y Central Pacific era más grande que el área del estado de Texas: las concesiones de tierras del gobierno federal totalizaron alrededor de 130,000,000 acres, y las concesiones de tierras del gobierno estatal totalizaron alrededor de 50,000,000 acres . [42]
Estaba lejos de ser un hecho que los ferrocarriles que operaban en el oeste escasamente poblado generarían suficiente dinero para pagar su construcción y operación. Si las compañías ferroviarias no vendían la tierra que se les había otorgado dentro de los tres años, debían venderla al precio gubernamental vigente para las granjas: $ 1.25 por acre ($ 3.09 / ha). Si no pagaban los bonos, toda la propiedad ferroviaria restante, incluidos los trenes y las vías, volvería al gobierno de los Estados Unidos. [ cita requerida ] Para fomentar el asentamiento en el oeste, el Congreso (1861-1863) aprobó las Leyes de Homestead que otorgaron al solicitante 160 acres (65 ha) de tierra con el requisito de que el solicitante mejorara la tierra. Este incentivo alentó a miles de colonos a trasladarse al oeste. [ cita requerida ]
Autogestión ferroviaria
La legislación federal carecía de supervisión y rendición de cuentas adecuadas. Las dos empresas se aprovecharon de estas debilidades en la legislación para manipular el proyecto y producir beneficios extra para ellas mismas. A pesar de los generosos subsidios ofrecidos por el gobierno federal, los capitalistas ferroviarios sabían que no obtendrían ganancias en el negocio ferroviario durante muchos meses, posiblemente años. Decidieron sacar provecho de la construcción en sí. Ambos grupos de financieros formaron empresas independientes para completar el proyecto y controlaron la gestión de las nuevas empresas junto con las empresas ferroviarias. Este trato propio les permitió generar generosos márgenes de ganancia pagados por las compañías ferroviarias. En el oeste, los cuatro hombres que se dirigían al Pacífico Central eligieron un nombre simple para su empresa, "Compañía de Contratos y Finanzas". En el este, Union Pacific seleccionó un nombre extranjero, llamando a su empresa de construcción "Crédit Mobilier of America". [34] Esta última empresa se vio implicada más tarde en un escándalo de gran alcance, que se describe más adelante.
Además, la falta de supervisión federal proporcionó a ambas compañías incentivos para continuar construyendo sus ferrocarriles uno al lado del otro, ya que a cada uno se le pagaba y recibía concesiones de tierras, según la cantidad de millas de vía que tendían, aunque solo una vía eventualmente terminaría. ser usado. Esta actividad lucrativa acordada tácitamente fue capturada (probablemente accidentalmente) por el fotógrafo de Union Pacific Andrew J. Russell en sus imágenes de la construcción Promontory Trestle. [43]
Trabajo y salario
Muchos de los ingenieros civiles y topógrafos que fueron contratados por Union Pacific habían sido empleados durante la Guerra Civil Estadounidense para reparar y operar las más de 3200 km (2,000 millas) de línea de ferrocarril que el Ferrocarril Militar de los Estados Unidos controlaba al final de la guerra. Union Pacific también utilizó su experiencia en la reparación y construcción de puentes de celosía durante la guerra. [44] La mayoría de los trabajadores semi-calificados en Union Pacific fueron reclutados entre los muchos soldados dados de baja de los ejércitos de la Unión y Confederados junto con irlandeses emigrantes . [45]
Después de 1864, Central Pacific Railroad recibió los mismos incentivos financieros federales que Union Pacific Railroad, junto con algunos bonos de construcción otorgados por el estado de California y la ciudad de San Francisco. El Pacífico Central contrató a algunos ingenieros civiles y topógrafos canadienses y europeos con amplia experiencia en la construcción de ferrocarriles, pero tuvo dificultades para encontrar mano de obra semicualificada. La mayoría de los caucásicos de California prefirieron trabajar en las minas o en la agricultura. El ferrocarril experimentó contratando a chinos emigrantes locales como trabajadores manuales, muchos de los cuales escapaban de la pobreza y los terrores de la guerra en los distritos de Sze Yup en el delta del río Pearl de la provincia de Guangdong en China. [46] : 7 [47] : 15–37 Cuando demostraron ser trabajadores, la CPRR a partir de ese momento prefirió contratar chinos, e incluso estableció esfuerzos de reclutamiento en Cantón . [48] A pesar de su pequeña estatura [49] y falta de experiencia, los trabajadores chinos eran responsables de la mayor parte del trabajo manual pesado ya que sólo una cantidad muy limitada de ese trabajo podía ser realizado por animales, máquinas simples o pólvora negra. El ferrocarril también contrató a algunos negros que escaparon de las secuelas de la Guerra Civil estadounidense. [50] La mayoría de los negros trabajadores blancos y se pagaron $ 30 por mes y da comida y alojamiento. A la mayoría de los chinos se les pagaba inicialmente 31 dólares al mes y se les proporcionaba alojamiento, pero preferían cocinar sus propias comidas. En 1867, la CPRR aumentó su salario a $ 35 (equivalente a $ 650 en 2020) por mes después de una huelga. [48] [51] [52] CPRR llegó a ver la ventaja de los buenos trabajadores empleados con salarios bajos: "La mano de obra china demostró ser la salvación del Pacífico Central". [53] : 30
Ruta transcontinental
Construcción iniciada
El Pacífico Central comenzó la construcción de 8 de enero de 1863. Debido a la falta de alternativas de transporte desde los centros de producción en la costa este, prácticamente la totalidad de sus herramientas y máquinas, incluidas las barandas, interruptores del ferrocarril , plataformas giratorias ferrocarril , transporte de mercancías y vehículos de pasajeros y de vapor las locomotoras se transportaron primero en tren a los puertos de la costa este. Luego fueron cargados en barcos que navegaron alrededor del Cabo de Hornos de América del Sur o descargaron la carga en el istmo de Panamá , donde se envió a través de un vapor de agua y el ferrocarril de Panamá . El ancho de vía del Ferrocarril de Panamá era de 5 pies (1,524 mm), lo cual era incompatible con el 4 pies 8+Calibre de 1 ⁄ 2 pulgadas (1,435 mm) utilizado por el equipo de CPRR. La última ruta era aproximadamente el doble de cara por libra. [ cita requerida ] Una vez que la maquinaria y las herramientas llegaron alárea de la Bahía de San Francisco , se subieron a vapores de paletas fluviales que los transportaron hasta las 130 millas (210 km) finales del río Sacramento hasta la nueva capital del estado en Sacramento . Muchas de estas máquinas de vapor, vagones de ferrocarril y otras maquinarias se enviaron desmanteladas y tuvieron que volver a ensamblarse. [ cita requerida ] Las vigas de madera para durmientes de ferrocarril, caballetes, puentes, leña y postes de telégrafo fueron cosechadas en California y transportadas al sitio del proyecto.
El Union Pacific Railroad no comenzó a construirse durante otros 18 meses hasta julio de 1865. Se retrasaron por las dificultades para obtener respaldo financiero y la falta de disponibilidad de trabajadores y materiales debido a la Guerra Civil. Su punto de partida en la nueva ciudad de Omaha, Nebraska aún no estaba conectado por ferrocarril a Council Bluffs, Iowa . El equipo necesario para comenzar a trabajar se entregó inicialmente a Omaha y Council Bluffs por vapores de paletas en el río Missouri . La Union Pacific tardó tanto en comenzar la construcción durante 1865 que vendieron dos de las cuatro locomotoras de vapor que habían comprado. [ cita requerida ]
Después de que terminó la Guerra Civil de EE. UU. En 1865, Union Pacific todavía compitió por suministros ferroviarios con empresas que estaban construyendo o reparando ferrocarriles en el sur, y los precios subieron. [ cita requerida ]
Normas ferroviarias
At that time in the United States, there were two primary standards for track gauge, as defined by the distance between the two rails. In Britain, the gauge was 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge, and this had been adopted by the majority of northern railways. But much of the south had adopted a 5 ft (1,524 mm) gauge. Transferring railway cars across a break of gauge required changing out the trucks. Alternatively, cargo was offloaded and reloaded, a time-consuming effort that delayed cargo shipments. For the transcontinental railroad, the builders adopted what is now known as the standard gauge.[54]
The Bessemer process and open hearth furnace steel-making were in use by 1865, but the advantages of steel rails which lasted much longer than iron rails had not yet been demonstrated.[citation needed] The rails used initially in building the rail way were nearly all made of an iron flat-bottomed modified I-beam profile weighing 56 pounds per yard (27.8 kg/m) or 66 pounds per yard (32.7 kg/m).[citation needed] The railroad companies were intent on completing the project as rapidly as possible at a minimum cost. Within a few years, nearly all railroads converted to steel rails.
Time zones and telegraph usage
Time was not standardized across the United States and Canada until November 18, 1883. In 1865, each railroad set its own time to minimize scheduling errors. To communicate easily up and down the line, the railroads built telegraph lines alongside the railroad. 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. The telegraph lines along the railroad were easier to protect and maintain. Many of the original telegraph lines were abandoned as the telegraph business was consolidated with the railroad telegraph lines.[55]
Union Pacific route
The Union Pacific's 1,087 miles (1,749 km) of track started at MP 0.0 in Council Bluffs, Iowa,[7] on the eastern side of the Missouri River. Omaha was chosen by President Abraham Lincoln as the location of its Transfer Depot where up to seven railroads could transfer mail and other goods to Union Pacific trains bound for the west.
Trains were initially transported across the Missouri River by ferry before they could access the western tracks beginning in Omaha, Nebraska Territory. The river froze in the winter, and the ferries were replaced by sleighs. A bridge was not built until 1872, when the 2,750-foot-long (840 m) Union Pacific Missouri River Bridge was completed.
After the rail line's initial climb through the Missouri River bluffs west of Omaha and out of the Missouri River Valley, the route bridged the Elkhorn River and then crossed over the new 1,500-foot (460 m) Loup River bridge as it followed the north side of the Platte River valley west through Nebraska along the general path of the Oregon, Mormon and California Trails.
By December 1865, the Union Pacific had only completed 40 miles (64 km) of track, reaching Fremont, Nebraska, and a further 10 miles (16 km) of roadbed.[56]
At the end of 1865, Peter A. Dey, Chief Engineer of the Union Pacific, resigned over a routing dispute with Thomas C. Durant, one of the chief financiers of the Union Pacific.[citation needed]
With the end of the Civil War and increased government supervision in the offing, Durant hired his former M&M engineer Grenville M. Dodge to build the railroad, and the Union Pacific began a mad dash west.[citation needed]
Former Union General John "Jack" Casement was hired as the new Chief Engineer of the Union Pacific. He equipped several railroad cars to serve as portable bunkhouses for the workers and gathered men and supplies to push the railroad rapidly west. Among the bunkhouses, Casement added a galley car to prepare meals, and he even provided for a herd of cows to be moved with the railhead and bunk cars to provide fresh meat. Hunters were hired to provide buffalo meat from the large herds of American bison.[citation needed]
The small survey parties who scouted ahead to locate the roadbed were sometimes attacked and killed by raiding Native Americans. In response, the U.S. Army instituted active cavalry patrols that grew larger as the Native Americans grew more aggressive. Temporary, "Hell on wheels" towns, made mostly of canvas tents, accompanied the railroad as construction headed west.[57][58]
The Platte River was too shallow and meandering to provide river transport, but the Platte river valley headed west and sloped up gradually at about 6 feet per mile (1.1 m/km), often allowing to lay a mile (1.6 km) of track a day or more in 1866 as the Union Pacific finally started moving rapidly west. Building bridges to cross creeks and rivers was the main source of delays. 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 (790 m) bridge (nicknamed ½ mile bridge). It was built across the shallow but wide North Platte resting on piles driven by steam pile drivers.[59] Here they built the "railroad" town of North Platte, Nebraska in December 1866 after completing about 240 miles (390 km) of track that year. In late 1866, former Major General Grenville M. Dodge was appointed Chief Engineer on the Union Pacific, but hard-working General "Jack" Casement continued to work as chief construction "boss" and his brother Daniel Casement continued as a financial officer.
The original emigrant route across Wyoming of the Oregon, Mormon and California Trails, after progressing up the Platte River valley, went up the North Platte River valley through Casper, Wyoming, along the Sweetwater River and over the Continental Divide at the 7,412-foot (2,259 m) South Pass. The original westward travelers in their ox and mule pulled wagons tried to stick to river valleys to avoid as much road building as possible—gradients and sharp corners were usually of little or no concern to them. The ox and mule pulled wagons were the original off-road vehicles in their day since nearly all of the Emigrant Trails went cross country over rough, unimproved trails. 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. The emigrant trails were closed in winter. The North Platte–South Pass route was far less beneficial for a railroad, as it was about 150 miles (240 km) longer and much more expensive to construct up the narrow, steep and rocky canyons of the North Platte. 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.
Efforts to survey a new, shorter, "better" route had been underway since 1864. 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 (2,500 m) Evans pass (also called Sherman's Pass) which was discovered by the Union Pacific employed English surveyor and engineer, James Evans, in about 1864.[60] This pass now is marked by the Ames Monument (41°07′53″N 105°23′53″W / 41.131281°N 105.398045°W / 41.131281; -105.398045) marking its significance and commemorating two of the main backers of the Union Pacific Railroad. From North Platte, Nebraska (elevation 2,834 feet or 864 metres), the railroad proceeded westward and upward along a new path across the Nebraska Territory and Wyoming Territory (then part of the Dakota Territory) along the north bank of the South Platte River and into what would become the state of Wyoming at Lone Pine, Wyoming. Evans Pass was located between what would become the new "railroad" towns of Cheyenne and Laramie. Connecting to this pass, about 15 miles (24 km) west of Cheyenne, was the one place across the Laramie Mountains that had a narrow "guitar neck" of land that crossed the mountains without serious erosion at the so-called "gangplank" ( 41°05′59″N 105°09′12″W / 41.099746°N 105.153205°W / 41.099746; -105.153205) discovered by Major General Grenville Dodge in 1865 when he was in the U.S. Army.[61] The new route surveyed across Wyoming was over 150 miles (240 km) 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.
The railroad gained about 3,200 feet (980 m) in the 220 miles (350 km) climb to Cheyenne from North Platte, Nebraska—about 15 feet per mile (2.8 m/km)—a very gentle slope of less than one degree average. This "new" route had never become an emigrant route because it lacked the water and grass to feed the emigrants' oxen and mules. Steam locomotives did not need grass, and the railroad companies could drill wells for water if necessary.
Coal had been discovered in Wyoming and reported on by John C. Frémont in his 1843 expedition across Wyoming, and was already being exploited by Utah residents from towns like Coalville, Utah and later Kemmerer, Wyoming by the time the Transcontinental railroad was built. Union Pacific needed coal to fuel its steam locomotives on the almost treeless plains across Nebraska and Wyoming. Coal shipments by rail were also looked on as a potentially major source of income—this potential is still being realized.
The Union Pacific reached the new railroad town of Cheyenne in December 1867, having laid about 270 miles (430 km) that year. They paused over the winter, preparing to push the track over Evans (Sherman's) pass. At 8,247 feet (2,514 m), Evans pass is the highest point reached on the transcontinental railroad. About 4 miles (6.4 km) beyond Evans pass, the railroad had to build an extensive bridge over the Dale Creek canyon ( 41°06′14″N 105°27′17″W / 41.103803°N 105.454797°W / 41.103803; -105.454797). The Dale Creek Crossing was one of their more difficult railroad engineering challenges.[62] Dale Creek Bridge was 650 feet (200 m) long and 125 feet (38 m) above Dale Creek.[63] The bridge components were pre-built of timber in Chicago, Illinois and then shipped on rail cars to Dale Creek for assembly. The eastern and western approaches to the bridge site, near the highest elevation on the transcontinental railroad, required cutting through granite for nearly a mile on each side.[64] The initial Dale Creek bridge had a train speed limit of 4 miles (6.4 km) per hour across the bridge. Beyond Dale Creek, railroad construction paused at what became the town of Laramie, Wyoming to build a bridge across the Laramie River.
Located 35 miles (56 km) from Evans pass, Union Pacific connected the new "railroad" town of Cheyenne to Denver and its Denver Pacific Railway and Telegraph Company railroad line in 1870. Elevated 6,070 feet (1,850 m) above sea level, and sitting on the new Union Pacific route with a connection to Denver, Cheyenne was chosen to become a major railroad center and was equipped with extensive railroad yards, maintenance facilities, and a Union Pacific presence. Its location made it a good base for helper locomotives to couple to trains with snowplows to help clear the tracks of snow or help haul heavy freight over Evans pass. The Union Pacific's junction with the Denver Railroad with its connection to Kansas City, Kansas, Kansas City, Missouri and the railroads east of the Missouri River again increased Cheyenne's importance as the junction of two major railroads. Cheyenne later became Wyoming's largest city and the capital of the new state of Wyoming.
The railroad established many townships along the way: Fremont, Elkhorn, Grand Island, North Platte, Ogallala and Sidney as the railroad followed the Platte River across Nebraska territory. The railroad even dipped into what would become the new state of Colorado after crossing the North Platte River as it followed the South Platte River west into what would become Julesburg before turning northwest along Lodgepole Creek into Wyoming. In the Dakota Territory (Wyoming) the new towns of Cheyenne, Laramie, Rawlins (named for Union General John Aaron Rawlins, who camped in the locality in 1867[65]), Green River and Evanston (named after James Evans) were established, as well as much more fuel and water stops. The Green River was crossed with a new bridge, and the new "railroad" town of Green River constructed there after the tracks reached the Green River on October 1, 1868—the last big river to cross.
On December 4, 1868, the Union Pacific reached Evanston, having laid almost 360 miles (580 km) of track over the Green River and the Laramie Plains that year. By 1871, Evanston became a significant maintenance shop town equipped to carry out extensive repairs on the cars and steam locomotives.
In the Utah Territory, the railroad once again diverted from the main emigrant trails to cross the Wasatch Mountains and went down the rugged Echo Canyon (Summit County, Utah) and Weber River canyon. 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. The Mormon and Union Pacific rail work was joined in the area of the present-day border between Utah and Wyoming.[66] The longest of four tunnels built in Weber Canyon was 757-foot-long (231 m) Tunnel 2. Work on this tunnel started in October 1868 and was completed six months later. 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.
The tunnels were all made with the new dangerous nitroglycerine explosive, which expedited work but caused some fatal accidents.[67] While building the railroad along the rugged Weber River Canyon, Mormon workers signed the Thousand Mile Tree which was lone tree alongside the track 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from Omaha. A historic marker has been placed there.[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. From Ogden, the railroad went north of the Great Salt Lake to Brigham City and Corinne using Mormon workers, before finally connecting with the Central Pacific Railroad at Promontory Summit in Utah territory on May 10, 1869.[70][71] Some Union Pacific officers declined to pay the Mormons all of the agreed upon construction costs of the work through Weber Canyon, and beyond, claiming Union Pacific poverty despite the millions they had extracted through the Crédit Mobilier of America scandal. Only partial payment was secured through court actions against Union Pacific.[66]
Central Pacific route
The Central Pacific laid 690 miles (1,110 km) of track, starting in Sacramento, California, in 1863 and continuing over the rugged 7,000-foot (2,100 m) Sierra Nevada mountains at Donner Pass into the new state of Nevada. The elevation change from Sacramento (elev. 40 ft or 12 m) to Donner Summit (elev. 7,000 ft or 2,100 m) had to be accomplished in about 90 miles (140 km) with an average elevation change of 76 feet per mile (14 meters per km), and there were only a few places in the Sierra where this type of "ramp" existed. The discovery and detailed map survey with profiles and elevations of this route over the Sierra Nevada is credited to Theodore Judah, chief engineer of the Central Pacific Railroad until his death in 1863. This route is up a ridge between the North fork of the American River on the south and Bear River (Feather River) and South Yuba River on the north. As the railroad climbed out of Sacramento up to Donner Summit, there was only one 3-mile (4.8 km) section near "Cape Horn CPRR"[72] where the railroad grade slightly exceeded two percent.
In June 1864, the Central Pacific railroad entrepreneurs opened Dutch Flat and Donner Lake Wagon Road (DFDLWR).[73] Costing about $300,000 and a years worth of work, this toll road wagon route was opened over much of the route the Central Pacific railroad (CPRR) would use over Donner Summit to carry freight and passengers needed by the CPRR and to carry other cargo over their toll road to and from the ever-advancing railhead and over the Sierra to the gold and silver mining towns of Nevada. As the railroad advanced, their freight rates with the combined rail and wagon shipments would become much more competitive. The volume of the toll road freight traffic to Nevada was estimated to be about $13,000,000 a year as the Comstock Lode boomed, and getting even part of this freight traffic would help pay for the railroad construction. When the railroad reached Reno, it had the majority of all Nevada freight shipments, and the price of goods in Nevada dropped significantly as the freight charges to Nevada dropped significantly. The rail route over the Sierras followed the general route of the Truckee branch of the California Trail, going east over Donner Pass and down the rugged Truckee River valley.
The route over the Sierra had been plotted out by Judah in preliminary surveys before his death in 1863. Judah's deputy, Samuel S. Montague was appointed as Central Pacific's new Chief Engineer, with Lewis M. Clement as Assistant Chief Engineer and Charles Cadwalader as second assistant. 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. Work that was identified as taking a long time was started as soon as its projected track location could be ascertained and work crews, supplies and road work equipment found to be sent ahead. Tunnels, trestles and bridges were nearly all built this way. The spread-out nature of the work resulted in the work being split into two divisions, with L.M. Clement taking the upper division from Blue Cañon to Truckee and Cadwalader taking the lower division from Truckee to the Nevada border. Other assistant engineers were assigned to specific tasks such as building a bridge, tunnel or trestle which was done by the workers under experienced supervisors.[38]
In total, the Central Pacific had eleven tunnel projects (Nos. 3 through 13) under construction in the Sierra from 1865–68, with seven tunnels located in a 2-mile (3.2 km) stretch on the east side of Donner Summit. The tunnels were usually built by drilling a series of holes in the tunnel face, filling them with black powder and detonating it to break the rock free. The black powder was provided by the California Powder Works near Santa Cruz, California. These works had started production in 1864 after the U.S. Civil War had cut off shipments of black powder from the East to the mining and railroad industry of California and Nevada. The Central Pacific was a prolific user of black powder, often using up to 500 kegs of 25 pounds (11 kg) each per day.[74]
The summit tunnel (Number 6), 1,660 feet (510 m), was started in late 1865, well ahead of the railhead. Through solid granite, the summit tunnel progressed at a rate of only about 0.98 feet (0.30 m) per day per face as it was being worked by three eight-hour shifts of workers, hand drilling holes with a rock drill and hammer, filling them with black powder and trying to blast the granite loose. One crew worked drilling holes on the faces and another crew collected and removed the loosened rock after each explosion. The workers were pulled off the summit tunnel and the track grading east of Donner Pass in the winter of 1865–66 as there was no way to supply them, nor quarters they could have lived in. The crews were transferred to work on bridges and track grading on the Truckee River canyon.
In 1866 they put in a 125-foot (38 m) vertical shaft in the center of the summit tunnel and started work towards the east and west tunnel faces, giving four working faces on the summit tunnel to speed up progress. 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. By the winter of 1866–67, work had progressed sufficiently and a camp had been built for workers on the summit tunnel which allowed work to continue. The cross section of a tunnel face was a 16-foot-wide (4.9 m), 16-foot-high (4.9 m) oval with an 11-foot (3.4 m) vertical wall. Progress on the tunnel sped up to over 1.5 feet (0.46 m) per day per face when they started using the newly invented nitroglycerin—manufactured near the tunnel. They used nitroglycerin to deepen the summit tunnel to the required 16-foot (4.9 m) height after the four tunnel faces met, and made even faster progress. Nearly all other tunnels were worked on both tunnel faces and met in the middle. Depending on the material the tunnels penetrated, they were left unlined or lined with brick, rock walls or timber and post. Some tunnels were designed to bend in the middle to align with the track bed curvature. Despite this potential complication, nearly all the different tunnel center lines met within 2 inches (5.1 cm) or so. The detailed survey work that made these tunnel digs as precise as required was nearly all done by the Canadian-born and -trained Lewis Clement, the CPRR's Chief Assistant Engineer and Superintendent of Track, and his assistants.[38]
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. The type of material determined the slope of the V and how much material would have to be removed. Ideally, these cuts would be matched with valley fills that could use the dug out material to bring the road bed up to grade—cut and fill construction. In the 1860s there was no heavy equipment that could be used to make these cuts or haul it away to make the fills. The options were to dig it out by pick and shovel, haul the hillside material by wheelbarrow and/or horse or mule cart or blast it loose. To blast a V-shaped cut out, they had to drill several holes up to 20 feet (6.1 m) deep in the material, fill them with black powder, and blast the material away. Since the Central Pacific was in a hurry, they were profligate users of black powder to blast their way through the hills. The only disadvantage came when a nearby valley needed fill to get across it. The explosive technique often blew most of the potential fill material down the hillside, making it unavailable for fill.[75][76] Initially, many valleys were bridged by "temporary" trestles that could be rapidly built and were later replaced by much lower maintenance and permanent solid fill. The existing railroad made transporting and putting material in valleys much easier—load it on railway dump cars, haul where needed and dump it over the side of the trestle.
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 Truckee River, which drains Lake Tahoe, had already found and scoured out the best route across the Carson Range of mountains east of the Sierras. The route down the rugged Truckee River Canyon, including required bridges, was done ahead of the main summit tunnel completion. To expedite the building of the railroad through the Truckee River canyon, the Central Pacific hauled two small locomotives, railcars, rails and other material on wagons and sleighs to what is now Truckee, California and worked the winter of 1867–68 on their way down Truckee canyon ahead of the tracks being completed to Truckee. In Truckee canyon, five Howe truss bridges had to be built. This gave them a head start on getting to the "easy" miles across Nevada.
In order to keep the higher portions of the Sierra grade open in the winter, 37 miles (60 km) of timber snow sheds were built between Blue Cañon and Truckee in addition to utilizing snowplows pushed by locomotives, as well as manual shovelling. With the advent of more efficient oil fired steam and later diesel electric power to drive plows, flangers, spreaders, and rotary snow plows, most of the wooden snowsheds have long since been removed as obsolete. Tunnels 1–5 and Tunnel 13 of the original 1860s tunnels on Track 1 of the Sierra grade remain in use today, while additional new tunnels were later driven when the grade was double tracked over the first quarter of the twentieth century. In 1993, the Southern Pacific Railroad (which operated the CPRR-built Oakland–Ogden line until its 1996 merger with the Union Pacific) closed and pulled up the 6.7-mile (10.8 km) section of Track #1 over the summit running between the Norden complex (Shed 26, MP 192.1)[77] and the covered crossovers in Shed #47 (MP 198.8)[78] about a mile east of the old flyover at Eder, bypassing and abandoning the tunnel 6–8 complex, the concrete snowsheds just beyond them, and tunnels 9–12 ending at MP 195.7, all of which had been located on Track 1 within two miles of the summit.[79] Since then all east- and westbound traffic has been run over the Track #2 grade crossing the summit about one mile (1.6 km) south of Donner Pass through the 10,322-foot-long (3,146 m) Tunnel #41 ("The Big Hole") running under Mt. Judah between Soda Springs and Eder, which was opened in 1925 when the summit section of the grade was double tracked. This routing change was made because the Track 2 and Tunnel 41 Summit crossing is far easier and less expensive to maintain and keep open in the harsh Sierra winters.[80]
On June 18, 1868, the Central Pacific reached Reno, Nevada, after completing 132 miles (212 km) of railroad up and over the Sierras from Sacramento, California. By then the railroad had already been prebuilt down the Truckee River on the much flatter land from Reno to Wadsworth, Nevada, where they bridged the Truckee for the last time. From there, they struggled across a forty mile desert to the end of the Humboldt river at the Humboldt Sink. From the end of the Humboldt, they continued east over the Great Basin Desert bordering the Humboldt River to Wells, Nevada. One of the most troublesome problems found on this route along the Humboldt was at Palisade Canyon (near Carlin, Nevada), where for 12 miles (19 km) the line had to be built between the river and basalt cliffs. From Wells, Nevada to Promontory Summit, the Railroad left the Humboldt and proceeded across the Nevada and Utah desert. Water for the steam locomotives was provided by wells, springs, or pipelines to nearby water sources. Water was often pumped into the water tanks with windmills. Train fuel and water spots on the early trains with steam locomotives may have been as often as every 10 miles (16 km). 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 (16 km) of track on a prepared rail bed in one day—-a record that still stands today. The Central Pacific and Union Pacific raced to get as much track laid as possible, and the Central Pacific laid about 560 miles (900 km) of track from Reno to Promontory Summit in the one year before the Last Spike was driven on May 10, 1869.
Central Pacific had 1,694 freight cars available by May 1869, with more under construction in their Sacramento yard. Major repairs and maintenance on the Central Pacific rolling stock was done in their Sacramento maintenance yard. Near the end of 1869, Central Pacific had 162 locomotives, of which 2 had two drivers (drive wheels), 110 had four drivers, and 50 had six drivers. The steam locomotives had been purchased in the eastern states and shipped to California by sea. Thirty-six additional locomotives were built and coming west, and twenty-eight more were under construction. There was a shortage of passenger cars and more had to be ordered. The first Central Pacific sleeper, the "Silver Palace Sleeping Car", arrived at Sacramento on June 8, 1868.[81]
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. When the eastern end of the CPRR was extended to Ogden by purchasing the Union Pacific Railroad line from Promontory for about $2.8 million in 1870, it ended the short period of a boom town for Promontory, extended the Central Pacific tracks about 60 miles (97 km) and made Ogden a major terminus on the transcontinental railroad, as passengers and freight switched railroads there.
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. As a result, the western part of the route was extended from Sacramento to the Alameda Terminal in Alameda, California, and shortly thereafter, to the Oakland Long Wharf at Oakland Point in Oakland, California, and on to San Jose, California. Train ferries transferred some railroad cars to and from the Oakland wharves and tracks to wharves and tracks in San Francisco. 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. Some of their main cargo was the thousands of cords (3.6 m3 each) of firewood needed for the many steam engines and pumps, cooking stoves, heating stoves etc. in Comstock Lode towns and the tons of ice needed by the miners as they worked ever deeper into the "hot" Comstock Lode ore body. In the mines, temperatures could get above 120 °F (49 °C) at the work face and a miner often used over 100 pounds (45 kg) of ice per shift. This new railroad connected to the Central Pacific near Reno, and went through Carson City, the new capital of Nevada.[82]
After the transcontinental railroads were completed, many other railroads were built to connect up to other population centers in Utah, Wyoming, Kansas, Colorado, Oregon, Washington territories, etc. 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. After completion, this became another major east–west railroad. To speed completion of the Kansas Pacific Railroad to Denver, construction started east from Denver in March 1870 to meet the railroad coming west from Kansas city. The two crews met at a point called Comanche Crossing, Kansas Territory, on August 15, 1870. Denver was now firmly on track to becoming the largest city and the future capital of Colorado. The Kansas Pacific Railroad linked with the Denver Pacific Railway via Denver to Cheyenne in 1870.
The original transcontinental railroad route did not pass through the two biggest cities in the so-called Great American Desert—Denver, Colorado, and Salt Lake City, Utah. Feeder railroad lines were soon built to service these two and other cities and states along the route.
Modern-day Interstate 80 roughly follows the path of the railroad from Sacramento across modern day California, Nevada, Wyoming and Nebraska, with a few exceptions. Most significantly, the two routes are different between Wells, Nevada and Echo, Utah. In this area the freeway passes along the south shore of the Great Salt Lake and passes through Salt Lake City, cresting the Wasatch Mountains at Parley's Summit. The railroad was originally routed along the north shore, and later with the Lucin Cutoff directly across the center of the Great Salt Lake, passing through the city of Ogden instead of Salt Lake City. The railroad crosses the Wasatch Mountains via a much gentler grade through Weber Canyon. 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.
Construcción
Most of the capital investment needed to build the railroad was generated by selling government-guaranteed bonds (granted per mile of completed track) to interested investors. The Federal donation of right-of-way saved money and time as it did not have to be purchased from others. The financial incentives and bonds would hopefully cover most of the initial capital investment needed to build the railroad. The bonds would be paid back by the sale of government-granted land, as well as prospective passenger and freight income. Most of the engineers and surveyors who figured out how and where to build the railroad on the Union Pacific were engineering college trained. 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. After securing the finances and selecting the engineering team, the next step was to hire the key personnel and prospective supervisors. Nearly all key workers and supervisors were hired because they had previous railroad on-the-job training, knew what needed to be done and how to direct workers to get it done. After the key personnel were hired, the semi-skilled jobs could be filled if there was available labor. The engineering team's main job was to tell the workers where to go, what to do, how to do it, and provide the construction material they would need to get it done.
Survey teams were put out to produce detailed contour maps of the options on the different routes. The engineering team looked at the available surveys and chose what was the "best" route. Survey teams under the direction of the engineers closely led the work crews and marked where and by how much hills would have to be cut and depressions filled or bridged. 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. Specialized bridging, explosive and tunneling teams were assigned to their specialized jobs. Some jobs like explosive work, tunneling, bridging, heavy cuts or fills were known to take longer than others, so the specialized teams were sent out ahead by wagon trains with the supplies and men to get these jobs done by the time the regular track-laying crews arrived. Finance officers made sure the supplies were paid for and men paid for their work. An army of men had to be coordinated and a seemingly never-ending chain of supplies had to be provided. The Central Pacific road crew set a track-laying record by laying 10 mi (16 km) of track in a single day, commemorating the event with a signpost beside the track for passing trains to see.[83]
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. Personnel had to be hired to run these stations. Maintenance depots had to be built to keep all of the equipment repaired and operational. Telegraph operators had to be hired to man each station to keep track of where the trains were so that trains could run in each direction on the available single track without interference or accidents. Sidings had to be built to allow trains to pass. Provision had to be made to store and continually pay for coal or wood needed to run the steam locomotives. Water towers had to be built for refilling the water tanks on the engines, and provision made to keep them full.
Labor
The majority of the Union Pacific track across the Nebraska and Wyoming territories was built by veterans of the Union and Confederate armies, as well as many recent immigrants. Brigham Young, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, landed contracts with the Union Pacific that offered jobs for around 2,000 members of the church with the hope that the railroad would support commerce in Utah. Church members built most of the road through Utah.[84] Construction superintendent Durant repeatedly failed to pay the wages agreed upon. The Union Pacific train carrying him to the final spike ceremony was held up by a strike by unpaid workers in Piedmont, Wyoming until he paid them for their work. Representatives of Brigham Young had less success, and failed in court to force him to honor the contract.[85]
The manual labor to build the Central Pacific's roadbed, bridges and tunnels was done primarily by many thousands of emigrant workers from China under the direction of skilled non-Chinese supervisors. The Chinese were commonly referred to at the time as "Celestials" and China as the "Celestial Kingdom." Labor-saving devices in those days consisted primarily of wheelbarrows, horse or mule pulled carts, and a few railroad pulled gondolas. The construction work involved an immense amount of manual labor. Initially, Central Pacific had a hard time hiring and keeping unskilled workers on its line, as many would leave for the prospect of far more lucrative gold or silver mining options elsewhere. Despite the concerns expressed by Charles Crocker, one of the "big four" and a general contractor, that the Chinese were too small in stature[86] and lacking previous experience with railroad work, they decided to try them anyway.[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.: laundries and kitchens). Most of these Chinese workers were represented by a Chinese "boss" who translated, collected salaries for his crew, kept discipline and relayed orders from an American general supervisor. Most Chinese workers spoke only rudimentary or no English, and the supervisors typically only learned rudimentary Chinese. Many more workers were imported from the Guangdong Province of China, which at the time, beside great poverty, suffered from the violence of the Taiping Rebellion. Most Chinese workers were planning on returning with their newfound "wealth" when the work was completed. Most of the men received between one and three dollars per day, the same as unskilled white workers; but the workers imported directly from China sometimes received less. A diligent worker could save over $20 per month after paying for food and lodging—a "fortune" by Chinese standards. A snapshot of workers in late 1865 showed about 3,000 Chinese and 1,700 white workers employed on the railroad. Nearly all of the white workers were in supervisory or skilled craft positions and made more money than the Chinese.
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. Once the Central Pacific was out of the Sierras and the Carson Range, progress sped up considerably as the railroad bed could be built over nearly flat ground. In those days, the Central Pacific once did a section of 10 miles (16 km) of track in one day as a "demonstration" of what they could do on flat ground like most of the Union Pacific had in Wyoming and Nebraska.
The track laying was divided up into various parts. In advance of the track layers, surveyors consulting with engineers determined where the track would go. Workers then built and prepared the roadbed, dug or blasted through hills, filled in washes, built trestles, bridges or culverts across streams or valleys, made tunnels if needed, and laid the ties. The actual track-laying gang would then lay rails on the previously laid ties positioned on the roadbed, drive the spikes, and bolt the fishplate bars to each rail. At the same time, another gang would distribute telegraph poles and wire along the grade, while the cooks prepared dinner and the clerks busied themselves with accounts, records, using the telegraph line to relay requests for more materials and supplies or communicate with supervisors. Usually the workers lived in camps built near their work site. Supplies were ordered by the engineers and hauled by rail, possibly then to be loaded on wagons if they were needed ahead of the railhead. Camps were moved when the railhead moved a significant distance. Later, as the railroad started moving long distances every few days, some railroad cars had bunkhouses built in them that moved with the workers—the Union Pacific had used this technique since 1866.[88] Almost all of the roadbed work had to be done manually, using shovels, picks, axes, two-wheeled dump carts, wheelbarrows, ropes, scrapers, etc., with initially only black powder available for blasting. Carts pulled by mules, and horses were about the only labor saving devices available then. Lumber and ties were usually provided by independent contractors who cut, hauled and sawed the timber as required.
Tunnels were blasted through hard rock by drilling holes in the rock face by hand and filling them with black powder. Sometimes cracks were found which could be filled with powder and blasted loose. The loosened rock would be collected and hauled out of the tunnel for use in a fill area or as roadbed, or else dumped over the side as waste. A foot or so advance on a tunnel face was a typical day's work. Some tunnels took almost a year to finish and the Summit Tunnel, the longest, took almost two years. 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]
Supply trains carried all the necessary material for the construction up to the railhead, with mule or horse-drawn wagons carrying it the rest of the ways if required. 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. Rails, which weighed the most, were often kicked off the flatcars and carried by gangs of men on each side of the rail to where needed. 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 fishplates connecting the ends of the rails would be bolted on and then the car pushed by hand to the end of the rail and rail installation repeated.
Track ballast was put between the ties as they progressed. Where a proper railbed had already been prepared, the work progressed rapidly. Constantly needed supplies included "food, water, ties, rails, spikes, fishplates, nuts and bolts, track ballast, telegraph poles, wire, firewood (or coal on the Union Pacific) and water for the steam train locomotives, etc."[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. could be advanced to the railhead. Since juggling railroad cars took time on flat ground, where wagon transport was easier, the rail cars would be brought to the end of the line by steam locomotive, unloaded, and the flat car returned immediately to a siding for another loaded car of either ballast or rails. Temporary sidings were often installed where it could be easily done to expedite getting needed supplies to the railhead.
The railroad tracks, spikes, telegraph wire, locomotives, railroad cars, supplies etc. were imported from the east on sailing ships that sailed the about 18,000 miles (29,000 km) and about 200 day trip around Cape Horn. Some freight was put on Clipper ships which could do the trip in about 120 days. Some passengers and high priority freight were shipped over the newly (1855) completed Panama Railroad across the Isthmus of Panama. Using paddle steamers to and from Panama, this shortcut could be traveled in as little as 40 days. Supplies were normally offloaded at the Sacramento, California docks where the railroad started.
Central Pacific construction
On January 8, 1863, Governor Leland Stanford ceremonially broke ground in Sacramento, California, to begin construction of the Central Pacific Railroad. After great initial progress along the Sacramento Valley, construction was slowed, first by the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, then by cutting a railroad bed up the mountains themselves. As they progressed higher in the mountains, winter snowstorms and a shortage of reliable labor compounded the problems. On January 7, 1865, a want ad for 5,000 laborers was placed in the Sacramento Union.[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 laborers—mostly Chinese. Emigrants from poverty stricken regions of China, many of which suffered from the strife of the Taiping Rebellion, seemed to be more willing to tolerate the living and working conditions on the railroad construction, and progress on the railroad continued. The increasing necessity for tunneling as they proceeded up the mountains then began to slow progress of the line yet again.
The first step of construction was to survey the route and determine the locations where large excavations, tunnels and bridges would be needed. Crews could then start work in advance of the railroad reaching these locations. Supplies and workers were brought up to the work locations by wagon teams and work on several different sections proceeded simultaneously. One advantage of working on tunnels in winter was that tunnel work could often proceed since the work was nearly all "inside". Unfortunately, living quarters would have to be built outside and getting new supplies was difficult. Working and living in winter in the presence of snow slides and avalanches caused some deaths.[91]
To carve a tunnel, one worker held a rock drill on the granite face while one to two other workers swung eighteen-pound sledgehammers to sequentially hit the drill which slowly advanced into the rock. Once the hole was about 10 inches (25 cm) deep, it would be filled with black powder, a fuse set and then ignited from a safe distance. Nitroglycerin, which had been invented less than two decades before the construction of the first transcontinental railroad, was used in relatively large quantities during its construction. This was especially true on the Central Pacific Railroad, which owned its own nitroglycerin plant to ensure it had a steady supply of the volatile explosive.[92] This plant was operated by Chinese laborers as they were willing workers even under the most trying and dangerous of conditions.[93]
Chinese laborers were also crucial in the construction of 15 tunnels along the railroad's line through the Sierra Nevada mountains. These were about 32 feet (10 m) high and 16 feet (5 m) wide.[94] When tunnels with vertical shafts were dug to increase construction speed, and tunneling began in the middle of the tunnel and at both ends simultaneously. At first hand-powered derricks were used to help remove loose rocks up the vertical shafts. These derricks were later replaced with steam hoists as work progressed. By using vertical shafts, four faces of the tunnel could be worked at the same time, two in the middle and one at each end. The average daily progress in some tunnels was only 0.85 feet (26 cm) a day per face, which was very slow,[94] or 1.18 feet (36 cm) daily according to historian George Kraus.[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. With the exception of a few whites at the west end of Tunnel No. 6, the laboring force was entirely composed of Chinamen with white foremen and a "boss/translator". A single foreman (often Irish) with a gang of 30 to 40 Chinese men generally constituted the force at work at each end of a tunnel; of these, 12 to 15 men worked on the heading, and the rest on the bottom, removing blasted material. 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."[48]:49 The laborers usually worked three shifts of 8 hours each per day, while the foremen worked in two shifts of 12 hours each, managing the laborers.[95] Once out of the Sierra, construction was much easier and faster. Under the direction of construction superintendent James Harvey Strobridge,[96] Central Pacific tracklaying crews set a record with 10 miles 56 feet (16.111 km) of track laid in one day on April 28, 1869. Horace Hamilton Minkler, track foreman for the Central Pacific, laid the last rail and tie before the Last Spike was driven.
In order to keep the CPRR's Sierra grade open during the winter months, beginning in 1867, 37 miles (60 km) of massive wooden snow sheds and galleries were built between Blue Cañon and Truckee, covering cuts and other points where there was danger of avalanches. 2,500 men and six material trains were employed in this work, which was completed in 1869. The sheds were built with two sides and a steep peaked roof, mostly of locally cut hewn timber and round logs. Snow galleries had one side and a roof that sloped upward until it met the mountainside, thus permitting avalanches to slide over the galleries, some of which extended up the mountainside as much as 200 feet (61 m). Masonry walls such as the "Chinese Walls" at Donner Summit were built across canyons to prevent avalanches from striking the side of the vulnerable wooden construction.[97][98][99] A few concrete sheds (mostly at crossovers) are still in use today.
Union Pacific construction
The major investor in the Union Pacific was Thomas Clark Durant,[100] who had made his stake money by smuggling Confederate cotton with the aid of Grenville M. Dodge. Durant chose routes that would favor places where he held land, and he announced connections to other lines at times that suited his share dealings. He paid an associate to submit the construction bid to another company he controlled, Crédit Mobilier, manipulating the finances and government subsidies and making himself another fortune. Durant hired Dodge as chief engineer and Jack Casement as construction boss.[citation needed]
In the East, the progress started in Omaha, Nebraska, by the Union Pacific Railroad which initially proceeded very quickly because of the open terrain of the Great Plains. This changed, however, as the work entered Indian-held lands, as the railroad was a violation of Native American 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 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.[citation needed]
Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s 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. 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.[101]
"On the ground in the West, Gen. Philip Henry Sheridan, assuming Sherman’s 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."[101]
"The devastation of the buffalo population signalled the end of the Indian Wars, and Native Americans were pushed into reservations. In 1869, the Comanche chief Tosawi was reported to have told Sheridan, “Me Tosawi. Me good Indian,” and Sheridan allegedly replied, “The only good Indians I ever saw were dead.” The phrase was later misquoted, with Sheridan supposedly stating, “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.” Sheridan denied he had ever said such a thing."[101]
"By the end of the 19th century, only 300 buffalo were left in the wild. 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. Conservationists established more wildlife preserves, and the species slowly rebounded. Today, there are more than 200,000 bison in North America."[101]
"Sheridan acknowledged the role of the railroad in changing the face of the American West, and in his Annual Report of the General of the U.S. Army in 1878, he acknowledged that the Native Americans were scuttled to reservations with no compensation beyond the promise of religious instruction and basic supplies of food and clothing—promises, he wrote, which were never fulfilled."[101]
" 'We took away their country and their means of support, broke up their mode of living, their habits of life, introduced disease and decay among them, and it was for this and against this they made war. Could any one expect less? Then, why wonder at Indian difficulties? ' ”[101]
The "Last Spike" ceremony
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 Territory. On the Union Pacific side, thrusting westward, the last two rails were laid by Irishmen; on the Central Pacific side, thrusting eastward, the last two rails were laid by the Chinese.[90]:85
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. 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.[102] In perhaps the world's first live mass-media event, the hammers and spike were wired to the telegraph line so that each hammer stroke would be heard as a click at telegraph stations nationwide—the hammer strokes were missed, so the clicks were sent by the telegraph operator. As soon as the ceremonial "Last 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." Travel from coast to coast was reduced from six months or more to just one week.
Secuelas
Railroad developments
When the last spike was driven, the rail network was not yet connected to the Atlantic or Pacific but merely connected Omaha to Sacramento. To get from Sacramento to the Pacific, the Central Pacific purchased in 1867 the struggling Western Pacific Railroad (unrelated to the railroad of the same name that would later parallel its route) and in February 1868 resumed construction on it, which had halted in October 1866 due to funding troubles. 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. On November 8, 1869, the Central Pacific finally completed the rail connection to its western terminus at Oakland, California, also on the East Bay, where freight and passengers completed their transcontinental link to San Francisco by ferry.
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. The Western Pacific was originally chartered to go to San Jose, but the Central Pacific decided to build along the East Bay instead, as going from San Jose up the Peninsula to San Francisco itself would have brought it into conflict with competing interests. The railroad entered Alameda and Oakland from the south, roughly paralleling what would later become U.S. Route 50 and later still Interstates 5, 205, and 580. 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). In 1930, a rail bridge across the Carquinez replaced the Benicia ferries.
Very early on, the Central Pacific learned that it would have trouble maintaining an open track in winter across the Sierras. At first they tried plowing the road with special snowplows mounted on their steam engines. When this was only partially successful, an extensive process of building snow sheds over some of the track was instituted to protect it from deep snows and avalanches. These eventually succeeded at keeping the tracks clear for all but a few days of the year.[103]
Both railroads soon instituted extensive upgrade projects to build better bridges, viaducts and dugways as well as install heavier duty rails, stronger ties, better road beds etc. The original track had often been laid as fast as possible with only secondary attention to maintenance and durability. The primary incentive had been getting the subsidies, which meant that upgrades of all kinds were routinely required in the following years.
The Union Pacific would not connect Omaha to Council Bluffs until completing the Union Pacific Missouri River Bridge in 1872.[104]
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. In July 1869, the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad finished the Hannibal Bridge in Kansas City which was the first bridge to cross the Missouri River. This in turn connected to Kansas Pacific trains going from Kansas City to Denver, which in turn had built the Denver Pacific Railway connecting to the Union Pacific. In August 1870, the Kansas Pacific drove the last spike connecting to the Denver Pacific line at Strasburg, Colorado and the first true Atlantic to Pacific United States railroad was completed.
Kansas City's head start in connecting to a true transcontinental railroad contributed to it rather than Omaha becoming the dominant rail center west of Chicago.
The Kansas Pacific became part of the Union Pacific in 1880.
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 had left New York City. Only ten years before, the same journey would have taken months over land or weeks on ship, possibly all the way around South America.
The Central Pacific got a direct route to San Francisco when it was merged with the Southern Pacific Railroad to create the Southern Pacific Company in 1885. The Union Pacific initially took over the Southern Pacific in 1901 but was forced by the U.S. Supreme Court to divest it because of monopoly concerns. The two railroads would once again unite in 1996 when the Southern Pacific was sold to the Union Pacific.
Having been bypassed with the completion of the Lucin Cutoff in 1904, the Promontory Summit rails were pulled up in 1942 to be recycled for the World War II effort. This process began with a ceremonial "undriving" at the Last Spike location.[105]
Crédit Mobilier
Despite the transcontinental success and millions in government subsidies, the Union Pacific faced bankruptcy less than three years after the Last Spike as details surfaced about overcharges that Crédit Mobilier had billed Union Pacific for the formal building of the railroad. The scandal hit epic proportions in the 1872 United States presidential election, which saw the re-election of Ulysses S. Grant and became the biggest scandal of the Gilded Age. It would not be resolved until the death of the congressman who was supposed to have reined in its excesses but instead wound up profiting from it.
Durant had initially come up with the scheme to have Crédit Mobilier subcontract to do the actual track work. Durant gained control of the company after buying out employee Herbert Hoxie for $10,000. Under Durant's guidance, Crédit Mobilier was charging Union Pacific often twice or more the customary cost for track work (thus in effect paying himself to build the railroad). The process mired down Union Pacific work.
Lincoln asked Massachusetts Congressman Oakes Ames, who was on the railroad committee, to clean things up and get the railroad moving. Ames got his brother Oliver Ames Jr. named president of the Union Pacific, while he himself became president of Crédit Mobilier.[106]
Ames then in turn gave stock options to other politicians while at the same time continuing the lucrative overcharges. The scandal was to implicate Vice President Schuyler Colfax (who was cleared) and future President James Garfield among others.
The scandal broke in 1872 when the New York Sun published correspondence detailing the scheme between Henry S. McComb and Ames. In the ensuing Congressional investigation, it was recommended that Ames be expelled from Congress, but this was reduced to a censure and Ames died within three months.
Durant later left the Union Pacific and a new rail baron, Jay Gould, became the dominant stockholder. As a result of the Panic of 1873, Gould was able to pick up bargains, among them the control of the Union Pacific Railroad and Western Union.[107]
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 made winter train travel safe and practical.
In areas where the original line has been bypassed and abandoned, primarily due to the Lucin Cutoff re-route in Utah, the original road grade is still obvious, as are numerous cuts and fills, especially the Big Fill a few miles east of Promontory. The sweeping curve which connected to the east end of the Big Fill now passes a Thiokol rocket research and development facility.
In 1957, Congress authorized the Golden Spike National Historic Site, which was redesignated the Golden Spike National Historical Park in 2019.[108] Today the site features replica engines of Union Pacific No. 119 and Central Pacific Jupiter. The engines are fired up periodically by the National Park Service for the public.[109] On May 10, 2006, on the anniversary of the driving of the spike, Utah announced that its state quarter design would be a representation of the driving of the Last Spike.
Current passenger service
Amtrak's California Zephyr, a daily passenger service from Emeryville, California (San Francisco Bay Area) to Chicago, uses the first transcontinental railroad from Sacramento to central Nevada. 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.[110]
En la cultura popular
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.[111]
While not exactly accurate, John Ford's 1924 silent movie The Iron Horse captures the fervent nationalism that drove public support for the project. 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.
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.
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.
The 1962 film How the West Was Won has a whole segment devoted to the construction; one of the movie's most famous scenes, filmed in Cinerama, is of a buffalo stampede over the railroad.
The construction of what presumably is – or is suggested to be – the transcontinental railroad provides the backdrop of the 1968 epic Spaghetti Western Once Upon a Time in the West, directed by Italian director Sergio Leone.
Graham Masterton's 1981 novel A Man of Destiny (published in the UK as Railroad) is a fictionalized account of the line's construction.
The 1993 children's book Ten Mile Day by Mary Ann Fraser tells the story of the record setting push by the Central Pacific in which they set a record by laying 10 miles (16 km) of track in a single day on April 28, 1869, to settle a $10,000 bet.
Kristiana Gregory's 1999 book The Great Railroad Race (part of the "Dear America" series) is written as the fictional diary of Libby West, who chronicles the end of the railroad construction and the excitement which engulfed the country at the time.
In the 1999 Will Smith film, Wild Wild West, the joining ceremony is the setting of an assassination attempt on then U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant by the film's antagonist Dr. Arliss Loveless.
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.
In the 2002 DreamWorks Animation movie, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, the main character, the horse Spirit, is delivered with other horses to pull a steam locomotive at a work site for the transcontinental railroad.
The American Experience series' 2002–2003 season documents the railway in the episode titled "Transcontinental Railroad".
The building of the railway is covered by the 2004 BBC documentary series Seven Wonders of the Industrial World in episode 6, "The Line".
The popular sci-fi television show Doctor Who featured the transcontinental railroad in a 2010 BBC audiobook entitled The Runaway Train, read by Matt Smith and written for audio by Oli Smith.
The construction of the transcontinental railroad provides the setting for the AMC television series Hell on Wheels. Thomas Durant is a regular character in the series and is portrayed by actor Colm Meaney.
In 2015, a Lego model depicting the Golden Spike Ceremony, the event that symbolically marked the completion of the first transcontinental railroad, was submitted to the Lego Ideas website.[112][113]
Ver también
- Chin Lin Sou
- History of rail transportation in California
- Interstate 80 – present-day New York-to-San Francisco transport link (highway)
- List of heritage railroads in the United States
- Overland Route (Union Pacific Railroad)
- Transcontinental railroad
- The transcontinental railroad and modern datacenter locations
Notas
- ^ 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.[6]
- ^ Paddle steamers linked Sacramento to the cities and their harbor facilities in the San Francisco Bay until late 1869, when the CPRR completed and opened the Western Pacific portion (which the CPRR had acquired control of in 1867–68 to Alameda first and then to Oakland.)
- ^ "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 José]. Their franchise has recently [late 1867] been assigned to parties in the interest of the Central Pacific Railroad Company; and it is probable that this line will be formally incorporated with the Central Pacific Railroad, and the road extended from Sacramento to San Francisco by the "best, most direct and practicable route" so soon as the overland connection is completed. In the meantime the travel is abundantly accommodated by first-class steamers." – Central Pacific Railroad Company of California "Railroad Across the Continent, with an account of the Central Pacific Railroad of California", pp. 9-10, New York: Brown & Hewitt, Printers. September 1868.
- ^ The legal "date of completion" of the WPRR grade was subsequently designated to be January 22, 1870.[12] The formal consolidation of the Central Pacific Railroad of California with the Western Pacific Railroad Co., San Joaquin Valley Railroad Co., and San Francisco, Oakland & Alameda Railroad Co. under the name of the Central Pacific Railroad Company became effective on June 22, 1870 with the filing of Articles of Consolidation drawn under the laws of California with the California Secretary of State.[13][14]
- ^ The new terminus opened on November 8, later deemed to be two days after the official "completion date" of the Pacific Railroad. Section 6 of the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862, et seq. required that an official date of completion be determined for the purpose of determining how other provisions of the Acts would be carried out. November 6, 1869 was confirmed as being that date by the US Supreme Court in Part I of the Court's Opinion and Order dated January 27, 1879, in re Union Pacific Railroad vs. United States (99 U.S. 402).[17][18]
- ^ Carver's 1847 proposal records himself as having written a newspaper article on the subject in 1837. Some sources say that he wrote such an article in 1832.
- ^ Later, the Northern Pacific Railway (NP) found and built a better route across the northern tier of the western United States from Minnesota to the Pacific Coast. It was approved by Congress in 1864 and given nearly 40 million acres (160,000km2) of land grants, which it used to raise money in Europe. Construction began in 1870 and the main line opened all the way from the Great Lakes to the Pacific Ocean on September 8, 1883.
- ^ The southern route was constructed in 1880 when the Southern Pacific Railroad crossed Arizona territory.
Referencias
- ^ Vernon, Edward (Ed) "Travelers' Official Railway Guide of the United States and Canada" Philadelphia: The National General Ticket Agents' Association. June, 1870, Tables 215, 216
- ^ Pacific Railroad Act of 1862, §2 & §3
- ^ Pacific Railroad Act of 1862, §5 & §6
- ^ "First Mortgage Bonds of the Central Pacific Railroad, 1867". www.cprr.org. Archived from the original on January 25, 2019. Retrieved January 26, 2019.
- ^ "CPRR Ephemera and Collectibles - $1,000 Pacific Railroad Bond, City and County of San Francisco, June 24, 1864". www.cprr.org. Archived from the original on January 26, 2019. Retrieved January 26, 2019.
- ^ "Report on the Pacific Railroads", US House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, House Ex. Doc. #440, 44th Congress, First Session, April 25, 1876, pp. 3, 6
- ^ a b Executive Order of Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, Fixing the Point of Commencement of the Union Pacific Railroad at Council Bluffs, Iowa, dated March 7, 1864 (38th Congress, 1st Session SENATE Ex. Doc. No. 27).
- ^ Cooper, Bruce C., "Riding the Transcontinental Rails: Overland Travel on the Pacific Railroad 1865–1881" (2005), Polyglot Press, Philadelphia, ISBN 1-4115-9993-4. p. 11.
- ^ "Appleton's Railway and Steam Navigation Guide". New York: D. Appleton & Co., December 1870. p. 236.
- ^ Bowman, J. N. "Driving the Last Spike at Promontory, 1869 California Historical Society Quarterly, Vol. XXXVI, No. 2, June 1957, pp. 96–106, and Vol. XXXVI, No. 3, September 1957, pp. 263–274.
- ^ Hill, Thomas "The Last Spike" San Francisco: Thomas Hill (privately published). January 1881.
- ^ Letter from Charles F. Conant, Assistant Secretary, US Department of the Treasury, to US Rep. William Lawrence (R-OH8), March 9, 1876
- ^ Letter from Z.B. Sturgus, Chief, Lands and Railroad Division, Office of the Secretary, US Department of the Interior, to US Rep. William Lawrence (R-OH8), April 28, 1876
- ^ Speech by Rep. William A. Piper (D-CA1) in the US House of Representatives, April 8, 1876
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- ^ Carver, Dr. Hartwell "Proposal for a Charter to Build a Railroad from Lake Michigan to the Pacific Ocean" Washington, DC, January 18, 1847 Centpacrr.com
- ^ "Dr. Hartwell Carver's Proposal to Build a Railroad from Lake Michigan to the Pacific Ocean" CPRR.org
- ^ "Reports of Explorations and Surveys, to ascertain the most practicable and economical route for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, made under the direction of the Secretary of War, in 1853-4." 12 Volumes. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1855–61
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- ^ "PBS American Experience – Transcontinental Railroad – Whitney Biography". WGBH. Archived from the original on December 6, 2019.
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- ^ a b c d e "A Memorial and Biographical History of Northern California: Illustrated. Containing a History of This Important Section of the Pacific Coast from the Earliest Period of Its Occupancyand Biographical Mention of Many of Its Most Eminent Pioneers and Also of Prominent Citizens of Today". Chicago: Lewis Publishing Company. (1891) pp. 214–221
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Thomas Durant was a born manipulator.
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- ^ Pacific Railroad Acts accessed March 25, 2013.
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- ^ "PBS American Experience – Transcontinental Railroad – Durant Biography".
- ^ "In Memoriam, Theodore D. Judah, Died November 2, 1863".
- ^ a b c Cooper, Bruce C. Lewis Metzler Clement: A Pioneer of the Central Pacific Railroad The Central Pacific Photographic History Museum.
- ^ Walton, Gary M.; Rockoff, Hugh (2005). "Railroads and Economic Change". History of the American Economy (10th ed.). United States: South-Western. pp. 313–4. ISBN 0-324-22636-5.
- ^ Ambrose, Stephen, 2000, p. 376.
- ^ Map of Land Grants to Railroads accessed January 29, 2009
- ^ The Silent Spikes: Chinese Laborers and the Construction of North American Railroads, comp. and ed. Huang Annian, trans. Zhang Juguo (n.p.: China Intercontinental Press, 2006), p. 36.
- ^ Miller, Daegan (2018). This Radical Land: A Natural History of American Dissent. The University of Chicago Press.
- ^ Haupt, Herman (1864). Military Bridges: With Suggestions for New Expedients and Constructions for Crossing Streams and Chasms; Including, Also, Designs for Trestle and Truss Bridges for Military Railroads, Adapted Especially to the Wants of the Service in the United States. Retrieved August 1, 2013 – via Google Books.
- ^ Workers of the Union Pacific Railroad accessed March 28, 2013.
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- ^ Chang, Gordon H (2019). Ghosts of Gold Mountain: The epic story of the Chinese who built the transcontinental railroad. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 9781328618573.
- ^ a b c d Kraus, George (1969). "Chinese Laborers and the Construction of the Central Pacific" (PDF). Utah Historical Quarterly. 37 (1): 41–57.
- ^ Reef, Catherine "Working in America", p. 79. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2007.
- ^ "Picture of black workers on the CPR". Retrieved May 1, 2013.
- ^ Harris, Robert L., "THE PACIFIC RAILROAD – UNOPEN". The Overland Monthly, September 1869. pp. 244–252.
- ^ Central Pacific Railroad: Statement Made to the President of the United States, and Secretary of the Interior, of the Progress of the Work. Sacramento: H.S. Crocker & Company. October 10, 1865. p. 12.
- ^ White, Richard (2011). Railroaded: The transcontinentals and the making of modern America. New York: W W Norton & Co. ISBN 9780393061260.
Chinese labor proved to be Central Pacific's salvation.
- ^ Daspit, Tom. "The Days They Changed the Gauge". Retrieved October 10, 2016.
- ^ "Transcontinental Telegraph Line (U.S.)". Engineering and Technology History Wiki. Retrieved March 6, 2018.
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- ^ Gankplank discovery accessed March 5, 2013.
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- ^ "UP construction". Archived from the original on April 8, 2012. Retrieved August 3, 2013.
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- ^ a b Mormon workers on Union Pacific transcontinental tracks [1] accessed August 2, 2013.
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- ^ "Union Pacific Map". Central Pacific Railroad Museum. Retrieved February 5, 2009.
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- ^ Norden at 39°19′03″N 120°21′30″W / 39.3176°N 120.3584°W / 39.3176; -120.3584
- ^ Shed 47 visible at 39°18′42″N 120°16′08″W / 39.3116°N 120.269°W / 39.3116; -120.269
- ^ East end of Tunnel 41 at 39°18′04″N 120°18′01″W / 39.301°N 120.3003°W / 39.301; -120.3003 with former track 1 passing above.
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- ^ Arrington, Leonard J. (2005). Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900 (New ed.). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. p. 261. ISBN 978-0-252-07283-3. LCCN 2004015281.
Under the terms of the contract the Mormons were to do all the grading, tunneling, and bridge masonry on the U. P. line for the 150-odd miles from the head of Echo Canyon through Weber Canyon to the shores of the Great Salt Lake.
- ^ Allen, James B.; Glen M. Leonard (1976). The Story of the Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Company. pp. 328–329.
- ^ Ambrose, p. 148.
- ^ Griswold, Wesley A Work of Giants. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1962. pp.109–111
- ^ a b Alta California (San Francisco), November 9, 1868.
- ^ Kraus, High Road to Promontory, p. 110.; Robert West Howard, The Great Iron Trail: The Story of the First Transcontinental Railroad (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1962), p. 231.
- ^ a b Dobie, Charles Caldwell (1936). San Francisco's Chinatown; Chapter IV: Railroad Building. New York: Appleton-Century Co. pp. 71–72.
- ^ Ambrose, Nothing Like It in the World, pp. 160, 201.
- ^ Howard, Robert The Great Iron Trail. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1962. pg. 222
- ^ Howard, Robert The Great Iron Trail. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1962. pg.222
- ^ a b Tzu-Kuei, "Chinese Workers and the First Transcontinental Railroad of the United States of America", p. 128.
- ^ John R. Gillis, "TUNNELS OF THE PACIFIC RAILROAD." Van Nostrand's Eclectic Engineering Magazine, January 5, 1870, pp. 418–423.
- ^ http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~npmelton/genealogy/alam-str.htm accessed Feb 28, 2121
- ^ Galloway, C.E., John Debo The First Transcontinental Railroad. New York: Simmons-Boardman, (1950). Ch. 7.
- ^ Cooper, Bruce C. "CPRR Summit Tunnel (#6), Tunnels #7 & #8, Snowsheds, "Chinese" Walls, Donner Trail, and Dutch Flat Donner - Lake Wagon Road at Donner Pass" CPRR.org
- ^ "Period construction images of snowsheds at Cisco and Donner Summit" CPRR.org
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- ^ a b c d e f King, Gilbert (July 17, 2012). "Where the Buffalo No Longer Roamed: The Transcontinental Railroad connected East and West—and accelerated the destruction of what had been in the center of North America". Smithsonian.com. Retrieved April 10, 2012.
- ^ "See the "Lost" Golden Spike at the Museum" Archived July 24, 2012, at archive.today California State Railroad Museum.
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- ^ Williams, Carter (March 19, 2019). "Golden Spike becomes Utah's first national historic park. Here's what that means". KSL TV. Salt Lake City. Retrieved January 31, 2021.
- ^ Sources:
- Pentrex, 1997.
- Golden Spike. "Everlasting Steam: The Story of Jupiter and No. 119" (PDF). nps.gov. Brigham City, Utah: National Park Service. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 5, 2015.
- "Golden Spike Pictures". Archived from the original on September 30, 2011.
- Best, Gerald M (1980). Promontory's Locomotives. Golden West Books. pp. 12–43. ISBN 9780870950827.
- "Central Pacific Jupiter and Union Pacific 119 at Promontory, Utah, June 8, 2009" – via YouTube.
- Dowty, Robert R. (1994). Rebirth of the Jupiter and the 119: Building the Replica Locomotives at Golden Spike. Western National Parks Association. pp. 5–46. ISBN 978-1-877856-43-3.
- Goran, David (September 27, 2016). "Steam locomotives Jupiter and Union Pacific No. 119: Striking symbols of one of the most important periods in American history". The Vintage News.
They were painted and lettered by Disney employees and are incredibly accurate replicas of the originals. (numerous photographs of engines)
- ^ "Eureka County, Yucca Mountain Existing Transportation Corridor Study". Eureka County – Yucca Mountain Project. 2005. Retrieved May 8, 2010.
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- ^ "Golden Spike Ceremony". ideas.lego.com.
- ^ "Man wants Utah railroad moment to get the Lego treatment". The Salt Lake Tribune.
Otras lecturas
External video | |
---|---|
Booknotes interview with David Haward Bain on Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad, March 5, 2000, C-SPAN |
- Allen, James B.; Glen M. Leonard (1976). The Story of the Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Company.
- Ambrose, Stephen E. (2000). Nothing Like It In The World; The men who built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863–1869. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-84609-8.
- Bain, David Haward (1999). Empire Express; Building the first Transcontinental Railroad. Viking Penguin. ISBN 0-670-80889-X.
- Beebe, Lucius (1969). The Central Pacific & The Southern Pacific Railroads: Centennial Edition. Howell-North. ISBN 0-8310-7034-X.
- Chang, Gordon H. (2019). Ghosts of Gold Mountain: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
- Cooper, Bruce C., "Riding the Transcontinental Rails: Overland Travel on the Pacific Railroad 1865–1881" (2005), Polyglot Press, Philadelphia ISBN 1-4115-9993-4
- Cooper, Bruce Clement (Ed), "The Classic Western American Railroad Routes". New York: Chartwell Books/Worth Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-7858-2573-9; ISBN 0-7858-2573-8; BINC: 3099794.
- Duran, Xavier, "The First U.S. Transcontinental Railroad: Expected Profits and Government Intervention," Journal of Economic History, 73 (March 2013), 177–200.
- Lee, Willis T.; Ralph W. Stone & Hoyt S. Gale (1916). Guidebook of the Western United States, Part B. The Overland Route. USGS Bulletin 612. Archived from the original on May 5, 2012.
- Sandler, Martin W. (2015). Iron Rails, Iron Men, and the race to link the nation: The story of the transcontinental railroad. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press. ISBN 978-0-7636-6527-2.
- White, Richard. Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America (2010)
- Willumson, Glenn. Iron Muse: Photographing the Transcontinental Railroad (University of California Press; 2013) 242 pages; studies the production, distribution, and publication of images of the railroad in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
enlaces externos
For maps and railroad pictures of this era shortly after the advent of photography see:
- Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum
- CPRR Railroad Map collection/museum
- 1871 CPRR & UPRR Overland Railroad Map "Map of the Central Pacific Railroad and its Connections" published in the California Mail Bag San Francisco News Letter and California Advertiser, Vol. 1, No. 4, Oct–Nov. 1871. accessed May 1, 2013.
- Union Pacific Railroad picture Museum Excursion to the 100th Meridian – 1866 accessed March 1, 2013.
- The Pacific Tourist Williams, Henry T.; published by Adams & Bishop, New York, 1881 ed. Gives insights to travel in the late 1880s on the transcontinental railroad.
- "I Hear the Locomotives: The Impact of the Transcontinental Railroad"
- Golden Spike National Historical Park in Utah
- Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum
- Union Pacific Railroad History
- The Transcontinental Railroad
- Pacific Railway Act and related resources at the Library of Congress
- Chinese-American Contribution to transcontinental railroad
- Linda Hall Library's Transcontinental Railroad educational site with free, full-text access to 19th century American railroad periodicals
- Newspaper articles and clippings about the Transcontinental Railroad at Newspapers.com
- Maps
- Route map at the Library of Congress
- Map of Union Pacific Railroad with Dates
- Abandoned route of the transcontinental railroad in Utah (with map)