First Transcontinental Railroad

they wanted it done as quick as possible,the gold rush was on,civil war was cooking or at least imminent. Western union telegraph was invested. The west was booming. The fed wanted to expand its reach and control ocean to ocean. cross country without the RR was 1 year,by ship around the cape was 6 months and really risky. No panama canal yet  Texas and westerly were threatening to form another country. The spanish and French wanted to colonise a piece of the new world. the RR also put Alaska 1/2 a world closer to Washington Probably more but that is what I remember from MS Hudson's history class 1957 [old biddy ] but she made us learn

If they had let one company build it, it might not be done yet. It had to do with pitting two companies to lay more track than the other. More money to the faster company and the rairoad was completed sooner.

Dont know the details, but something like that.

You might want to read the book titled “Nothing like it in the world” by Steven E. Ambrose. This book explains the how and why the Transcontinental  railroad was built. I just started reading this book and it was thought by many people at the time that it just could not be done. There were money funding problems, you had the complications of the Civil War going on, problems with Indians and many other obstacles. The book states that “the U.S. government pitted two companies-the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific Railroads against each other in a race for funding” to get the railroad built. This was a huge undertaking with very high risks that many did not want to invest in because the chance of losing your investment was high.

Plenty of resources on this. “The Great Iron Trail, The Story of the First Transcontinental Railroad” by Robert West Howard is the book I read 40 years ago. If you want a full history, not just a Wiki summary, find a book on the topic.

But even the Wikipedia summary adequately addresses the story.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...continental_Railroad

Either or both of these very affordable books will teach and show you more about the Transcontinental than you may ever want to truly know:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Book-...c:g:~nsAAOSwqvNaiHEj

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1969-...f:g:qekAAOSw~XpZTa1s

I have both (and others) and can recommend them for detail and accuracy.

Knock yerself out!

Andre

In fairness, the first trans-continental railroad was the Canadian Pacific. It actually went from the Atlantic to the Pacific (Nova Scotia-British Columbia). 

I thought the first transcontinental railroad was in Panama.

Bill N posted:

I thought the first transcontinental railroad was in Panama.

What year would THAT have been built?

Here is a general time line:

1849 CA Gold Rush begins

1850 CA enters the Union

1861 Civil War begins

1862 Pacific Rail Act Passed

1863 Construction of the Union Pacific building West and Central Pacific building East begins.

1865 Civil War ends.

1869 UP and CP rails joined at Promontory, Utah

The Pacific Rail Act was passed to keep CA and the state's wealth in the Union.  It was really uncertain CA would remain in the Union if a rail line was not built.

Prior to the railroad there were three long and dangerous ways to get to CA.

1.   Overland by walking, riding a horse or wagon train.  Think of the Donner Party in this regard.  

2.  Ship to Panama and then walking, by horse or by wagon across the Isthmus and then ship to San Francisco.  Many people caught tropical diseases during this trip and died.  Others were caught in hurricanes and their ships sank.

3.  Around Cape Horn by ship to San Francisco.  The fastest clipper ships made it from New York in about 100 days.  Most ships were much slower.

It has always surprised me how many people made these trips to seek their fortune in CA.  Some people made this trip multiple times.  I don't know this for a fact, but I think that the most popular route was across the Isthmus.  

NH Joe

Hot Water posted:

Bill N posted:

I thought the first transcontinental railroad was in Panama.

What year would THAT have been built?

First train, 1855.

Rusty

New Haven Joe posted:

Here is a general time line:

1861 Civil War begins

1862 Pacific Rail Act Passed

Many people may not be aware that the second item was only possible because of the first.  That Act had been before Congress many times in the years preceding 1862, but the controversy over the route divided the votes, and none was passed.

Each region had its own idea which route was best, and the South wanted a southern route.  Their power in Congress prevented either the northern or the central route from being approved, but they couldn't quite muster the votes to pass their preferred route, either.

Only when the southern states walked out of the House and the Senate was a passage possible.

Wyhog posted:

Frankly I think the idea of a 'transcontinental railroad' has been mistakenly identified with the Union Pacific. The idea at the time I believe was that the 1862-1869 expansion to the western coast _completed_ a transcontinental rail system that included the several RRs east of Council Bluffs from the east coast. The 'transcontinental' applied to the entire route(s) not just the Union Pacific (+Central Pacific/Southern Pacific) half-con.  But somehow along the way, 'transcontinental' became almost synonymous with U.P. alone. We still don't don't have a single true transcontinental RR in the U.S.

What about Amtrak? Granted it does not own the rails but it goes from sea to shining sea.  

John Pignatelli JR. posted:

Wyhog posted:

Frankly I think the idea of a 'transcontinental railroad' has been mistakenly identified with the Union Pacific. The idea at the time I believe was that the 1862-1869 expansion to the western coast _completed_ a transcontinental rail system that included the several RRs east of Council Bluffs from the east coast. The 'transcontinental' applied to the entire route(s) not just the Union Pacific (+Central Pacific/Southern Pacific) half-con.  But somehow along the way, 'transcontinental' became almost synonymous with U.P. alone. We still don't don't have a single true transcontinental RR in the U.S.

What about Amtrak? Granted it does not own the rails but it goes from sea to shining sea.  

Not without changing trains in Chicago!

There used to be a transcontinental Amtrak train from Florida to Los Angeles but that was discontinued by the time Hurricane Katrina hit and was never revived.

New Haven Joe posted:

Here is a general time line:

1849 CA Gold Rush begins

1850 CA enters the Union

1861 Civil War begins

1862 Pacific Rail Act Passed

1863 Construction of the Union Pacific building West and Central Pacific building East begins.

1865 Civil War ends.

1869 UP and CP rails joined at Promontory, Utah

The Pacific Rail Act was passed to keep CA and the state's wealth in the Union.  It was really uncertain CA would remain in the Union if a rail line was not built.

Prior to the railroad there were three long and dangerous ways to get to CA.

1.   Overland by walking, riding a horse or wagon train.  Think of the Donner Party in this regard.  

2.  Ship to Panama and then walking, by horse or by wagon across the Isthmus and then ship to San Francisco.  Many people caught tropical diseases during this trip and died.  Others were caught in hurricanes and their ships sank.

3.  Around Cape Horn by ship to San Francisco.  The fastest clipper ships made it from New York in about 100 days.  Most ships were much slower.

It has always surprised me how many people made these trips to seek their fortune in CA.  Some people made this trip multiple times.  I don't know this for a fact, but I think that the most popular route was across the Isthmus.  

NH Joe

Not surprised the Isthmus route was the most popular, going overland was dangerous, to say the least, with both unfriendly natives and outlaws and the like , add to that the issues with lack of water, storms, lack of food, and you have a pretty rough trip. Going around Cape Horn in a sailing ship was playing dice with somewhat loaded dice, you could run into calms that would leave the ship drifting, but more commonly storms that are probably the worst in the world. The disease in Panama, heat, natural disasters and human and animal predators made it the safest route. 

There were a lot of reasons for having multiple companies do it. One theory many books claim is that no one company wanted to take the risk involved, that no company wanted to face the challenge of the Sierra Nevadas and the difficulties of going through the great plains and the like, that only the people who formed the Central Pacific were crazy enough, another theory I heard in a history class was that it was a lot more lucrative to those in the government seeking kickbacks to have multiple sources of graft, another was the one people mentioned, that they were paid for the amount of track they laid and the competition would mean they had incentive to outdo the other and do so in record time (if you paid one company x dollars a mile, wouldn't necessarily matter to them how fast they did it). The Central Pacific was at a disadvantage, given having to fight through the mountains, but I seem to recall (anyone know? ) that the Central pacific got a 'sweetening' for building such a hazardous route. 

bigkid posted:

The Central Pacific was at a disadvantage, given having to fight through the mountains, but I seem to recall (anyone know? ) that the Central pacific got a 'sweetening' for building such a hazardous route. 

The Central Pacific did get more money for the mountain building.  One of the first actions of the Central Pacific was to get a surveyor to move the beginning of the Sierra Mountains west of where they were known to start.  I have forgotten how many miles they moved the mountain range.  I'll look it up when I gat a chance.  This gave the company mountain compensation for building on flat land.

Those were the good old days of honest graft.

NH Joe

As NH Joe points out, there were I believe three main routes mapped out in the 1850's - northern pacific, southern pacific, and central pacific. Much of the planning and preliminary groundwork was done by the military, so the fact that Pres. Buchanan's Secy. of War (today's Defense Dept.) favored the New Orleans to California southern route was big factor. However, since that Secy of War was Jefferson Davis, once the Civil War started, his opinion didn't matter so much, so the central route was chosen.

BTW I gave up on watching "Hell On Wheels" after the first season. The numerous inaccuracies about Thomas Durant alone are enough to drive someone away.

New Haven Joe posted:

bigkid posted:

The Central Pacific was at a disadvantage, given having to fight through the mountains, but I seem to recall (anyone know? ) that the Central pacific got a 'sweetening' for building such a hazardous route. 

The Central Pacific did get more money for the mountain building.  One of the first actions of the Central Pacific was to get a surveyor to move the beginning of the Sierra Mountains west of where they were known to start.  I have forgotten how many miles they moved the mountain range.  I'll look it up when I gat a chance.  This gave the company mountain compensation for building on flat land.

Those were the good old days of honest graft.

NH Joe

The "mountains" started at a low level bridge over a creek.  Excuse was something about geology.

Could it be there was a push for the southern route was caused by it being close to Mexico?  With unrest there, the War Dept. Could use it as the "autobahn" of the day?

Of course it would unite the western part of a "particular institution".

Rusty Traque posted:

Hot Water posted:

Bill N posted:

I thought the first transcontinental railroad was in Panama.

What year would THAT have been built?

First train, 1855.

Rusty

Last time I checked, Panama was not considered a continent. That railroad only crossed an isthmus.

smd4 posted:

Rusty Traque posted:

Hot Water posted:

Bill N posted:

I thought the first transcontinental railroad was in Panama.

What year would THAT have been built?

First train, 1855.

Rusty

Last time I checked, Panama was not considered a continent. That railroad only crossed an isthmus.

Transcontinental sounds better that transithmusinanl...

(The sound you hear is Noah Webster spinning in his grave...)

Rusty

A perfectly good made-up word!

I am surprised that each of the NYC-CHI railroads did not buy the routes from CHI to the UP. That would have gotten a lot of interchange out of CHI.

wjstix posted:

As NH Joe points out, there were I believe three main routes mapped out in the 1850's - northern pacific, southern pacific, and central pacific. Much of the planning and preliminary groundwork was done by the military, so the fact that Pres. Buchanan's Secy. of War (today's Defense Dept.) favored the New Orleans to California southern route was big factor. However, since that Secy of War was Jefferson Davis, once the Civil War started, his opinion didn't matter so much, so the central route was chosen.

BTW I gave up on watching "Hell On Wheels" after the first season. The numerous inaccuracies about Thomas Durant alone are enough to drive someone away.

The sectional political troubles of the time played a big role in the fact that no route was chosen until the southern states tried to leave the Union.  Placement of that first route would have given the North or the South an insurmountable economic advantage (not to mention much prestige), so the infighting prevented any selection while both sections were contending for it.

N5CJonny posted:

You might want to read the book titled “Nothing like it in the world” by Steven E. Ambrose. 

I read this a few years ago. GREAT!

N5CJonny posted:

You might want to read the book titled “Nothing like it in the world” by Steven E. Ambrose. This book explains the how and why the Transcontinental  railroad was built. I just started reading this book and it was thought by many people at the time that it just could not be done. There were money funding problems, you had the complications of the Civil War going on, problems with Indians and many other obstacles. The book states that “the U.S. government pitted two companies-the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific Railroads against each other in a race for funding” to get the railroad built. This was a huge undertaking with very high risks that many did not want to invest in because the chance of losing your investment was high.

I'll second that recommendation.  Great book. I am listening to it on Audible.  Very enjoyable.

     The building of the railroad also marked victory for mercantilism.  Abraham Lincoln and the Triumph of Mercantilism in America by Thomas J. DiLorenzo. is also a good read.  History books gloss over Lincoln's role as an attorney for the Illinois Central and several other railroads during the 1850s. Advised that Council Bluffs would be an ideal eastern terminus, he invested in property there. Early planning clearly steered the routes and money away from the South.   Why engage in a capital and labor intense publicly financed project when the war was showing no early conclusion and several bloody battles had already been fought is a question also often just glossed over by history.   

Pete S.

I read the book a long time ago and as I posted here way back then, I didn't think there was anything "great" about it.

PETE S posted:

   Why engage in a capital and labor intense publicly financed project when the war was showing no early conclusion and several bloody battles had already been fought is a question also often just glossed over by history.   

---

 

Glossed over?  There simply wasn't much money or labor to be had--no mystery there.  But SOME money *was* devoted to it--the figures elude my memory, but work actually began.  Heck, some of the engineering predated the war.

The session/war made it not only politically possible but also industrially and economically possible.  The industrial base grew to the necessary size/sophistication, the labor force became available, and the national will coalesced around a unifying, building project.

     Shelby Foote made the comment that the South never really had a chance as the North fought the war with one hand tied behind its back or words to that effect.  Why not untie it?  Unifying? I see it as divisive from the start. Excluding the South held it up to begin with.  Labor available?  The draft was instituted in 1864 to the thinning Union ranks.  I simply suspect it had more to do with financial gain than any national will.  A bit cynical perhaps, but the capitalists of  that time were as rapacious as any of todays megacorps.

Pete S

The funny thing is that driving that spike at Promontory didn't complete a continuous rail link to each coast. It was only connected from Omaha to Sacramento

There was still a bridge missing over the Missouri River for the Union Pacific and rail wasn’t complete in a couple of other places. The Transcontinental Railroad was actually completed in the summer of 1870.