1860s The United States began an ambitious plan that would change the course of the country's history. For decades, entrepreneurs and engineers have dreamed of building a railway across the continent. Once built, the transcontinental railroad could allow Americans to settle in the west, transport goods and expand commerce, and travel across the country in days rather than weeks.
The transcontinental railway opened during the Civil War
By mid-1862, the United States fell into a bloody civil war, which made the resources of this young country tense. Confederate General "Stone Wall" Jackson recently successfully drove the federal army out of Winchester, Virginia. An alliance naval fleet just controlled Mississippi river . It is obvious that the war will not end soon. In fact, it will drag on for another three years.
Abraham LincolnPresident Somehow can transcend the urgent needs of war nations and focus on his vision for the future. He signed the Pacific Railway Act on July 1, 1862, with an ambitious plan to use federal resources to build a continuous railway line from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. By the end of the decade, the railway will be completed.
Two railway companies competed to build the transcontinental railway
1862 When Congress passed the Pacific Railway Act in Pacific, the two companies were allowed to start building the transcontinental railway. Central Pacific Railroad, which has built its first railroad west of the Mississippi River, is employed to make roads east of Sacramento . United Pacific Railroad received a contract to lay tracks from Council Bluffs, western Iowa. The legislation does not determine in advance where the two companies will meet.
Congress provided fiscal incentives for the two companies to promote the project and increased funds in 1864. The companies will receive $16,000 in government bonds per mile paved on the plains. As the terrain becomes more difficult, the expenditures are getting bigger. A mile of track laying in the mountains produced $48,000 in bonds. These companies also acquired land for their efforts. Each mile of track is laid, a ten square miles of land is provided.
Tens of thousands of immigrants built the transcontinental railway
As most of the strong men in the country are on the battlefield, workers on the transcontinental railway were initially in short supply. In California , white workers are more interested in finding wealth in gold than in the heavy labor required to build railroads. The Central Pacific Railway turned to a portion of Chinese immigrants flocked to the United States. More than 10,000 Chinese immigrants worked hard to prepare railway beds, lay tracks, dig tunnels and build bridges. They are paid only $1 a day, work six days a week and work 12 hours in shifts.
By the end of 1865, United Pacific Railway managed to pave only 40 miles of track, but as the Civil War came to an end, they could finally build a workforce that was comparable to the task at hand. Pacific Alliance mainly relies on Irish workers, many of whom were famine immigrants, who had just emerged from the battlefield of war. Drink whiskey , inciting the masses to move westward and establish a temporary town called "hell on the wheel".
The transcontinental railway line selected requires workers to dig 19 tunnels
Drilling holes in granite mountains may sound inefficient, but it leads to a more direct route from coast to coast. In the 1860s, tunnel excavation was not easy. Workers chisel the stones with hammers and chisels, and despite working hours and hours, the progress of each day was only more than a foot. When the excavation speed increased to nearly 2 feet per day nitroglycerin exploded some rocks
United Pacific can only claim 4 of the 19 tunnels for their projects. The Central Pacific Railway undertakes the nearly impossible task of building a railway line across Sierra Nevada , and has been praised for the 15 most difficult tunnels ever built. The summit tunnel near the Donner Pass requires workers to drill 1,750 feet of granite at an altitude of 7,000 feet.In addition to fighting rocks, Chinese workers endured a winter storm that dumped dozens of feet of snow on the hills. Countless Central Pacific workers were frozen to death, their bodies were buried in the snow and drifted to 40 feet deep.
The transcontinental railway was built at Cape Point, Utah
By 1869, the two railway companies were close to the finish line. Central Pacific staff have crossed the sinister mountains, driving an average of one mile east of Reno, Nevada. United Pacific workers laid rails at the 8,242-foot Sherman Summit and built a 650-foot trek on Dell Creek in , Wyoming. Both companies have accelerated their pace.
It is obvious that the project is about to be completed, so newly elected President Ulysses S. Grant eventually designated the location where the two companies meet, Promontory Point, Utah, just 6 miles from Ogden. At this point, competition among enterprises is very fierce. Central Pacific’s construction director Charles Crocker bets with United Pacific counterpart Thomas Durant that his crew can lay the most tracks in a day. Durant ’s team made an admirable effort to extend their track by 7 miles in one day, but Crocker won a $10,000 bet when his team laid 10 miles.
1869 On May 10, 1869, when the last "golden nail" drove into the railroad, the cross-continental railway was completed.
