Nothing Like It In the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869 2012 (382 reading pages)by Stephen E. Ambrose

  The Railway from Sacramento to  Omaha, Nebraska  Notes of talk given at the history lunchoen club 10/11/2

Western Pacific Co  WP   Theodore Judah built the track to Sacramento.

Central Pacific  Co. CP .-eastwards Sacramento to Promontory Summit Utah 1223km.  Run by    Charles Crocker, Mark Hopkins, Leland Stanford, Collis Huntington.  Labourers are mostly Chinese.

Union Pacific Co.  UP  -westwards  from Council Bluffs near Omaha, Nebraska 1749 km  Grenville Dodge , Thomas Durant, Oakes Ames, Oliver Ames, Credit Mobilier Bank. Labourers Irish immigrants, Civil War veterans of both the North and South, freed slaves. 

Total 3077 km of track build. 

The track to Council Buffs on the east was blocked by the Missourie River, this had been build by private enterprise  the Western Pacific built to Sacramento all without goverment aid.

Time Line
1801  ----President Thomas Jefferson 
1803 Louisiana Purchase 
1804 Lewis and Clark Expedition funded by Congress to explore land purchased.
1824 Erie Canal completed.
1829 George Stevenson's first locomotive "The Rocket"
1830 Sept. First railway service  Manchester to Liverpool
1840 Already 3000 miles of rail track in the US more than all of Europe.
1845 ---President James Polk
1846 Captain Freeman and 60 army surveyors in  Oregon territory
           Bear Flag Revolt by US settlers in California against Mexico and John Freeman arrives there.
1847 Treaty of Chulengo,  Alta California become US territory.
         Greenwich Mean Time GMT established to coordinate train time tables.

         Mormon state set up in Salt Lake City, Utah by Bingham Young with polygamy.
1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo,  territory ceded to US and $15 000 paid for it  Half of Mexico's territory with only 1% of its population.
1849 California Gold Rush
         ---President Zachary Taylor
1850----President Milliard Fillmore
          US population  now 23 million bigger than that of Great Britian
         Taiping Rebellion in China till 1964 Chinese immigration to West Coast
1853----President Franklin Pierce
               Commodore Perry opens Japan  
         Congress called for a survey to build a railway westwards.
1857----President James Buchanan
             Commercial treaties with China

1858  California Legislature banned the further  importation of Chinese

 1859  Lincoln, while campaigning, met Grenville Dodge and asked for the best route for a railway to the west.
 1860       California already 300 000 population               
1861---- March President Abraham Lincoln

          Theodore Judah  published designs of a track route from Sacramento via Donner Lake through the Sierras.
          12 April at Fort Sumter Civil War began.
          August Theodore Judah had a plan published of the route from California.
           October  transcontinental telegraph completed.
1862 June. Pacific Railway Act signed by Lincoln
           Homestead Act free 160 acres offered to anyone to farm in the Midwest.
1863 The Central Pacific broke ground on January 8, in Sacramento

1865  June Civil War ends at Appotomax
           ----President Andrew Johnson 
          Bessemer rolled steel rails started being produced in the States
          Dec worst recorded winter in the west with snow and floods
1867 Nebraska population increased so fast that it became a state
1869----President Ulysses Grant
         May  Completed railway  at Promontory Point-- Start of American Century.
          November Suez Canal opened.
1877----President Rutherford Hayes

1886 Canadian Pacific Railway completed

1899 The railway construction loans  loans had been paid off after 30 years
1913 Panama Canal Completed
 1914 Trans-Siberian Railway completed, started 1891
1996 Union Pacific and CP become one company.

What if in History!    If the railway line across America to California had been completed before the Civil War that war could have been avoided ?    Quote William Seward, Secretary of State under Lincoln  "When this shall have been done disunion shall have been forever after rendered impossible, there will be no fulcrum for he lever of treason to rest apon"

This was an engineering marvel that brought about a new way of life and destroyed another 
The people who build the UP were the same ones who participated in the war and had learned that no problem was too great to overcome.
The Forty Niners  In Jan 1849, 8000 set sail for California in 90 ships via Cape Horn to get to the gold diggings in California.  Football team in Santa Clara, California
Except for Salt Lake Mormons there were no European settlement along the way.
In 1859 Council Bluffs Iowa, Lincoln while campaigning met Grenville Dodge and asked him which was the best route for a railroad to the pacific and was told through the Platte River Valley along the 42nd parallel. Council Bluffs Iowa, had been established by the Mormons 1846 but they then moved onto Salt lake City.
Lincoln had dealt with the railways in Illinois as a lawyer dealing with the rights of the railways, to the lands they went through and the passenger rights and the tax rights of the Illinois Railways so he was very aware of them.  He established the right of the railway to build bridges over river
1853   Congress called for a survey to build a railway westwards.
Jefferson Davis wanted a line across New Mexico and Arizona on the 32nd parallel because it crossed the least mountains but this would allow for slavery to be extended eastwards. In the north they wanted it from Chicago via Minneapolis  but slave states objected,
In 1858 Dodge met Furnam and Durant at the Rock Island Railway office in NY and they were interested.  The Railway companies supported Lincoln in his election and railway was part of the discussion but the real issue was slavery and Dodge was in Washington during the inauguration.
The track had to go through 3 ranges of mountains the Rockies, the Wasatch and the Sierras. The Sierras reached 7000 feet.
In 1854 Theodore Judah build the Sacramento Valley Railroad and saw the possibility of a track across the mountains. Judah was tipped off to look at the Dannon Lake Valley.  By 1861 Judah had designs published of the route from Sacramento via the Donner Lake through the Sierras through 18 tunnels the longest of 1730feet.  It was California's gold and silver that was paying for the civil war.  It was costing millions to transport troops to protect settlers in the Great Plains.
Judah gave a talk in San Francisco on how he would build this railway and was not taken seriously except that he was approach by the  big 4.

1862 June. Pacific Railway Act signed by Lincoln
           Homestead Act free 160 acres offered to anyone to farm in the Midwest.

The big 4 from California who were all Republican  and abolitionists lead by Leland  Stanford, Collis Huntington. Charles Crocker and Mark Hopkins. They were store keepers and merchants.  They had to put forward capital to start and raise loans to get the equipment, they ran it as a tight business and did not even want to allocate money to build a headquarters but set it up in a shack and above Stanford's store.
A railway would develop the Great Plains trade with Japan and China would jump and what better way to ensure the loyalty of California to the Union and that no foreign army could attack California. 
Grade no more that 115 feet per mile and curves no more than 10%
The railroads received government bonds worth $16 thousand to $48 thousand per mile depending on the terrain and grants of  land on the side of the track which included the coal and mineral rights. Land 15 miles on the side of the track was no longer available for citizens to buy or lay a claim. The railways was the beginning of private enterprise and corporate America.
While the railways began construction the book tells you what battles were being fought in the civil war.

California is totally cut off from the rest of the continent by the Sierras giving it a different climate and vegetation it did not have a native American population 90% of who had died of diseases that come with the Spanish.
Europeans arrived in California and were recruited into working on the rail track but most of them signed up got to the rail face and after working a few days or weeks took off to go mining. The material for track building had to be shipped out to California making it far more expensive that building from the east. At time 3 ships a week were arriving with equipment.
1858 California Legislature banned the further  importation of Chinese but still they came.
Chinese came to California but were not given permission to get a mineral claim. Never the less they were recruited by agent to become servants. Many of them came for 4 years and returned saving every penny to buy land back home and were relative rich there. They were tried out as nobody else was available and  it was found that they were very successful workers. They drank boiled water tea not fresh water so never had enteric diseases. They were hired in gangs of 30 with one in charge and one who cooked for them on Sunday they rested with opium.

At the same time as Europeans were leaving Germany after the 1848 Revolution or the Irish leaving the famine so Chinese were moving into Indonesia, Singapore Malasia and the west coast of America.
The Chinese in America were persecuted -not for their vices  but for their virtues as they were honest industrious and sober and as labourers were hired first. Most Chinese who came were literate.
June 1865 Hunting filed a report with a routemap showing the plan to build to Salt Lake City this was beyond the Navada border in his charter - so now the race was on between the CP and UP
A leading Railway engineer  George Gray in July 1968 inspected and published a report that the CP were building a high quality track and this brought investors. The biggest tunnel now being build No 6 was 500 meters  long. Just the blasting black powder was costing a fortune 
1863 Nov. Crazy Judah died of Yellow fever coming home through Panama.

Grenville Dodge was a leading railway engineer and a General in the army. The UP got the army to release him to be in charge of the track from Omaha April 1866. He got hold of some subordinates from the Union Army and with demobilized soldiers set to work. Pictures show men in blue military coats but also a few grey ones.
Indian Tribes The Pawnee had become part of the army and made peace with the whites but the  Indians of he Plains the Sioux and Cheyenne were hostile and felt their land being taken and their lifestyle being changed.  The Indians tore up track and on an attack a train was derailed and the next train crashed into that. Later an armed train arrived to deal with the Indians who were drunk on whiskey that they found. Even tye cutters in the forests were scared off.
The Missouri River was navigable only part of the year and all the supplies came in on ships and barges from St. Louis and this was a new era of shipping. The UP had 7 ships working continuously.
Henry Morton Stanley and many reporters from the war saw this the continuation of action to be written about. Only a government and armies could organize on this type of scale. Where re railhead went towns hotel and farms developed with the population increasing. As a piece of track was completed it started making money from fares.
1866 July Collis Huntington managed to get an amendment that the CP  was not limited in the distance it could build so that it now became a competition from the east and west and the track would be built faster. 
From the west they were using blasting powder faster than they could get supplies. A ship the Hornet burned at sea delaying supplies. The CP had a lawyer Alfred Cohen.
Winter of 66/67 was the wettest  coldest but they worked right through it with avalanches blocking the track. The CP had 10000 men working 8000 were Chinese. Thinking they would improve the quality of tunneling through granite they hired Cornishmen but they quit very soon, could get work on the mines.
1866 they started using TNT which the mixed nearby. This was up to 8 times more powerful. The granite  tunnels build met up very accurately from each side.  50  Miles of snow sheds were built to keep snow off the tracks where it was so thick. These were wood but were later replaced by concrete and were a great wonder of the CP.
On the UP side this winter washed away long pieces of track but one of their big problem were attacks by Indians and Dodge lost one of his best engineers as well as surveyor's.
Fires were a hazard and a train carry straw caught alight from engine sparks from the locomotive. President Johnson sent Sherman to negotiate a peace deal from tribe to tribe and he promised the Indians compensation for land , but the track will be built. In this period the army was not able to find volunteers needed to protect the  track builders. In 1867 the Springfield rifle was issued to the army and this was far better than the muzzle loaders the Indians had, you also had Pawnee troops fighting their natural enemies.
Durand the leading share holder was voted out of the role of president and Oliver Ames took over. Ames Bros. had a company that supplied tools and provide a lot of credit and so get a big share. Ames tools were used in by prospectors in South Africa.
 The City of Cheyanne became a big railway junction with a later track to Montana northwards and Denver southwards it has a train museum of locomotive's used well into the 50s.
In Salt Lake Valley immense coal deposits were found this was named Carbon. Dodge already saw the potential for a track to Montana Idaho Oregon and Washington far easier than through the mountains.
Hell on Wheels by Dick Kreck  this describes the mobile brothels that followed the laying of the UP track to entertain the workers. Quote : Verily men earn their money like horses and spend it like asses
Dodge in 1867 stated that the best food productions of the Mississippi and Missouri valley will be dwarfed by what will be in the future coming from California and Oregon a true prediction.
Companies could do grading as far as 300 miles ahead of the tracks to lay claim. Because of distance from supplies building west of the Mississippi cost far more than east of it
Stanford as governor of California in 1862 was against allowing Chinese immigrants but now he was keen on it and Chinese wee taken directly to the track face.
1867  August. Summit Tunnel broke through.
As the track was built a new telegraph line had to run next to it (part of the Federal contract)and this was used during construction.
After the floods of winter 1967 Dodge had the track raised and new better bridges om the waterways. 
 
Because the CP were being slowed down by the tunnels they transported equipment beyond them and had worker grading miles ahead. There were times they had the entire workforce removing snow from the tracks and road.
Most of the men on the UP side had participated in winning the war, this taught the American people that ther was no problem in finance or development too great to master. 
In January 1984 Credit Mobilee declared dividends and paid out to stock holders (themselves) leaving the company without  money and heavy debt. They paid out 300% but then could not pay the workers
Durant wanted fuller control and tried to get his pal Seymour to become chief engineer but Grant forceful made sure that Dodge was in charge till the job was completed.
Bingham Young of Salt lake City Mormons was the type who could have been President of the USA. Mormon contractors were hire to survey and grade for the UP. Young wanted the railway and in 1868 3232 of disciples came from Liverpool and were able to get quite close to Salt Lake by train. After the cold winter of 1867 there was a plague of grasshoppers destroyed their crops and Mormons needed work. The grass hoppers on the track made it impossiple to get traction up hill for the train and so many of them pickled in the salt lake leaving a bad smell. Hay had to be brought in to feed the horses as a result and barley and oats were very expensive. CP also wanted Mormon workers and bid higher wages. But the Mormons worked because the wanted the railway even though it never reached their city.
Initially wooden bridges were build to be quick but after wards they were changed to more permanent stone ones.
Codes were used on the telegraph so that the UP would not red CP messages.
Jefferson Davis had imported camels when he was secretary of war some had gone wild in New Mexico. 
In railroad constructions there are 4 essentials 1) money 2)labor 3)ties 4 ) rolling stock.  The problem was getting the rails and rolling stock as they had to be shipped in.
1868 Feb completing the tunnel through the summit caused the CP shares to go up.
Reno was set  up as a major trade centre, tis was 154miles from Sacramento and by 1868 was already giving CP a big income.  In the desert there was over 100 miles without a tree and there was a place that water had to be piped 8miles to the track. 
The final competition between CP and UP was played out in Utah. There were $750 000 owing to the Mormons. 
1889 Jan the track reach a large tree marked now 1000 mile tree as it is that far from Omaha.
1889 April Dodge met Huntington in Washington and offered him $4 million, so  CP would own till Ogdan which became its terminus from Sacramento.
Lodgepole Creek and Bear River bridges had to be replaces and money was needed just when the up was on the brink of collapse. Wells Fargo stagecoaches  now only provided a service between the railheads. The completion would save everyone time and money especially the army who had to protect the frontier of the Far West.
1904 March the line was straightened to go over Salt Lake which had dried out.
Lee's surrender had bonded the union north and south the golden spike at Promontory had joined the Union east to west. This brought the  greatest change through the shortest period. Before the railway it took a person months and could cost as much as $1000 to get to San Francisco emigrants could now do it for $70.  They thought Europe would use it to get to India but Suez opened 6 months later.
1872 March the  bridge over the Missouri rive at Omaha was completed at a cost of $2.9

The Missouri river is frozen up in mid winter and for a few months a year tracks were laid across the ice.
There was a 6 month enquiry against the UP and a scandal, some claimed that the land received should have paid for the railways but a lot of it was worthless at the time unless it had minerals.  The bonds were loans that were paid off over 30 years by 1899. CP extended tracks all over California.
The Mormons never got paid but took all the surplus tools and equipment coaches , flat cars box cars. They themselves immediately built a track and had a service running in a few months.  

Conclusion 
  Now we saw the start of the American Century and by 1900 only 30 years later all freehold agricultural land was occupied by settlers.  The track was paid for.  

The economic development  in the California and the Midwest far outshone the growing of cotton and tobacco in the south. Slavary would  no longer have paid its way.