MONDAY, MAY 10, 2021 TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD COMPLETED - MAY 10, 1869

 MONDAY, MAY 10, 2021

TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD COMPLETED - MAY 10, 1869

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/transcontinental-railroad-completed

The United States has had its share of major public works projects.  To me, completing a railroad from the east to the west had to be one of the major public works successes.  

The Civil War kept the project waiting - but Congress did approve funding for the railroads.  The funding was mostly the land beside the railroad. That land was sold to settlers and towns. The project was started in 1866 - after the Civil War - with the Union Pacific starting from Omaha Nebraska and the Central Pacific starting from Sacramental, California.

Surveyors had plotted out a line.  For the Union Pacific traveling across Nebraska and eastern Wyoming was easier than the Central Pacific had more mountains in the way.  

The rail lines got more funding for mountains than on flat land.  So, they frequently selected less desirable locations to get more funding.  Quality was not necessarily a requirement and the two companies used cheaper, low-quality rails and railroad ties to save money (or to make a bigger profit).  

The eastern part was largely built with Irish Immigrants and the western with Chinese immigrants.  According to Today in History:

“Harsh winters, staggering summer heat, and the lawless, rough-and-tumble conditions of newly settled western towns made conditions for the Union Pacific laborers—mainly Civil War veterans of Irish descent—miserable. The overwhelmingly immigrant Chinese workforce of the Central Pacific also had its fair share of problems, including brutal 12-hour work days laying tracks over the Sierra Nevada Mountains (they also received lower wages than their white counterparts). On more than one occasion, whole crews would be lost to avalanches, or mishaps with explosives would leave several dead.”

And more:

As the two tracks approached each other in Utah in 1869, more serious troubles began. Seeing the end of subsidies looming, the two lines built tracks parallel to each other instead of joining, and both lines applied for subsidies on the basis of the parallel track. Worse, physical destruction and even death resulted when the mainly Irish UP workers clashed with mainly Chinese CP workers. The celebrations that took place on May 10, 1869, when the two lines finally met, obscured the often shoddy workmanship that government grants had inadvertently encouraged, and it was not until several years later that all the necessary repairs and rerouting were completed. Looking back on the construction process, UP chief engineer Grenville Dodge remarked, “I never saw so much needless waste in building railroads. Our own construction department has been inefficient.”

BUT - there was a transcontinental rail line.  A person could go from New York to Los Angeles.  Twenty years prior to the Transcontinental Railroad, 49’ers made the trek to California for gold,  The sea-to-sea railroad opened the whole country.

But, I can only imagine the process.  I’ve been in Nebraska and can picture mile after mile of prairie - workers doing the same processes - build the foundation, lay the rails, move ahead 100 feet, build the foundation, lay the rails.  There would be bridges to build over the creeks and streams that flow into the Platte River.  Fortunately, the Oregon Trail was already there with some inhabitants.  Nebraska became a state in 1867.  Then into Wyoming with fewer people.  

Workers would have to be in tents and worker ‘cities’.  Move, build, lay, move build lay.  I’m sure they drank, had fights, and were quite a crew.

And, on the western end, to get up and over the mountains.   That required blasting - and dynamite was invented in 1867 (by Alfred Nobel).  But using explosives was a new technique and there would be problems.

Kennedy taught of an audacious goal of putting a man on the moon, in some respects, building a transcontinental railroad was pretty audacious for its time. 

Today, 150 years later, we have trouble imagining what it took to make the infrastructure to bridge a nation.  I can only imagine the sewer pipes, the water pipes, and the other infrastructure areas. But, it does exist and we don't even know (or care) as long as we have water and electricity.

So, what lesson can I learn from the transcontinental railroad?  Starting a new enterprise can be difficult.  You have to have funding.  You have to have good ideas.  You have to have a good plan.  And, you have to have a good system.  I liked the definition of a system - a process of people, methods, and materials to reach a goal. And you had to have funding,

What goals do you have?  What goals do I have?  Do I have a vision?  Am I preparing the ground, am I building on that ground, am I moving to a better life?  Keep building, keep going!!!

LOVE WINS

Karen