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.
In June 1845, he led a team along part of the proposed route to assess its feasibility. Legislation to begin construction of the Pacific Railroad (called the Memorial of Asa Whitney) was first introduced to Congress by Representative Zadock Pratt.
Hartwell Carver, who in 1847 submitted to the U.S.
Surveyors found during an 1848 survey that the best route lay south of the border between the United States and Mexico.
He lobbied vigorously in favor of the project and undertook the survey of the route through the rugged Sierra Nevada, one of the chief obstacles of the project. In 1852, Judah was chief engineer for the newly formed Sacramento Valley Railroad, the first railroad built west of the Mississippi River.
Under the direction of the Department of War, the Pacific Railroad Surveys were conducted from 1853 through 1855.
This was resolved by the Gadsden Purchase in 1853. Once the central route was chosen, it was immediately obvious that the western terminus should be Sacramento.
Under the direction of the Department of War, the Pacific Railroad Surveys were conducted from 1853 through 1855.
This in part motivated the United States to complete the Gadsden Purchase. In 1856 the Select Committee on the Pacific Railroad and Telegraph of the US House of Representatives published a report recommending support for a proposed Pacific railroad bill: === Possible routes === The U.S.
Although the railroad later went bankrupt once the easy placer gold deposits around Placerville, California were depleted, Judah was convinced that a properly financed railroad could pass from Sacramento through the Sierra Nevada mountains to reach the Great Basin and hook up with rail lines coming from the East. In 1856, Judah wrote a 13,000-word proposal in support of a Pacific railroad and distributed it to Cabinet secretaries, congressmen and other influential people.
Durant had hired the future president Abraham Lincoln in 1857 when he was an attorney to represent him in a business matter about a bridge over the Missouri.
In September 1859, Judah was chosen to be the accredited lobbyist for the Pacific Railroad Convention, which indeed approved his plan to survey, finance and engineer the road.
Judah returned to Washington in December 1859.
He had a lobbying office in the United States Capitol, received an audience with President James Buchanan, and represented the Convention before Congress. Judah returned to California in 1860.
Durant and its financing arrangements were, unlike those of the CPRR, mired in controversy and scandals. == Authorization and funding == In February 1860, Iowa Representative Samuel Curtis introduced a bill to fund the railroad.
Charles Hotel in November 1860.
Together, they formed an association to solicit subscriptions from local merchants and businessmen to support their proposed railroad. From January or February 1861 until July, Judah and Strong led a 10-person expedition to survey the route for the railroad over the Sierra Nevada through Clipper Gap and Emigrant Gap, over Donner Pass, and south to Truckee.
Curtis tried and failed again in 1861.
After the southern states seceded from the Union, the House of Representatives approved the bill on May 6, 1862, and the Senate on June 20.
Lincoln signed the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 into law on July 1.
North America's first transcontinental railroad (known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the "Overland Route") was a continuous railroad line constructed between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S.
The Pacific Railroad Act of 1863 established the standard gauge to be used in these federally financed railways. === Federal financing === To finance the project, the act authorized the federal government to issue 30-year U.S.
However, shortly after arriving in New York, Judah died on November 2, 1863, of yellow fever that he had contracted while traveling over the Panama Railroad's transit of the Isthmus of Panama.
CPRR came to see the advantage of good workers employed at low wages: "Chinese labor proved to be Central Pacific's salvation." == Transcontinental route == === Construction begun === The Central Pacific broke ground on January 8, 1863.
Another act to supplement the first was passed in 1864.
Most of the semi-skilled workers on the Union Pacific were recruited from the many soldiers discharged from the Union and Confederate armies along with emigrant Irishmen. After 1864, the Central Pacific Railroad received the same Federal financial incentives as the Union Pacific Railroad, along with some construction bonds granted by the state of California and the city of San Francisco.
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 Evans pass (also called Sherman's Pass) which was discovered by the Union Pacific employed English surveyor and engineer, James Evans, in about 1864.
Durant's railroad was paid by the mile, and to further inflate its profits, the Union Pacific built oxbows of unneeded track, and by July 4, 1865, it had only reached from Omaha after 2½ years of construction. Durant manipulated market prices on his stocks by spreading rumors about which railroads he had an interest in were being considered for connection with the Union Pacific.
Wooden timbers for railroad ties, trestles, bridges, firewood, and telegraph poles were harvested in California and transported to the project site. The Union Pacific Railroad did not start construction for another 18 months until July 1865.
The Union Pacific was so slow in beginning construction during 1865 that they sold two of the four steam locomotives they had purchased. After the U.S.
Civil War ended in 1865, the Union Pacific still competed for railroad supplies with companies who were building or repairing railroads in the south, and prices rose. === Rail standards === At that time in the United States, there were two primary standards for track gauge, as defined by the distance between the two rails.
For the transcontinental railroad, the builders adopted what is now known as the standard gauge. 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.
In 1865, each railroad set its own time to minimize scheduling errors.
Connecting to this pass, about 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" () discovered by Major General Grenville Dodge in 1865 when he was in the U.S.
Temporary, "Hell on wheels" towns, made mostly of canvas tents, accompanied the railroad as construction headed west. 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 , 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.
Here they built the "railroad" town of North Platte, Nebraska in December 1866 after completing about of track that year.
In late 1866, former Major General Grenville M.
In 1867 the CPRR raised their wage to $35 (equivalent to $ in ) per month after a strike.
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 Evans pass (also called Sherman's Pass) which was discovered by the Union Pacific employed English surveyor and engineer, James Evans, in about 1864.
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 that year.
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), 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 of track over the Green River and the Laramie Plains that year.
Work on this tunnel started in October 1868 and was completed six months later.
North America's first transcontinental railroad (known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the "Overland Route") was a continuous railroad line constructed between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S.
The Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) built from the road's eastern terminus at the Missouri River settlements of Council Bluffs and Omaha, Nebraska westward to Promontory Summit. The railroad opened for through traffic between Sacramento and Omaha on May 10, 1869, when CPRR President Leland Stanford, ceremonially tapped the gold "Last Spike" (later often referred to as the "Golden Spike") with a silver hammer at Promontory Summit.
It brought the western states and territories into alignment with the northern Union states and made transporting passengers and goods coast-to-coast considerably quicker, safer and less expensive. The first transcontinental rail passengers arrived at the Pacific Railroad's original western terminus at the Alameda Terminal on September 6, 1869, where they transferred to the steamer Alameda for transport across the Bay to San Francisco.
The road's rail terminus was moved two months later to the Oakland Long Wharf, about a mile to the north, when its expansion was completed and opened for passengers on November 8, 1869.
Beyond Dale Creek, railroad construction paused at what became the town of Laramie, Wyoming to build a bridge across the Laramie River. Located 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.
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.
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.
The transcontinental line became popularly known as the Overland Route after the name principal passenger rail service to Chicago that operated over the length of the line until 1962. == Origins == Among the early proponents of building a railroad line that would connect the coasts of the United States was Dr.
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