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America's first transcontinental railroad (known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the "Overland Route") was a 1,911-mile (3,075 km) continuous railroad line built between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail network at Council Bluffs, Iowa, with the Pacific coast at the Oakland Long Wharf on San Francisco Bay. [1]
The first transcontinental railroad in Europe, that connected the North Sea or the English Channel with the Mediterranean Sea, was a series of lines that included the Paris–Marseille railway, in service 1856. Multiple railways north of Paris were in operation at that time, such as Paris–Lille railway and Paris–Le Havre railway.
Although the transcontinental railroads dominated the media, with the completion of the First transcontinental railroad in 1869 dramatically symbolizing the nation's unification after the divisiveness of the Civil War, most construction actually took place in the industrial Northeast and agricultural Midwest, and was designed to minimize ...
The Northern Pacific Railway (NP) was a transcontinental railroad that operated across the northern tier of the western states, from Minnesota to the Pacific Northwest. It was approved by Congress in 1864 and given nearly 40 million acres (62,000 sq mi; 160,000 km2) of land grants, which it used to raise money in Europe for construction.
Asa Whitney (1797–1872) was a highly successful dry-goods merchant and transcontinental railroad promoter. [1] He was one of the first backers of an American transcontinental railway. A trip to China in 1842–44 impressed upon Whitney the need for a transcontinental railroad from the Atlantic to the Pacific. [2] [3]
The Official "Date of Completion" of the Transcontinental Railroad under the Provisions of the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862, et seq., as Established by the Supreme Court of the United States to be November 6, 1869. (99 U.S. 402) 1879 Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum
Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad is a book written by David Haward Bain, [2] published in 2000. It follows the initial conception of the idea of a transcontinental railroad, during the two decades before the Civil War, [3] to the work of the engineers and entrepreneurs who fixed the route, assembled financing, drafted a work force and launched the two lines toward ...
California's symbolic and tangible connection to the rest of the country was fused at Promontory Summit, Utah, as the "last spike" was driven to join the tracks of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads, thereby completing the first transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869 (before that time, only a few local rail lines operated in the ...