The Transcontinental Railroad Places America on The Right Track

The Transcontinental Railroad was the most ambitious engineering project  that the early United States had ever seen.  It provided an efficient method of transportation that quickly stimulated the American economy.  The purpose of this paper is to examine how the Transcontinental Railroad helped develop new opportunities and improve many aspects of American life.

The Transcontinental Railroad was the largest project the United States had ever attempted.  Due to lack of technology, the massive size of the project, and the environmental conditions, the railroad seemed to be an impossible task. “The price tag was immense - 

$136 million, more than twice the federal budget.  The challenge was enormous.People had never traveled this far west before, and there were no established cities.  Workers lived in makeshift camps that were often disorganized and filled with crime.  They needed to blast through the granite of the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountain ranges, making only inches of progress every day.  The railroad’s route would span nearly seven hundred miles into desert and unexplored country.  At its peak, the workforce on this project exceeded thirty thousand people.  Workers from as far away as Ireland and China flocked to the United States for employment.  The country became the land of  opportunity.

The Transcontinental Railroad was built across the United States, linking the railway network of the Eastern United States with California on the western coast.  On May 10, 1869, the golden spike was driven into a crosstie at Promontory Summit in Utah Territory.  This created a nationwide transportation network that forever changed the nation.  Wagon trains of previous decades became obsolete and the railroad became the new, preferred method of transportation.  Complete travel from coast to coast was reduced from six months or more, to a maximum of eight days.  Three thousand, five hundred miles of railroad tracks joined the nation from New York to California.  Travel in the United States would never be the same.

The building of the Transcontinental Railroad transformed the landscape of America.  It also changed lives.  The railroad contributed to the decline of Native Americans in western regions.  Hunters used railroad lines to hunt buffalo, the main food source of  Native Americans.  Between 1875 and 1885, northern and southern buffalo herds were wiped out. Native Americans became upset when railroad companies seized their land. This resulted in many attacks on construction crews and the deaths of many engineers.   When the workers weren’t at work or asleep, they were at war with local tribes.  Most Indian tribes lost their battle to hold onto their lands, and were forced onto reservations.