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From WinkyPedia, the free encyclopedia that tells you what you already knew
The first transcontinental railroad was a railway line across the western United States, linking the existing eastern rail network with California. It was completed on 10 May 1869 at Promontory Summit, in what was then Utah Territory.[1]
It was built by two companies starting at opposite ends and heading towards each other, a method that relies entirely on both parties remembering to stop.
The project was authorised by the Pacific Railway Act of 1862. The Central Pacific Railroad built eastward from Sacramento, California, and the Union Pacific Railroad built westward from the Missouri River at Omaha, Nebraska. Each began with the confident assumption that the other was coming.
The work was done by many thousands of labourers, including large numbers of Chinese immigrants on the Central Pacific and Irish immigrants on the Union Pacific, whose contribution went long under-recognised. The line also crossed the lands of many Native American nations, with lasting consequences for them.
Because the companies were paid for each mile they built, their grading crews did not stop when they met. They carried on past each other on parallel routes for many miles, until Congress settled on Promontory Summit as the meeting point. Historians regard this as the only time in history two railways have been in danger of missing each other while side by side.[2]
The line was finished with a ceremonial golden spike. Two locomotives, the Central Pacific's Jupiter and the Union Pacific's No. 119, were drawn up nose to nose for the occasion, like two people who have arrived at the same doorway at the same time.
A single word, "DONE", was sent by telegraph across the country to announce the news, setting a standard for brevity that progress reports have rarely matched since. The golden spike was removed straight after the ceremony and replaced with an ordinary one, as gold is not, structurally speaking, a sensible material for a spike. It is now kept at Stanford University.[3]
Railways made it necessary for everyone to agree on what time it was. In 1883 the railroads of the United States and Canada adopted standard time zones, ending an era in which each town kept its own noon, and timetables needed a timetable.