Color Coded Notes
Words in Red: Copy down exactly (word
for word) from the slide.
Words in Blue: Summarize in your own
words.
Words in Black: No need to write them
down, just listen carefully to Mr. Sanders
The Transcontinental
Railroad
• By the end of the Civil War railroads were
already all over the East part of the U.S
• No railroads west of the Missouri River
The Transcontinental
Railroad
Transcontinental
Railroad
1,775 miles from
Omaha, Nebraska
to Sacramento,
California
Took 20,000
workers 6 years
to build
The Transcontinental
Railroad
It would have to be cut through mountains higher
than any railroad-builder had ever faced, span
raging rivers, traverse deserts where there was
no water to be found, and cross treeless prairies
where anxious and defiant Indians would resist
their passage.
Assignments
In 1862, Congress gave two companies
permission to build
• Union Pacific to start in Omaha Nebraska
• Central Pacific to start in Sacramento
California
Those Who Built It
Very dangerous work many
died
The real heroes of the
railroad, however, were the
20,000 men who labored to
build it with their bare hands.
Conditions were harsh for
workers; freezing winters,
searing summer heat, Indian
attacks, and most dangerous
of all, the lawless and violent
end-of-the-track towns called
"hell-on-wheels”.
Workers were mainly poor immigrants
from China and Ireland
Irish Immigrants hired to work for the
Union Pacific and Chinese immigrants hired
to work for the Central Pacific
Treated poorly by the bosses and not
respected
Worked 16+ hour days, 7 days a week
Worked in the worst conditions
Very low pay
Lived in Train Cars or small camps
The Race Is On!!
The Union Pacific and Central Pacific were soon
locked in a race to see who could lay the most
track -- and therefore get the most land and
money. Somewhere in the West -- no one knew
exactly where -- the two lines were supposed to
meet.
Major Obstacles
Indian attacks
Weather, including major blizzards
Huge mountains (Rockies, Sierra Nevadas)
massive tunnels
Raging Rivers------massive bridges
Brutal working conditions
The Final Spike
Finally, on May 10, 1869, The UPR and CPR met
at Promontory Summit, Utah. The presidents
of both railroads, Mr. Durant and Mr. Stanford,
swung at the last gold spike.
"May God continue the unity of our Country as the Railroad unites the two great Oceans of the world."
Promontory Point
How The Railroads
Changed Time
Before the railroads, each town kept its own
time, based on the position of the sun.
Railroad companies, however, needed more
exact time tables. They created a system with
four time zones – eastern, central, mountain,
and pacific time. Every place within the same
time zone observed the same time.
Pullman Cars
George Pullman approached Durant in 1867 with the idea of sleeper
cars.
Pullman cars of the 1860s and '70s eased travel and offered some
luxury, notwithstanding the perils of early train travel.
The lavish passenger trains touched off an industrial and architectural
design movement by using streamlined chrome, plastic, synthetic fiber
and coordinated color schemes.
Pullman passengers and staff (who were mostly black) enjoyed a world
of fine wood, excellent upholstery, and food you could only find at the
finest restaurants back home.
The Pullman Sleeper and
Dining Cars
Railroad lines also added sleeper and dining cars where
porters, conductors and waiters attended
to the needs of passengers.
Technology of the
Railroads
In 1869, George Westinghouse helped make
railway travel safer and faster with the
invention of a new air brake. On early trains,
each railroad car had its own brakes and brake
operator. If different cars stopped at different
times, accidents resulted. The new air brake
allowed an engineer to stop all the cars at once.
How the Railroads
Changed America
The railroads spurred economic growth. Steelworkers turned millions of tons of iron into steel
for track. Lumberjacks supplied wood for
railroad ties. Miners dug coal to fuel the
engines. The railroads opened every corner of
the country to settlement and growth.
Central Pacific locomotive No. 1
How the Railroads changed Utah
Jobs, Jobs, Jobs
Growth of new towns, more people, more
businesses
Many new people coming into Utah from
diverse backgrounds ---New Cultures
Increase in Irish and Chinese populations
Made it easier for Utah business to obtain
goods and supplies
Write a letter home
Pretend you are an Irish or Chinese immigrant who is
working on building the Railroad.
Write a letter home to your family explaining to them what
you are doing and how a normal day is for you.
Your family back in Ireland or China is not familiar with
the geography of the United States, so you also need to
explain exactly where the railroad will go and what the
land and climate are like along the way.
Sketch a simple picture of the railroad you are working on
and the surrounding landscape to show your family what it
looks like.
Your letter should be about 3-5 paragraphs long with you
sketch on the back.
The Irish Workers
Many were Civil War veterans.
Average pay... a dollar a day.
Worked as pick and shovel
men, teamsters, blacksmiths,
mechanics, carpenters,
masons, and track-layers.
Crews lived in railroad cars
Crews worked up to16 hour
days, seven days a week,
including most weekends,
laying more than a mile of
track per day.
The Chinese workers
Besides hiring Irish immigrants who worked for
low pay, the Central Pacific Railroad began
employing over 10,000 Chinese immigrants.