Transcontinental Railroad

WHAT CALIFORNIA RAILROADS HAVE DONE by David L. Phillips

In 1862, the people here had no railroads. Plundering mail contractors and stage companies held the carrying trade and passenger business of California, and, as between the Pacific Coast and the Middle and Atlantic States, communications were had overland once in about two months, and by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, via Panama, in about the same time. The cost of transit from New York to San Francisco was about $300, and the same by stage-coach overland. California was, agriculturally, and in all else except the mines, as poor as poverty. To-day, the cost by sea or overland from New York to San Francisco, excluding board, is $140--time, overland, six days; and, as a result, almost all the trade between China, Japan and the islands of the Pacific Ocean, is now gathering at the docks of San Francisco, and will, in a great measure, pass overland to Chicago and New York, and at reduced rates of freight as well as time. I saw, myself, as I came over, train-loads of tea, from China and Japan, on the way to Chicago and New York. For these vast benefits, San Francisco, its merchants and people are indebted to the energetic railroad men of Sacramento. . . . This land, before the road was built, was worth, on the average, $1.25 per acre, but no man will hesitate now to tell you that its average value is $8 per acre.

^{Source: Library of Congress, American Memory. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cbhtml/cbmissio.html}

Historian

In a relatively short period, the railroads created the skeletal structure of the western transportation system. . . . [However, there was] another aspect of the railroad network that soon became all too apparent: much of the track could not dependably carry freight. Despite all the effort that went into them, these lines were poorly constructed. Railroad technology remained primitive. Iron rails rusted quickly, and untreated wooden ties rotted between them. Engineers made curves too sharp, and workers laid ballast improperly so that the roadbeds collapsed. On the whole, the western railroads may have been no more shoddily built than those in the East, but nonetheless, most of them demanded almost immediate rebuilding. . . . By the time the Union Pacific made its juncture with the Central Pacific, the line already needed nearly 7 million dollars' worth of repairs, and the worst sections of its tracks could barely support a locomotive.

The collapse of the railroads in the larger wreckage [of the panic] of 1873 fueled what would become the chronic resentment of westerners toward both the railroads and their eastern and foreign bondholders. Towns, counties, and states that had bought bonds to finance the railroads found their bonds worthless and the tax dollars used to pay for them wasted. . . . With the railroads bankrupt, westerners hostile, and eastern and European investors wary, railroad building slowed drastically following the panic of 1873.

^{Source: White, Richard. “It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own.” University of Oklahoma Press, 1991. 251-252.}