How did railroads impact immigrants?

For immigrants to the United States, the Transcontinental Railroad presented an opportunity to seek their fortunes in the West. There, they found more opportunity than the port cities of the East Coast, where discrimination kept immigrants living in urban squalor.



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In the middle of the nineteenth century, U.S. railroad companies were expanding at a breakneck pace, straining to span the continent as quickly--and cheaply--as they could. The work was brutally difficult, the pay was low, and workers were injured and killed at a very high rate.

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The Transcontinental Railroad dramatically altered ecosystems. For instance, it brought thousands of hunters who killed the bison Native people relied on. The Cheyenne experience was different. The railroad disrupted intertribal trade on the Plains, and thereby broke a core aspect of Cheyenne economic life.

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The railroad opened the way for the settlement of the West, provided new economic opportunities, stimulated the development of town and communities, and generally tied the country together.

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The railroad opened the way for the settlement of the West, provided new economic opportunities, stimulated the development of town and communities, and generally tied the country together.

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Railroad companies also redefined the cultural landscape of the nation by heavily promoting immigration, targeting specific ethnic groups that railroad officials considered desirable, such as northern Europeans, attracting them with employment opportunities, sale of cheap lands, and reduced transportation rates.

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As white explorers and settlers entered Western territory, they disrupted a centuries-old culture — that of the Plains Indians. The arrival of the railroad and, with it, more permanent and numerous white settlement, spelled growing conflict between whites and natives.

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The Transcontinental Railroad reduced travel time from New York to California from as long as six months to as little as a week and the cost for the trip from $1,000 to $150. The reduced travel time and cost created new business and settlement opportunities and enabled quicker and cheaper shipping of goods.

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In some cases, the railroads were perceived to have abused their power as a result of too little competition. Railroads also banded together to form pools and trusts that fixed rates at higher levels than they could otherwise command.

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Some of the most prominent dangers for railroad workers and in train accidents include the following:
  • Faulty equipment or tools.
  • Dangerous working conditions.
  • Exposure to hazards.
  • Toxic substances.


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Railroads Were at the Forefront of Political Corruption “Railroads need monopoly franchises and subsidies, and to get them, they are more than willing to bribe public officials,” White says. The Central Pacific Railroad, for example, spent $500,000 annually in thinly disguised bribes between 1875 and 1885.

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Just as it opened the markets of the west coast and Asia to the east, it brought products of eastern industry to the growing populace beyond the Mississippi. The railroad ensured a production boom, as industry mined the vast resources of the middle and western continent for use in production.

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On November 18, 1883, the railroads moved forward with the adoption of four U.S. time zones, an idea that had been proposed 11 years earlier by Charles Dowd, a Yale-educated school principal. The time zones, Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific, are still in place today.

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The railroads with steam locomotives offered a new mode of transportation that fascinated citizens, buoying their optimistic view of the possibilities of technological progress. The Mohawk and Hudson Railroad was the first to begin service with a steam locomotive.

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Here are some of the ways that the first transcontinental railroad—and the many other transcontinental lines that followed it—changed America.
  • It made the Western U.S. more important. ...
  • It made commerce possible on a vast scale. ...
  • It made travel more affordable. ...
  • It changed where Americans lived.


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