What did the government offer each railroad company building the transcontinental railroad?

The two lines of track would meet in the middle (the bill did not designate an exact location) and each company would receive 6,400 acres of land (later doubled to 12,800) and $48,000 in government bonds for every mile of track built.



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Pacific Railway Acts, (1862, 1864), two measures that provided federal subsidies in land and loans for the construction of a transcontinental railroad across the United States.

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Railroads, as private companies, needed to engage in profitable projects. So the federal government passed the Pacific Railroad Act that provided land grants to railroads. This provided public lands to railroad companies in exchange for building tracks in specific locations.

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Answer and Explanation: The entire United States benefited financially from the joining of two railroads to form one transcontinental railroad. However, two industries benefited the most from the Transcontinental Railroad. Those were cotton and cattle.

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The federal government promised both companies three types of bonds for different types of track laid down. For track laid down on level land, the federal government promised each company $16,000 per mile, or about $461,000 today.

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In the end, the federal government gave 134 million acres of land as incentives to the railroads. To further assist the railroad companies, the federal government offered the companies bonds.

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As new towns sprung up along the rail line, it changed where Americans lived, spurred westward expansion and made travel more affordable. But the project also devastated forests, displaced many Native American tribes and rapidly expanded Anglo-European influence across the country.

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Transcontinental Railroad Facts
  • It was built to connect the United States' East and West Coasts. ...
  • Approximately 1,800 miles of track. ...
  • The transcontinental railroad cost roughly $100 million. ...
  • Workers came from a wide range of backgrounds and ethnicity. ...
  • President Abraham Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Act.


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Good and bad The railroad is credited, for instance, with helping to open the West to migration and with expanding the American economy. It is blamed for the near eradication of the Native Americans of the Great Plains, the decimation of the buffalo and the exploitation of Chinese railroad workers.

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Railroads were effective, reliable, and faster modes of transportation, edging out competitors such as the steamship. They traveled faster and farther, and carried almost fifty times more freight than steamships could. They were more dependable than any previous mode of transportation, and not impacted by the weather.

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