What difficulties did the workers have building the Transcontinental Railroad?

Each company faced unprecedented construction problems—mountains, severe weather, and the hostility of Native Americans. On May 10, 1869, in a ceremony at Promontory, Utah, the last rails were laid and the last spike driven.



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They had to face dangerous work conditions – accidental explosions, snow and rock avalanches, which killed hundreds of workers, not to mention frigid weather. “All workers on the railroad were 'other',” said Liebhold.

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Answer and Explanation: For the US government and the railroad companies, the biggest obstacles in building the Transcontinental Railroad were mountains of solid granite and attacks by Native American war parties.

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Blasting through mountains to create tunnels was dangerous, as the main explosives included nitroglycerin. Native Americans thwarted the construction of railroads using violence. Many railroad workers had to physically defend themselves and some lost their lives.

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Each company faced unprecedented construction problems—mountains, severe weather, and the hostility of Native Americans. On May 10, 1869, in a ceremony at Promontory, Utah, the last rails were laid and the last spike driven.

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Many have complained that extended time on the road and long stretches of on-call work make it difficult to see a doctor for an illness or injury, or to be present at family milestones like a child's birthday. Rail carriers say employees can generally attend to these needs by taking paid vacation.

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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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But there was also a dark side to the historic national project. The railroad was completed by the sweat and muscle of exploited labor, it wiped out populations of buffalo, which had been essential to Indigenous communities, and it extended over land that had been unlawfully seized from tribal nations.

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Railroad workers put in long hours; a 1907 law restricted train crews to 16 hours work out of every 24. Well into the twentieth century, work was unsteady and unsafe. One railroad worker in every 357 nationally died on the job in 1889.

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Chinese workers made up most of the workforce between roughly 700 miles of train tracks between Sacramento, California, and Promontory, Utah. During the 19th century, more than 2.5 million Chinese citizens left their country and were hired in 1864 after a labor shortage threatened the railroad's completion.

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They were paid less than white workers, and hundreds lost their lives as a result of the dangerous work, said Gordon Chang, professor of American history at Stanford's School of Humanities and Sciences. A Chinese laborer works at a tunnel heading above Donner Lake on the western summit of the Transcontinental Railroad.

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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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Within ten years of its completion, the railroad shipped $50 million worth of freight coast to coast every year. 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.

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The completion of the transcontinental railroad led to heightened racial tensions in California, as white workers from the East Coast and Europe could more easily travel westward where immigrant laborers were prevalent, says Princeton University Assistant Professor of History Beth Lew-Williams, author of The Chinese ...

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Last fall, many union railroad workers in the United States did not have paid sick days. Now, more than sixty percent of them do, Reuters reports.

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U.S. employment in rail transportation At the same time, working conditions for the employees remaining at these railroads have deteriorated. “Even the good pay and pensions aren't worth it anymore, because they're being so overworked,” said Schuhrke.

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The railroad workers were paid, on average, a dollar a day. They lived in twenty railroad cars, including dormitories and an arsenal car containing a thousand loaded rifles. They worked hard and were usually able to lay from one to three miles of track per day depending upon the available materials.

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