What happened to railroad in 1869?

The Railroad Act of 1862 put government support behind the transcontinental railroad and helped create the Union Pacific Railroad, which subsequently joined with the Central Pacific at Promontory, Utah, on May 10, 1869, and signaled the linking of the continent.



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In addition to transporting western food crops and raw materials to East Coast markets and manufactured goods from East Coast cities to the West Coast, the railroad also facilitated international trade. The first freight train to travel eastward from California carried a load of Japanese tea.

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The railroad also gave homesteaders greater access to manufactured goods, as they could be transported easily and quickly across the railway. However, the Transcontinental Railroad had a negative impact on the Plains Indians. They were forced to move away from the railroad despite it running through Indian Territory.

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While much of the original transcontinental railroad tracks are still in use, the complete, intact line fell out of operation in 1904, when a shorter route bypassed Promontory Summit.

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The building of the transcontinental railroad was a wonder. Three thousand miles over and through mountains, deserts, ravines, and rivers. When it was completed in 1869 the train traveled at the incredible speed of 22 miles an hour and the trip, all the way across the country took only 10 days!

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However, the race was ultimately a runaway victory for the Union Pacific, which was able to lay 1,085 miles of track to the 690 miles put down by the Central Pacific.

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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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The transcontinental railroad was built in six years almost entirely by hand. Workers drove spikes into mountains, filled the holes with black powder, and blasted through the rock inch by inch.

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In 1870 it took approximately seven days and cost as little as $65 for a ticket on the transcontinental line from New York to San Francisco; $136 for first class in a Pullman sleeping car; $110 for second class; and $65 for a space on a third- or “emigrant”-class bench.

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The rails were removed in 1942 for use in the war effort. Today cattle graze where once thousands labored to open the West to industry and commerce. The Transcontinental Railroad Back Country Byway is interpreted at over 30 sites along the grade.

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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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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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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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