What was one of the main challenges for the workers on the Union Pacific Railroad?

Union Pacific Challenges As they built the railroad, the Union Pacific workers faced many struggles with the Native Americans. Bloody battles resulted from the railroad's appearance in these peoples lands. The Native Americans felt threatened by the white man and his iron horse.



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Labor Shortage In early 1865 the Central Pacific had work enough for 4,000 men. Yet contractor Charles Crocker barely managed to hold onto 800 laborers at any given time. Most of the early workers were Irish immigrants. Railroad work was hard, and management was chaotic, leading to a high attrition rate.

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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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Builders of the transcontinental railroad faced geographical obstacles across the entire line. But none were quite as formidable as the snowy granite mountain range rising east of Sacramento.

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As the Union Pacific cut its way westward across the Platte Valley in 1865, its workers grew fearful of the Indian menace. Certainly, the Northern Cheyenne, Sioux, and Arapaho maintained a presence on what had once been their prime hunting land.

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Rail yard engineers, dinkey operators, and hostlers. Railroad brake, signal, and switch operators and locomotive firers. Railroad conductors and yardmasters.

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Conflicts broke out between major railroads, and larger lines took over small roads. Between the time of the Civil War and 1900 the Pennsylvania Railroad took over more than 600 formerly independent short lines. Rate discrimination (distorted costs for service) was a major issue.

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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. The work was tiresome, as the railroad was built entirely by manual laborers who used to shovel 20 pounds of rock over 400 times a day.

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But the Depression, and the switch to automobiles after World War II, dealt a blow from which the railroads still have not recovered. A deadly cycle set in. As the number of passengers using the trains decreased, causing revenues to fall, the railroads tried to survive by cutting back on maintenance and service.

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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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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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