What were the consequences of the construction of the transcontinental railroad?

Connecting the two American coasts made the economic export of Western resources to Eastern markets easier than ever before. The railroad also facilitated westward expansion, escalating conflicts between Native American tribes and settlers who now had easier access to new territories.



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It made commerce possible on a vast scale. 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.

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Railroads had a significant impact when they were introduced to the American West in the 1870s. Rail access spurred white migration and land occupation, altered the cattle industry, and affected the soil ecosystem.

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The Transcontinental Railroad also allowed for western goods to be more easily and quickly transported. However, with growing westward expansion by the United States, the Transcontinental Railroad also marked the beginning of escalating conflicts with Native Americans and settlers with greater access to the west.

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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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The completion of the first transcontinental railroad revolutionized travel, connecting areas of the Western United States with the East. Prior to its completion, traveling to the West Coast from the East required months of dangerous overland travel or an arduous trip by boat around the southern tip of South America.

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Before, during and after the transcontinental railroad's construction thousands of enslaved and then freedmen worked on the railroads grading lines, building bridges, and blasting tunnels. They working as firemen shoveling coal into the boiler riding alongside the engineer, and as brakemen and yard switchmen.

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Railroads became a major industry, stimulating other heavy industries such as iron and steel production. These advances in travel and transport helped drive settlement in the western regions of North America and were integral to the nation's industrialization.

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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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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 completion of the Transcontinental Railroad dramatically catalyzed the development of the West, a process that both extended settlement and mining into otherwise unreachable areas and caused desertification (or, dry and arid conditions) in places along the route.

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Today, portions of the original Transcontinental Railroad are still operating. The tracks have been replaced over the decades, but through Utah and Wyoming the routes remain unchanged.

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Railroads provided fresh supplies of arms, men, equipment, horses, and medical supplies on a direct route to where armies were camped. The railroad was also put to use for medical evacuations, transporting wounded soldiers to better medical care.

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The railroads provided the efficient, relatively cheap transportation that made both farming and milling profitable. They also carried the foodstuffs and other products that the men and women living on the single-crop bonanza farms needed to live.

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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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The railroad took 7 years to complete and is a 1,907-mile contiguous line. Three competing private companies built the railroad, one starting in the East, the other two in the West, allowing the railroad to meet in the middle. The Western Pacific Railroad Company constructed 132 miles between Oakland and Sacramento.

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The author was just one of the thousands of people who flocked to the Transcontinental Railroad beginning in 1869. The railroad, which stretched nearly 2,000 miles between Iowa, Nebraska and California, reduced travel time across the West from about six months by wagon or 25 days by stagecoach to just four days.

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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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