Monday, January 30, 2023

Building the 1st transcontinental railroad resulted in the railroads scamming the govt, to get rich

President Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Act in 1862 to establish a railway that would help people and goods traveling west do so more quickly and safely, with the added benefit of nationwide geographic and economic growth as new towns sprang up near the train’s route.

The onset of the Civil War helped decide that route, since after secession, northern lawmakers faced little opposition to a route based in the north. (So, not centered from Southern states population centers, but from Northern states instead, getting the money the railroads brought for coal, trains, supplies, etc to Northern state businesses) 

The federal government then contracted the Central Pacific Railroad in Sacramento and the Union Pacific Railroad in Omaha to start laying tracks, supported by government land grants and bonds.

In addition to this support, each railroad company received a bounty for each mile of track laid. 

The Central Pacific and Union Pacific would each be compensated with $16,000 for each mile of track in the Sierra Nevadas and east of the Rockies.

 Once the railroads entered the mountains, they would rake in $32,000 for every mile of track they put down.

 The quicker each company put down track, the more money they would make. This structure of compensation started a seven-year race between the companies to see who could lay the most track.

3 comments:

  1. Stephen Ambrose wrote an outstanding book about the building of the Trans-Continental Railroad "Nothing Like It in the World". Almost need a chart to figure out all the holding companies and how all the finances worked out.

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  2. Building that railroad was an AMAZING feat, that could never be duplicated.

    they did it in 3 and a half years. with no bulldozers or any type or powered equipment, just black powder, dynamite, mules and shovels.
    they chose the route by walking it and riding horseback and talking to locals and hunters etc.

    today it would take longer than that just to get the building permits.
    when they built interstate 80, they used satellites , aircraft, and all the latest and greatest maps and surveying etc to choose the easiest to construct and shortest and most efficient route, which turned out to be right next to the railroad. withing sight of it for most of the route.

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    Replies
    1. I guess that the nearly unlimited money, and nearly unlimited amount of labor might have had something to do with how amazingly fast they did so much with out modern machinery, and without looking it up, I'll guess they had steam shovels, simply because they had steam locomotives. I'm also going to guess they had steam powered mining drills.
      Not that those would outwork modern machinery, but, they sure must have been a lot more useful than pick axes and sledgehammers.
      It's amazing how things can get done with umlimited funding, and manpower - the great wall of china, roman roads across europe, the mexican and egyptian pryamids...

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