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Transcontinental railroad
Yup, this is for real. The transcontinental railroad is what you may do not know about.
This railroad basically tracks across used for transportation of goods and people across the continent having terminals at the end of continental borders.
Transcontinental railroads help to open up underpopulated interior regions of continents to exploration and settlement that would not otherwise have been feasible.
Read on to know some facts about the same:
- .USA was the first ever country to build transcontinental railroad. The first transcontinental railroad builds in the year 1869. It was called as The Pacific Railroad and The overland route.
- In 1862, the Pacific railroad act allowed the central Pacific and the union pacific railroad companies to build a transcontinental railroad in the United States from east to west.
- Three private companies the Central Pacific, the Western Pacific Railroad Company and the Union Pacific Railroad built the first ever transcontinental railroad.
- Leland Stanford, governor of California and president of the Central Pacific Railroad drove the last spike.
- The last spike was called by two names as “Golden Spike” or “The Final Spike”. At Stanford University in California, there is a Golden Spike kept for display till now.
- Out of the total 4000 workers working to build the first railroad in the United States. The one-third of them were Chinese Immigrants.
- The Stourbridge Lion, the first steam locomotive in the US, is tested along tracks built by the Delaware and Hudson company on 8th August 1929. After this railroad was replaced by canals for the use of transportation.
- The first railroad was 1907 miles (3069 km) which took 7 years to get complete (1863-1869).
- The railroad transcontinental railroad made it possible to travel across the country in four weeks instead of six months.
- The fare of the third class ticket in the sleeping car from Omaha to San Francisco was $65 in 1870.