Pacific Railroad and Transcontinental Railroad

• Pacific Railroad Act

  Facilitated the creation of the First Transcontinental Railroad, a huge railway line that connected the east of the USA to the west
• Prior to the American Civil War, disagreement between the northern and southern states prevented the creation of this railroad
• Northern states

  • Supported the railroad as it connected California to its big industrial cities
• Southern states

  • Recognised that an east to west railroad would be of no benefit to them, and would actually put them at a disadvantage
• The Pacific Railroad Act was only passed once the southern states left the USA to form their own confederacy
• Construction of the Transcontinental Railroad

  1. Central Pacific Railroad started in Sacramento and built east

  2. Union Pacific Railroad started in Omaha and built west

  3. The two companies met in the middle
• Pacific Railroad Act

  The government would loan each company $16,000 per miles of track ($48,000 for mountain areas) and would terminate any right Plans Indians had to the land along the railroad
• Both companies found the task very difficult. It is thought around 12,000 men died in the process of building the railroad
• Both companies nearly went bankrupt and sometimes resorted to lying about how much track they had laid in order to get more government money
• Completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad

  1869
• Impact of the First Transcontinental Railroad on the West

  • Encouraged further settlement in the West as it made travelling their cheaper and easier
  • Encouraged the development of towns along the railroad, as the railroad made the west less isolated
  • Positive effect on the economy as it helped facilitate trade between the east and west of the USA, and between the USA and Asia
  • Encouraged the growth of the cattle industry
• Impact of the Transcontinental Railroad on homestead life


  • Meant homesteaders felt less isolated as they could visit friends and family from home
  • Gave homesteaders greater access to manufactured goods, as they could be transported easily and quickly across the railway
• Before the railroad

  Homesteaders would have to travel back via the Oregon Trail
• Negative impact of the Transcontinental Railroad on the Plains Indians

  • They were forced to move away from the railroad despite it running through Indian Territory
  • The workers often killed buffalo for meat, and the track itself disrupted the Plains Indians buffalo hunting
  • Plains Indians attacked railroad works and this brought them into conflict with the US army