Railroad That Changed the US (and the World) Forever
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ต.ค. 2024
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Today, we are talking about the construction of the well-known transcontinental railroad in the United States.
As it was originally known, the "Pacific Railroad" or later the "Overland Route", the Transcontinental railroad was a 1,912-mile (3,077 km) long continuous railroad line constructed between 1863 and 1869. It connected the existing eastern U.S. rail network at Council Bluffs, in Iowa with the Pacific coast at the Oakland Long Wharf on San Francisco Bay. And yes, it was constructed in only seven years!
This video is actually the second in a row that we released on this same topic, after the one that we released back in August last year. As that video remained overwhelmed by other videos, it never reached its full potential, so we decided to add certain modifications and new information, and to republish it again. And we hope you’ll enjoy it!
Basically, in this video, we tried to present a complete story but also to add some new perspectives about the famous Transcon, including the socio-economic and political circumstances in the US before the construction, travel options for people in the US before the railroads, migration patterns which influenced the decision to build the Transcon, brief history about how the railroads 'conquered' the US in general, who and how actually built this engineering marvel at the time, at what cost, which challenges were faced by the workers, and finally, the economic and social impact of this railway line, together with certain negative 'strings attached' that came along.
If you want to find out basically everything about this amazing historical rail project check out our video, and don't forget to share your thoughts in the comment section!
Enjoy!
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That is worth all penny to make railroad
I remember learning about this network in my social studies/history classes back in middle/high school... Mostly about how many Chinese migrants died building it, and all the bank panics tied to the overbuilding of railroads.
Anyone else getting that whiff of nostalgia from those school days?
We were told very little of the Transcontinental Railroad. For my US history class, it was more like a little footnote in the wider range of the topic of Manifest Destiny in its later, third phase of 1865 - 1890 period (I consider the first to be 1763 to 1789 and the second phase to be 1793 to 1859)
Yes it was worth it. I grew up and still live in Topeka, Kansas. It is where the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe (BNSF) railroad was founded and still operates out of. My grandfather and father spent their entire working life working for the AT&SF(BNSF) railroad. I did too, however I choose a different path after 1 year working for the railroad. BNSF still operates a huge facility and diesel locomotive repair repair facility today.
America needs a new Transcontinental, a High Speed Transcontinental.
would need the chinese again to build it... LOL.
@@morganangel340 Wait no shit just realized LMFAO...
I don't think the US really need one, as HSR works in a city-rural diachotomy, rather than a giant continuous urban sprawl spanning the entire state. Check the channel "Not Just Bikes" for more.
@@morganangel340 Yeah only this time they need the Chinese not just for the workers but for technology and engineering too.
@Eric A Hyperloop is a pipedream.
The most overlooked section of the railroad is the Nevada Desert, I wish they'd cover that as all that's talked about is the Sierras and the plains, Im sure the Desert has quite an untold story to tell, awesome video btw
I remember reading a bit about it, unlike most of the US railroad network there were very few trees, so the trains had to be powered by coal. I also remember hearing that water was in very short supply unlike most of the US, which was a really issue as those early trains consumed vast amounts of water. I can’t remember how they solved the problem, I think it was just large water tenders though rather than something like a condenser system.
Great video, Railways Explained! Maybe you should also make one about Canadian Pacific Railroad, as Canada was designed from the beginning to make this railway possible. It would be an interesting comparison
Thank you for the suggestion!
As usual, an excellent presentation. However, as a Utahn (yes, that’s how it’s spelled) I just have to point out the misinformation at 9:10, referencing the state of Utah. Utah did not actually become a state until almost 30 years later, Jan 4,1896. A minor point, admittedly.
Yeah, we know, but it was difficult to find a good map where Utah is presented as a territory...
..Thanks for sharing this 😁 Hoping that you can also cover the railway history of the Philippines and its current development on your future videos 🙂
It would have been nice to remember the number of workers killed in its construction.
I'm late to this one as I haven't found the time to watch it until now but I'm glad I did. It's a really informative video and it really captured the importance of the Transcontinental Railroad in a detailed but easily understandable way. Thanks a lot and keep up the good work👍😊
I reccomend doing a video about the little known story of the algoma central railway
Only seven years, as well as myriads of death of coolies.
Coolies? Alright, troll.
It is indeed an overlooked topic. We were thinking for a while if it was forced labor or simply a lack of choice for those people. Looks like the company was paying wages to double less to Chinese workers, which helped the company to cut the costs, while the workers in the middle of nowhere couldn't just like that go to the other place?
@@RailwaysExplained It's already hard to say how many are forced labor and how many are willingly choice, or maybe something lies between. The point is, it's important to mention the life cost of a project. The British Burma-Thailand Railway, the French Yunnan-Vietnam railway, the Qinghai-Tibet highway and the "first transcontinental railroad" are all infamous in casualities, yet only the Chinese are willing to emphasize that cost.
When you ask a Chinese whether s/he's proud of the Qinghai-Tibet highway project, well kind of, but more often one would talk about the mass casuality due to lack of education and understanding about alpine sickness to lowland workers. That being said, only the workers of that highway are qualified to be "proud" of the highway they build, as they sacrificed a lot during that. The manager, however, should felt ashamed of not being able to provide adequate alpine sickness education to the workers. It's such a hard lesson to us Chinese that decades later, when program the Qinghai-Tibet railway, security became the highest priority, eventually lead to zero casuality in the new project, albeit the process may be potentially slowed down. Unfortunately if you ask Americans whether the First Transcontinental Railroad was a great project, emm...
I believe you have omitted to mention the Japanese who were 'imported' to help build the route in California/Nevada!
Can you talk about the North Island Main Trunk In New Zealand
Great video, as usual. I think this video is a good reminder of how proud the US was of its rail network, before it got a highway addiction.
Hopefully, with the new infrastructure bill the US can have another railroad renewal for HSR. I think there would be a similar boom, as megaregions would become economically viable.
great video
Actually, travelers were able to reach the Pacific Ocean once the Golden Spike was driven because they could take a ferry from Sacramento Old Historic Waterfront to San Francisco Embarcadero, where the Ferry Building, BART station, MUNI Metro station, and Salesforce Transit Center now stand. The Delta King steamboat, which now serves as hotel and restaurant, was used for such purposes. There was a reason why Sacramento was chosen as the capital city in the first place! Sacramento geographically has every natural resource (including waterways and mountain passes enabling transcontinental routes) available in its vicinity. It was totally not arbritrary, and I congratulate the collective efforts of the early leaders (all now dead) and general populace on making (might have been through popular vote) such a strategic decision. The Pony Express Trail, which was originally built by the Native Americans, existed long before the First Transcontinental Railroad, passed through Sacramento (more specifically, Sutter's Fort) for a reason!
The Western Pacific mentioned and the historic one were separate companies. They builders of the second Western Pacific just reused the name. The Western Pacific used by the Central Pacific was consolidated into the Southern Pacific before the second WP was incorporated.
Tom Thumb would have failed the Rainhill Trials... 🤣
And a second transcontinental railway built in Canada by Canadians, and longer than this one. Look it up.
The National Dream CP they are coast to coast, The PACIFIC railroad of the UNION army never went east of Chicago or Kansas City and still doesn't but Amtrak does.
But not as important
Was it worth it? Sure for all the reasons you stated. Was it done with exploitation? Yes. It was the ear of American "Manifest Destiny"
"was it worth it or not" seems like a very one-sided question. It could have been handled differently, much like the oil pipelines today. Native communities are always the ones that suffer the most from these projects, but i don't think they would be generally against the idea of rail transport..
USA built an railway line if thousands of kilometers of track in just 7 years in 1860's ? What happened to great nation now?
1863-69
👍🏾😎
The only transcontinental railroad is AMTRAK. They go coast to coast. No other railroad not even today does that. Or ever did.
.......so your saying all the railways magically appeared in 71?, well why not, so much has been pulled out of the magicians hat before!
@@drdoolittle5724 Do you know what your are talking about cause I don't. All the railroads? You mean the four super systems left? The two of the west BNSF and UP do not go east of Chicago and never did. The NS and CSX do not go west of Chicago never did. But Amtrak does. Since 1971
Tom Thumb had a staggeringly huge power outage of 1.4hp.. 🤣🤣
2 horses would have been more effective...
The Rocket of the exact same year had 12hp over 8 times better... 😝
Leading cause of climate change is AIR TRAVEL. Most places a trains goes doesn't not have air travel , or never did. Most trips like car trips are in between. The whole system went banktrupt in Oct 1967 when the mail was put on GM trucks. The result was underfunded cut back Amtrak. Which is today very popular.
Railroads united the country whereas cars segregated it
Glad you think so. Unfortunately I fearfully feel most Americans feel the opposite way
@Justin Ratcliffe to revert the sprawl you’d need to tear like 80% of us infrastructure town and rebuild it more walkability and bikability-oriented.
@@nolibtard6023 yes that is true buts slowly renders that direction back to how it was in the 1940s where walkability , mixed used development and public transit was king. It took decades to change to suburbia and we can go in the opposite direction. We need to try to add public transit to suburbia if it’s possible.