What a Way to Run a Railroad Trivia Quiz

Answer: Abraham Lincoln

The idea of an act to create a transcontinental railroad was grounded in several core beliefs and needs. The railroad would bind the Union together, politically and geographically. It would help economic growth by creating a national market for goods. It would help westward expansion by reducing cross-country travel time from months to under a week. And the telegraph line running next to it would drastically improve communication across the land.

The Pacific Railroad Act, signed on July 1, 1862 by President Lincoln, granted two companies the right to build the railroad and an accompanying telegraph line. The Central Pacific Railroad was tasked with building eastward from Sacramento, California, and the Union Pacific Railroad was to build westward from Omaha, Nebraska.

The companies would receive vast grants of public land along the right-of-way that they could sell to settlers to help fund the construction. They also got 30-year, low-interest government loans. These incentivized goals spurred a rapid, competitive construction effort between the companies. Construction was started at each end with the goal to complete it by 1876.

Answer: US Civil War

The Central Pacific Railroad broke ground on January 8, 1863, in Sacramento, California. Despite recent flooding in the area, a crowd of dignitaries and citizens gathered for the ceremony. A ceremonial shovel of dirt was turned by California Governor and Central Pacific President Leland Stanford and various speeches were made.

The Union Pacific Railroad had their ceremony on December 2, 1863, in Omaha in the Nebraska Territory. The event was a large public gathering attended by the Governor of the Nebraska Territory and mayors of both Omaha and Council Bluffs, Iowa.

However, both companies faced significant challenges in actually starting the work due to the ongoing American Civil War that was still raging. For the Central Pacific, the war created an acute labor shortage in California, as men were off fighting or seeking fortunes in the gold and silver mines. And acquiring materials was difficult and expensive for them as all iron rails, spikes, and equipment had to be shipped around Cape Horn or across the Isthmus of Panama, a long sea voyage that incurred high war-risk insurance costs. For the Union Pacific, war made them struggle to obtain financial backing and a reliable workforce. They also lacked a direct rail link to the eastern network at Omaha during the war, making the transport of materials difficult.

Answer: Chinese

With white workers scarce in California, the Central Pacific was desperate for labor. They advertised for 5,000 men but only received a fraction of that number in applicants. Chief of construction Charles Crocker convinced reluctant superintendent James Harvey Strobridge to begin hiring Chinese immigrants who had arrived during the Gold Rush. Strobridge initially believed the Chinese were too physically slight for the hard labor, but Crocker famously retorted, "Did they not build the Chinese Wall, the biggest piece of masonry in the world?"

The initial test group of 50 Chinese men showed them to be exceptional workers. They were soon organized into effective gangs under their own cooks and foremen, proving to be reliable, punctual, and hardworking. They also took on some of the most dangerous and difficult tasks. By 1868, the Chinese comprised more than 90% of the Central Pacific's total workforce, despite being paid significantly less than their white counterparts.

Answer: Timber

The initial challenge for the Union Pacific was the sheer emptiness of the plains. There were no trees for ties and little water in some sections. All materials had to be shipped up the Missouri River until the rail line extended far enough to transport them by train. With the plains almost barren of suitable timber, the railroad had to either import better wood or "burnettize" soft cottonwood (treat it with zinc chloride) to make it usable, adding another logistical burden.

The most abundant "resource" the Union Pacific had was the massive amount of relatively flat, open land, which allowed for rapid track laying once materials and labor were secured. This was in direct contrast to the Central Pacific who was looking at granite cliffs and steep grades in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

Answer: $35

The work for both companies was extremely demanding for the labor force. On the west coast, the Central Pacific was doing almost all the work in the mountains by hand with picks, shovels, wheelbarrows, and baskets. They were also facing snowfalls, avalanches, and frostbite in the winter. The Union Pacific dealt with unsanitary living conditions in "moving towns" of portable bunkhouses, where waterborne illnesses were common. Workers there faced scorching summer heat in the desert terrain, which caused heat stroke and dehydration.

White workers were paid $35 per month by each company and it often included room and board. Non-whites were paid $27 per month and had to provide their own room and board. This resulted in an 1867 labor strike for the Central Pacific which helped wages gradually rise. Overall, the pay was generally considered low given the extreme risk to life and limb and the grueling physical labor involved in literally carving a path across the country.

Answer: Build tunnels through it

Fifteen tunnels were built through the Sierra Nevadas, including the challenging area of the Donner Pass where the railroad created the Summit Tunnel.

The completion of the 1,659-foot (505 meter) Summit Tunnel through solid granite was a pivotal achievement for the railroad and a major engineering feat of the time. The tunnel took over a year of painstaking, round-the-clock labor. Crews had to bore through solid, hard granite with, at first, hand drills and black powder and later with nitroglycerin. There was also brutal weather to contend with that included blizzards and massive snow drifts.

To speed up work, the engineers sank a vertical shaft in the middle of the tunnel's route. This allowed work to proceed simultaneously in four directions-eastward and westward from the shaft's base, as well as inward from the two mountain faces. Once the tunnel was completed in late summer 1867, it marked the beginning of rapid track laying across the relatively flatter terrain of Nevada toward the meeting point with the Union Pacific.

Answer: Sioux

The building of the railroad caused many issues with Native American tribes. It was built through the traditional territories of over a dozen tribal nations, often without negotiation or in violation of existing treaties. The construction destroyed natural resources, including the killing of bison. It brought in even more settlers and intruders on their land.

All of the issues created conflicts between the tribes and the railroads. Native Americans conducted raids on work crews, stole livestock, and sabotaged the tracks. In separate incidents in 1867 and 1868, raiding parties successfully derailed trains and handcars. The Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho were the primary tribes involved in these conflicts, often acting in concert.

The U.S. government benefited from long-held inter-tribal conflicts by hiring hundreds of Pawnee, who acted as scouts and protection forces alongside the U.S. Army against their rivals.

Answer: Crédit Mobilier scandal

Union Pacific executives, led by Vice President Thomas C. Durant, essentially hired themselves to build the eastern portion of the railroad by creating a sham construction company called "Crédit Mobilier". This fake company then overcharged the Union Pacific Railroad for construction costs and expenses, billing $94 million for a job that actually cost around $50 million. The difference went right into the pockets of the executives.

Influential members of Congress were bribed to look the other way by selling them shares of Crédit Mobilier stock at bargain basement prices. The scandal was exposed to the public by the "New York Sun" newspaper in September 1872 and caused widespread public distrust of Congress, the government, and big business during the Gilded Age.

Answer: 12 hours

The Union Pacific had previously laid 8.5 miles (13.6 km) in one day, a record the Central Pacific was determined to beat in its rival throughout the project. Central Pacific waited until the lines were close enough that the Union Pacific wouldn't have enough distance left to retaliate and began. Materials were pre-staged and around 1000 men joined the task.

An elite crew of eight Irish rail-layers, supported by hundreds of laborers performing tasks like spiking, bolting, and surfacing, moved at a pace of nearly a mile (1.6 km) per hour. The site where they stopped for lunch was aptly named "Camp Victory". Workers that day handled over 4.4 million pounds of material, including 25,800 ties, 3,520 rails, and 55,000 spikes. At the end of the 12-hour work day, a locomotive was run over the new track to prove the quality and soundness of the work.

Answer: Utah Territory

The "Golden Spike Ceremony," also known as the "Wedding of the Rails," took place on May 10, 1869, at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory, a remote location north of the Great Salt Lake. An estimated 500-1,000 people gathered, including railroad officials, workers, five companies of U.S. Army soldiers, and members of the public. The Central Pacific's locomotive "Jupiter" and the Union Pacific's locomotive "No. 119" were brought nose-to-nose on the last section of track for the ceremony and photographs.

The actual driving of the "last spike" was symbolic. Central Pacific President Leland Stanford and Union Pacific Vice President Thomas Durant each took a swing with a silver-plated hammer, but both missed the spike. A regular rail worker eventually drove a standard iron spike into a wired tie. At 12:47 p.m. local time, the single word "D-O-N-E" was flashed across the country on the new telegraph lines, setting off celebrations in cities from Washington D.C. to San Francisco.