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Transcontinental Railroad Research Paper

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The first steam railroad locomotive was built by a British inventor, Richard Trevithick, in 1804. A mere sixty five years later, across the Atlantic Ocean, the First Transcontinental Railroad completed assembly. Never before had a train line traveled west past the Mississippi river. This rail route connected the American West with the rest of the continent. The West was embryonic before the transcontinental railroad. The American West was thinly populated territory that was not industrially advanced. The completion of the railroad allowed for a mammoth corpus of populace and goods to be shipped to and from the West at pioneering speed. Conveyance on the train tracks launched the West’s financial system. Physically and in print the West was …show more content…
Many people did not believe industry was developed enough and this idea was plausible. The doubts stemmed from the obstacles of finance, natural barriers such as the Rocky Mountains, the Sierra Mountains and the Mississippi River, and sheer impracticability. As years passed, the mass migration to the West especially due to the Gold Rush made the requisite for a transcontinental railroad crucial. “The project for construction of a great Railroad through the United States of America, connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific Ocean, has been in agitation for over fifteen years.” (Judah) In 1862 and 1864, the Pacific Railway Acts were passed which granted the railroad companies twelve million acres of land and twenty seven million dollars from the government to support the construction of the railroad. Railroads were not considered a government service, so they had to be built privately by companies. But the government supplied the railroad companies with land and money grants to build. In 1863, the Central; Pacific Railroad Company and the Union Pacific Railroad Company began construction. The building of this transcontinental monster was a challenging process. Not only was it costly, but also dangerous. Supplies and labor was very expensive for the production. To cut the wages for the labor force, the railroad companies recruited Chinese laborers to come work on the railroads. The workers had a …show more content…
Economical commerce gushed in the West. Before the railroad, the West was not exceptionally modernized, especially its economy. The railroad brought goods, people and ideas in exchange thus swelling the economy with ground-breaking business. Myriad markets were produced. A multiplicity of new goods and services were introduced. Domestic and foreign imports allowed for business to swell in the West. Also with the goods came a diversity of people and ideas that also created new markets. People were buying and selling tenfold and the economy benefited inestimably. Also the newfound ease of travel made copious scale conduction of business feasible thus advancing the economy supplementary. New wealth, resources and ideas preceded the West to industrialize. The First Transcontinental Railroad was an industrial feat that many people doubted along the way. The example set by the railroad inspired the West to industrialize. Materials and resources imported by the ton in addition to the brainwave of industrializing led to the modernizing of the West. New products were being manufactured and produced due to the railroad. Also public works and buildings were being constructed. The ideas exchanged because of the railroad directed the West towards industrializing and engineering which was profitable for the economy. The First Transcontinental Railroad emphatically expanding the economical commerce hence

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