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On this day, May 10, 1869, Omaha and Sacramento were linked by rail, but there was still no transcontinental railroad.
It wasn't really a transcontinental railroad, as there was still a river to cross in Sacramento to complete an all-rail route to the Pacific. Also, there was no bridge across the Missouri River between Council Bluffs, Iowa, and Omaha, Nebraska. But never mind that.
UTAH | HOME
Cheers greet trains as thousands gather to mark 150th anniversary of transcontinental railroad
By Amy Joi O'Donoghue | @amyjoi16 | May 10, 2019, 3:12pm MDT
PROMONTORY SUMMIT, Box Elder — Thousands of people are making their way to Golden Spike National Historical Park Friday morning to mark the 150th anniversary of the driving of the golden spike that marked the completion of the transcontinental railroad.
The celebration begins with a ceremony that tells the story of the building of the first transcontinental railroad and recognizes the thousands of workers whose efforts made the railroad a reality.
The official ceremony begins just before 11 a.m. Tickets for the park are sold out for Friday and Saturday.
{snip}
Cheers greet trains as thousands gather to mark 150th anniversary of transcontinental railroad
By Amy Joi O'Donoghue | @amyjoi16 | May 10, 2019, 3:12pm MDT
PROMONTORY SUMMIT, Box Elder — Thousands of people are making their way to Golden Spike National Historical Park Friday morning to mark the 150th anniversary of the driving of the golden spike that marked the completion of the transcontinental railroad.
The celebration begins with a ceremony that tells the story of the building of the first transcontinental railroad and recognizes the thousands of workers whose efforts made the railroad a reality.
The official ceremony begins just before 11 a.m. Tickets for the park are sold out for Friday and Saturday.
{snip}
Editorial: 150 years ago, the nation united by a golden spike
May 10, 2019
The ceremony to celebrate the driving of “the golden spike,” the last link in North America’s first transcontinental railroad, which took place 150 years ago today — May 10, 1869 at Promontory Point, Utah. The two men shaking hands in the center are Samuel S. Montague, Central Pacific Railroad (center left) and Grenville M. Dodge of the Union Pacific Railroad (center right). Notice the liquor bottles that the men hanging from the front of the locomotives are showing off. Those bottles were later removed from some photos, in deference to the temperance movement. Our editorial at left looks at the significance of the event — the railroad, not the airbrushing of the liquor bottles.
Courtesy of Yale University libraries
They huddled in telegraph offices across the country, from small towns all the way up to government offices in Washington. For 27 long minutes, the whole nation seemed to fall silent. Telegraph operators were told to stand down from sending any traffic so as to keep the lines clear as everyone waited for that one special sound.
One hundred and fifty years ago today, the United States witnessed what might qualify as its first mass media event. In the century and a half to come, Americans would gather around their televisions to watch a man step onto the moon, or any number of televised spectaculars and horrors. But on the afternoon of May 10, 1869, they gathered in telegraph offices listening for a series of clicks that said nothing but also said everything.
More than half a continent away, on a remote stretch of Utah desert, an event that would transform the nation was taking place. From the west came a locomotive from the Union Pacific; from the east came one from the Central Pacific. There they sat, nearly cow-catcher to cow-catcher. Between them lay the last gap of what would soon become North America’s first transcontinental railroad. The pounding of the ceremonial “golden spike” would unite the nation, both symbolically and literally. As with many things, this was a story driven by politics, graft and, in the end, some theatrics and maybe even a little of what today we’d call “fake news.”
Being Virginians, we must start with Thomas Jefferson. His Louisiana Purchase didn’t extend all the way to the West Coast but Meriwether Lewis and William Clark went there anyway. The precise status of the Pacific Northwest remained in dispute for several decades, claimed by both the U.S. and Great Britain. Jefferson, though, was skeptical that it would wind up with either. He thought the Northwest would become “a great, free, and independent empire on that side of our continent.”
That didn’t happen, but the Mexican War did. Suddenly the United States owned a big swath of the West Coast. That was 1848. Just a week before American ownership of California became official, gold was discovered. The gold rush was on — along with a political debate about how to create a transportation network to unite a nation that spanned an entire continent. In practical terms, that meant a railroad but in even more practical terms, the question was where? In those pre-Civil War days, the North wanted a northern route. The South wanted a southern route. Nothing much got done. Then came the Civil War.
You might think that the war would have complicated things. Actually, the war simplified them. There were no longer any Southerners in Congress to object to a non-southern route. The Civil War Congress was also run by Republicans. That new political party had been formed primarily as an anti-slavery party, but it was also the national infrastructure party. One of its lesser-known planks had been to endorse a transcontinental railroad. In 1862, President Lincoln signed the Pacific Railroad Act, which set in motion the entire enterprise. The act also settled on a route safely away from pesky Southerners.
{snip}
The lines met at Promontory Summit, not Promontory Point. Also, the Central Pacific came into Promontory Summit from the west and the Union Pacific from the east. They did quickly alter the original title, which said that 2019 was the 100th anniversary of the event. Details:
At the ceremony for the driving of the "Last Spike" at Promontory Summit, Utah, May 10, 1869. Andrew J. Russell (1830-1902), photographer
A.J. Russell image of the celebration following the driving of the "Last Spike" at Promontory Summit, U.T., May 10, 1869. Because of temperance feelings the liquor bottles held in the center of the picture were removed from some later prints.
A week later, they began service.
Display ads for the CPRR and UPRR the week the rails were joined on May 10, 1869
There was no bridge across the Missouri River until 1873:
The western end did not reach the Pacific Ocean at first either:
Wikipedia: Golden spike
Eighty years later, this is the terrain that was crossed:
{The link went bad quite some time ago. I'll find another one that works.}
Try this:
Wed May 10, 2023: On this day, May 10, 1869, a railroad from Omaha to Sacramento was completed, but not a transcon.
Tue May 10, 2022: On this day, May 10, 1869, the transcontinental railroad was not really completed.
Mon May 10, 2021: On this day, May 10, 1869, the transcontinental railroad was not really completed.
Sun May 10, 2020: Happy 151th anniversary, the (not really) transcontinental railroad
Fri May 10, 2019: Happy 150th anniversary, the (not really) transcontinental railroad
Thu May 9, 2019: Happy 50th anniversary, the Golden Spike Centennial Limited
Fri Aug 17, 2018: Happy 50th anniversary, the light-off of restored steam locomotive Nickel Plate Road 759
Thu May 10, 2018: Happy 149th anniversary, railroad from Omaha to Sacramento, but not the Atlantic to the Pacific
Tue May 10, 2016: Happy 147th Birthday, Transcontinental Railroad.
Sat Mar 12, 2016: At the Throttle: Does anybody really know what time it is?
Fri May 10, 2013: Happy 144th Birthday, Transcontinental Railroad!!!
May 10, 2019
The ceremony to celebrate the driving of “the golden spike,” the last link in North America’s first transcontinental railroad, which took place 150 years ago today — May 10, 1869 at Promontory Point, Utah. The two men shaking hands in the center are Samuel S. Montague, Central Pacific Railroad (center left) and Grenville M. Dodge of the Union Pacific Railroad (center right). Notice the liquor bottles that the men hanging from the front of the locomotives are showing off. Those bottles were later removed from some photos, in deference to the temperance movement. Our editorial at left looks at the significance of the event — the railroad, not the airbrushing of the liquor bottles.
Courtesy of Yale University libraries
They huddled in telegraph offices across the country, from small towns all the way up to government offices in Washington. For 27 long minutes, the whole nation seemed to fall silent. Telegraph operators were told to stand down from sending any traffic so as to keep the lines clear as everyone waited for that one special sound.
One hundred and fifty years ago today, the United States witnessed what might qualify as its first mass media event. In the century and a half to come, Americans would gather around their televisions to watch a man step onto the moon, or any number of televised spectaculars and horrors. But on the afternoon of May 10, 1869, they gathered in telegraph offices listening for a series of clicks that said nothing but also said everything.
More than half a continent away, on a remote stretch of Utah desert, an event that would transform the nation was taking place. From the west came a locomotive from the Union Pacific; from the east came one from the Central Pacific. There they sat, nearly cow-catcher to cow-catcher. Between them lay the last gap of what would soon become North America’s first transcontinental railroad. The pounding of the ceremonial “golden spike” would unite the nation, both symbolically and literally. As with many things, this was a story driven by politics, graft and, in the end, some theatrics and maybe even a little of what today we’d call “fake news.”
Being Virginians, we must start with Thomas Jefferson. His Louisiana Purchase didn’t extend all the way to the West Coast but Meriwether Lewis and William Clark went there anyway. The precise status of the Pacific Northwest remained in dispute for several decades, claimed by both the U.S. and Great Britain. Jefferson, though, was skeptical that it would wind up with either. He thought the Northwest would become “a great, free, and independent empire on that side of our continent.”
That didn’t happen, but the Mexican War did. Suddenly the United States owned a big swath of the West Coast. That was 1848. Just a week before American ownership of California became official, gold was discovered. The gold rush was on — along with a political debate about how to create a transportation network to unite a nation that spanned an entire continent. In practical terms, that meant a railroad but in even more practical terms, the question was where? In those pre-Civil War days, the North wanted a northern route. The South wanted a southern route. Nothing much got done. Then came the Civil War.
You might think that the war would have complicated things. Actually, the war simplified them. There were no longer any Southerners in Congress to object to a non-southern route. The Civil War Congress was also run by Republicans. That new political party had been formed primarily as an anti-slavery party, but it was also the national infrastructure party. One of its lesser-known planks had been to endorse a transcontinental railroad. In 1862, President Lincoln signed the Pacific Railroad Act, which set in motion the entire enterprise. The act also settled on a route safely away from pesky Southerners.
{snip}
The lines met at Promontory Summit, not Promontory Point. Also, the Central Pacific came into Promontory Summit from the west and the Union Pacific from the east. They did quickly alter the original title, which said that 2019 was the 100th anniversary of the event. Details:
At the ceremony for the driving of the "Last Spike" at Promontory Summit, Utah, May 10, 1869. Andrew J. Russell (1830-1902), photographer
A.J. Russell image of the celebration following the driving of the "Last Spike" at Promontory Summit, U.T., May 10, 1869. Because of temperance feelings the liquor bottles held in the center of the picture were removed from some later prints.
First Transcontinental Railroad
The First Transcontinental Railroad {known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the "Overland Route"} was a 1,907-mile (3,069 km) contiguous railroad line constructed in the United States between 1863 and 1869 west of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers to connect the Pacific coast at San Francisco Bay with the existing eastern U.S. rail network at Council Bluffs, Iowa. The rail line was built by three private companies largely financed by government bonds and huge land grants: the original Western Pacific Railroad Company between Oakland and Sacramento, California (132 mi or 212 km), the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California eastward from Sacramento to Promontory Summit, Utah Territory (U.T.) (690 mi or 1,110 km), and the Union Pacific westward to Promontory Summit from the road's statutory Eastern terminus at Council Bluffs on the eastern shore of the Missouri River opposite Omaha, Nebraska (1,085 mi or 1,746 km).
Opened for through traffic on May 10, 1869, with the ceremonial driving of the "Last Spike" (later often called the "Golden Spike" ) with a silver hammer at Promontory Summit, the road established a mechanized transcontinental transportation network that revolutionized the settlement and economy of the American West by bringing these western states and territories firmly and profitably into the "Union" and making goods and transportation much quicker, cheaper, and more flexible from coast to coast.
{snip}
The First Transcontinental Railroad {known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the "Overland Route"} was a 1,907-mile (3,069 km) contiguous railroad line constructed in the United States between 1863 and 1869 west of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers to connect the Pacific coast at San Francisco Bay with the existing eastern U.S. rail network at Council Bluffs, Iowa. The rail line was built by three private companies largely financed by government bonds and huge land grants: the original Western Pacific Railroad Company between Oakland and Sacramento, California (132 mi or 212 km), the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California eastward from Sacramento to Promontory Summit, Utah Territory (U.T.) (690 mi or 1,110 km), and the Union Pacific westward to Promontory Summit from the road's statutory Eastern terminus at Council Bluffs on the eastern shore of the Missouri River opposite Omaha, Nebraska (1,085 mi or 1,746 km).
Opened for through traffic on May 10, 1869, with the ceremonial driving of the "Last Spike" (later often called the "Golden Spike" ) with a silver hammer at Promontory Summit, the road established a mechanized transcontinental transportation network that revolutionized the settlement and economy of the American West by bringing these western states and territories firmly and profitably into the "Union" and making goods and transportation much quicker, cheaper, and more flexible from coast to coast.
{snip}
A week later, they began service.
Display ads for the CPRR and UPRR the week the rails were joined on May 10, 1869
There was no bridge across the Missouri River until 1873:
Union Pacific route
The Union Pacific's 1,087 miles (1,749 km) of track started at MP 0.0 in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on the eastern side of the Missouri River. This was chosen by the President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, as the location of its Transfer Depot where up to seven railroads could transfer mail and other goods to Union Pacific trains bound for the west. Initially trains crossed the river by ferry to get to the western tracks starting in Omaha, Nebraska, in the newly formed Nebraska Territory. Winter and spring caused severe problems as the Missouri River froze over in the winter; but not well enough to support a railroad track plus train. The train ferries had to be replaced by sleighs each winter. Getting freight across a river that flooded every spring and filled with floating debris and/or ice floes became very problematic for several months of the year. (Starting in 1873, the railroad traffic crossed the river over the new 2,750 feet (840 m) long, eleven span, truss Union Pacific Missouri River Bridge to Omaha, Nebraska.)
{snip}
The Union Pacific's 1,087 miles (1,749 km) of track started at MP 0.0 in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on the eastern side of the Missouri River. This was chosen by the President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, as the location of its Transfer Depot where up to seven railroads could transfer mail and other goods to Union Pacific trains bound for the west. Initially trains crossed the river by ferry to get to the western tracks starting in Omaha, Nebraska, in the newly formed Nebraska Territory. Winter and spring caused severe problems as the Missouri River froze over in the winter; but not well enough to support a railroad track plus train. The train ferries had to be replaced by sleighs each winter. Getting freight across a river that flooded every spring and filled with floating debris and/or ice floes became very problematic for several months of the year. (Starting in 1873, the railroad traffic crossed the river over the new 2,750 feet (840 m) long, eleven span, truss Union Pacific Missouri River Bridge to Omaha, Nebraska.)
{snip}
The western end did not reach the Pacific Ocean at first either:
Aftermath
Railroad developments
When the last spike was driven, the rail network was not yet connected to the Atlantic or Pacific but merely connected Omaha to Sacramento. To get from Sacramento to the Pacific, the Central Pacific purchased the struggling Western Pacific Railroad (unrelated to the railroad of the same name that would later parallel its route) and resumed construction on it, which had halted in 1866 due to funding troubles. In November 1869, the Central Pacific finally connected Sacramento to the east side of San Francisco Bay by rail at Oakland, California, where freight and passengers completed their transcontinental link to the city by ferry.
{snip}
Railroad developments
When the last spike was driven, the rail network was not yet connected to the Atlantic or Pacific but merely connected Omaha to Sacramento. To get from Sacramento to the Pacific, the Central Pacific purchased the struggling Western Pacific Railroad (unrelated to the railroad of the same name that would later parallel its route) and resumed construction on it, which had halted in 1866 due to funding troubles. In November 1869, the Central Pacific finally connected Sacramento to the east side of San Francisco Bay by rail at Oakland, California, where freight and passengers completed their transcontinental link to the city by ferry.
{snip}
Wikipedia: Golden spike
Eighty years later, this is the terrain that was crossed:
{The link went bad quite some time ago. I'll find another one that works.}
Try this:
UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD BIG BOY STEAM LOCOMOTIVE FILM 71522
658,051 views • Apr 7, 2015
PeriscopeFilm
296K subscribers
Support Our Channel : https://www.patreon.com/PeriscopeFilm
A tribute to the "Big Boy" locomotives produced by Union Pacific, "Last of the Giants" shows the end of a memorable era in Western Railroading. The "Big Boy" is the popular name of the American Locomotive Company 4000-class 4-8-8-4 articulated, coal-fired, steam locomotives manufactured between 1941 and 1944 and operated by the Union Pacific Railroad until 1959.
658,051 views • Apr 7, 2015
PeriscopeFilm
296K subscribers
Support Our Channel : https://www.patreon.com/PeriscopeFilm
A tribute to the "Big Boy" locomotives produced by Union Pacific, "Last of the Giants" shows the end of a memorable era in Western Railroading. The "Big Boy" is the popular name of the American Locomotive Company 4000-class 4-8-8-4 articulated, coal-fired, steam locomotives manufactured between 1941 and 1944 and operated by the Union Pacific Railroad until 1959.
Wed May 10, 2023: On this day, May 10, 1869, a railroad from Omaha to Sacramento was completed, but not a transcon.
Tue May 10, 2022: On this day, May 10, 1869, the transcontinental railroad was not really completed.
Mon May 10, 2021: On this day, May 10, 1869, the transcontinental railroad was not really completed.
Sun May 10, 2020: Happy 151th anniversary, the (not really) transcontinental railroad
Fri May 10, 2019: Happy 150th anniversary, the (not really) transcontinental railroad
Thu May 9, 2019: Happy 50th anniversary, the Golden Spike Centennial Limited
Fri Aug 17, 2018: Happy 50th anniversary, the light-off of restored steam locomotive Nickel Plate Road 759
Thu May 10, 2018: Happy 149th anniversary, railroad from Omaha to Sacramento, but not the Atlantic to the Pacific
Tue May 10, 2016: Happy 147th Birthday, Transcontinental Railroad.
Sat Mar 12, 2016: At the Throttle: Does anybody really know what time it is?
Fri May 10, 2013: Happy 144th Birthday, Transcontinental Railroad!!!
2 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
And you could have done that in 1855.
Panama Canal Railway
Coordinates: 8.97702°N 79.56773°W
Panama Canal Railway Company
Current Panama Canal Railway line
Overview
Dates of operation: January 28, 1855; 169 years ago–Present
Technical
Track gauge: 1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1?2 in) standard gauge
Previous gauge: 5 ft (1,524 mm)
Length: 76.6 km (47.6 mi)
Other
Website: panarail.com
The Panama Canal Railway (PCR, Spanish: Ferrocarril de Panamá) is a railway line linking the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean in Central America. The route stretches 47.6 miles (76.6 km) across the Isthmus of Panama from Colón (Atlantic) to Balboa (Pacific, near Panama City). Because of the difficult physical conditions of the route and state of technology, the construction was renowned as an international engineering achievement, one that cost US$8 million and the lives of an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 workers. Opened in 1855, the railway preceded the Panama Canal by half a century; the railway was vital in assisting the construction of the canal in the early 1900s. With the opening of the canal, the railroad's route was changed as a result of the creation of Gatun Lake, which flooded part of the original route. Following World War II, the railroad's importance declined and much of it fell into a state of neglect until 1998, when a project to rebuild the railroad to haul intermodal traffic began; the new railroad opened in 2001.
{snip}
1855 Panama Railroad
Construction
In January 1849, Aspinwall hired Colonel George W. Hughes to lead a survey party and pick a proposed Panama Railroad roadbed to Panama City. The eventual survey turned out to be full of errors, omissions, and optimistic forecasts, which made it of little use. In April 1849, William Henry Aspinwall was chosen head of the Panama Railroad company, which was incorporated in the State of New York and initially raised $1,000,000 in capital.
In early 1850, George Law, owner of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, bought up the options of the land from the mouth of the Chagres River to the end of Navy Bay in order to force the directors of the new Panama Railroad to give him a position on the board of the company. Since there were no harbor facilities on the Atlantic side of the isthmus, they needed to create a town with docking facilities to unload their railroad supplies there. Refusing to allow Law onto the board, the directors decided to start building harbor facilities, an Atlantic terminus, and their railroad from the vacant site of Manzanillo Island. Starting in May 1850, what would become the city of Aspinwall (now Colón) was founded on 650 acres (260 ha) on the western end of Manzanillo Island, a treacherously marshy islet covered with mangrove trees.
{snip}
In May 1850, the first preparations were begun on Manzanillo Island, and the start of the roadway was partially cleared of trees and jungle on the mainland. Quickly, the difficulty of the scheme became apparent. The initial 8 miles (13 km) of the proposed route passed through a jungle of gelatinous swamps infested with alligators, the heat was stifling, mosquitoes and sandflies were everywhere, and deluges of up to 3 yards (2.7 m) of rain for almost half the year required some workers to work in swamp water up to four feet deep. When they tried to build a railroad near Aspinwall, the swamps were apparently deep, often requiring over 200 feet (60 m) of gravel backfill to secure a roadbed. Fortunately, they had found a quarry near Porto Bello, Panama, so they could load sandstone onto barges and tow it to Aspinwall to get the backfill needed to build the roadbed.
{snip}
Railway at Culebra Summit Station, 1854
In January 1854, excavation began at the summit of the Continental Divide at the Culebra Cut, where the earth had to be cut from 20 feet (6 m) to 40 feet (12 m) deep over a distance of about 2,500 feet (760 m). Several months were spent digging. In March 1854, 700 Chinese laborers arrived to work for the Panama Railroad Company. Decades later, the Panama Canal project required years to cut through this area deeply enough for a canal. The road over the crest of the continental divide at Culebra was completed from the Atlantic side in January 1855; 37 miles (60 km) of track having been laid from Aspinwall (Colón). A second team, working under less harsh conditions with railroad track, ties, railroad cars, steam locomotives, and other supplies brought around Cape Horn by ship, completed its 11 miles (18 km) of track from Panama City to the summit from the Pacific side of the isthmus at the same time.
On a rainy midnight on January 27, 1855, lit by sputtering whale oil lamps, the last rail was set in place on pine crossties. Chief engineer George Totten, in pouring rain with a nine-pound maul, drove the spike that completed the railroad. The next day the first locomotive with freight and passenger cars passed from sea to sea. The huge project was completed.
Example of the original construction 53 lb/yd (26 kg/m) inverted "U" rail, "screw" spike, and lignum-vitae hardwood tie used to build the Panama Railroad after 1855
Upon completion the railroad stretched 47 miles, 3,020 feet (76 km), with a maximum grade of 60 feet to the mile (11.4 m/km, or 1.14%). The summit grade, located 37.38 miles (60.16 km) from the Atlantic and 10.2 miles (16.4 km) from the Pacific, was 258.64 feet (78.83 m) above the assumed grade at the Atlantic terminus and 242.7 feet (74.0 m) above that at the Pacific, being 263.9 feet (80.4 m) above the mean tide of the Atlantic Ocean and the summit ridge 287 feet (87 m) above the same level. The gauge was 5 ft (1,524 mm) in 53 lb/yd (26 kg/m), ?-shaped rail. This gauge was that of the southern United States railway companies at the time. This gauge was converted to standard in the United States in May 1886 after the American Civil War, and remained in use in Panama until the railroad was rebuilt in 2001.
{snip}
Coordinates: 8.97702°N 79.56773°W
Panama Canal Railway Company
Current Panama Canal Railway line
Overview
Dates of operation: January 28, 1855; 169 years ago–Present
Technical
Track gauge: 1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1?2 in) standard gauge
Previous gauge: 5 ft (1,524 mm)
Length: 76.6 km (47.6 mi)
Other
Website: panarail.com
The Panama Canal Railway (PCR, Spanish: Ferrocarril de Panamá) is a railway line linking the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean in Central America. The route stretches 47.6 miles (76.6 km) across the Isthmus of Panama from Colón (Atlantic) to Balboa (Pacific, near Panama City). Because of the difficult physical conditions of the route and state of technology, the construction was renowned as an international engineering achievement, one that cost US$8 million and the lives of an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 workers. Opened in 1855, the railway preceded the Panama Canal by half a century; the railway was vital in assisting the construction of the canal in the early 1900s. With the opening of the canal, the railroad's route was changed as a result of the creation of Gatun Lake, which flooded part of the original route. Following World War II, the railroad's importance declined and much of it fell into a state of neglect until 1998, when a project to rebuild the railroad to haul intermodal traffic began; the new railroad opened in 2001.
{snip}
1855 Panama Railroad
Construction
In January 1849, Aspinwall hired Colonel George W. Hughes to lead a survey party and pick a proposed Panama Railroad roadbed to Panama City. The eventual survey turned out to be full of errors, omissions, and optimistic forecasts, which made it of little use. In April 1849, William Henry Aspinwall was chosen head of the Panama Railroad company, which was incorporated in the State of New York and initially raised $1,000,000 in capital.
In early 1850, George Law, owner of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, bought up the options of the land from the mouth of the Chagres River to the end of Navy Bay in order to force the directors of the new Panama Railroad to give him a position on the board of the company. Since there were no harbor facilities on the Atlantic side of the isthmus, they needed to create a town with docking facilities to unload their railroad supplies there. Refusing to allow Law onto the board, the directors decided to start building harbor facilities, an Atlantic terminus, and their railroad from the vacant site of Manzanillo Island. Starting in May 1850, what would become the city of Aspinwall (now Colón) was founded on 650 acres (260 ha) on the western end of Manzanillo Island, a treacherously marshy islet covered with mangrove trees.
{snip}
In May 1850, the first preparations were begun on Manzanillo Island, and the start of the roadway was partially cleared of trees and jungle on the mainland. Quickly, the difficulty of the scheme became apparent. The initial 8 miles (13 km) of the proposed route passed through a jungle of gelatinous swamps infested with alligators, the heat was stifling, mosquitoes and sandflies were everywhere, and deluges of up to 3 yards (2.7 m) of rain for almost half the year required some workers to work in swamp water up to four feet deep. When they tried to build a railroad near Aspinwall, the swamps were apparently deep, often requiring over 200 feet (60 m) of gravel backfill to secure a roadbed. Fortunately, they had found a quarry near Porto Bello, Panama, so they could load sandstone onto barges and tow it to Aspinwall to get the backfill needed to build the roadbed.
{snip}
Railway at Culebra Summit Station, 1854
In January 1854, excavation began at the summit of the Continental Divide at the Culebra Cut, where the earth had to be cut from 20 feet (6 m) to 40 feet (12 m) deep over a distance of about 2,500 feet (760 m). Several months were spent digging. In March 1854, 700 Chinese laborers arrived to work for the Panama Railroad Company. Decades later, the Panama Canal project required years to cut through this area deeply enough for a canal. The road over the crest of the continental divide at Culebra was completed from the Atlantic side in January 1855; 37 miles (60 km) of track having been laid from Aspinwall (Colón). A second team, working under less harsh conditions with railroad track, ties, railroad cars, steam locomotives, and other supplies brought around Cape Horn by ship, completed its 11 miles (18 km) of track from Panama City to the summit from the Pacific side of the isthmus at the same time.
On a rainy midnight on January 27, 1855, lit by sputtering whale oil lamps, the last rail was set in place on pine crossties. Chief engineer George Totten, in pouring rain with a nine-pound maul, drove the spike that completed the railroad. The next day the first locomotive with freight and passenger cars passed from sea to sea. The huge project was completed.
Example of the original construction 53 lb/yd (26 kg/m) inverted "U" rail, "screw" spike, and lignum-vitae hardwood tie used to build the Panama Railroad after 1855
Upon completion the railroad stretched 47 miles, 3,020 feet (76 km), with a maximum grade of 60 feet to the mile (11.4 m/km, or 1.14%). The summit grade, located 37.38 miles (60.16 km) from the Atlantic and 10.2 miles (16.4 km) from the Pacific, was 258.64 feet (78.83 m) above the assumed grade at the Atlantic terminus and 242.7 feet (74.0 m) above that at the Pacific, being 263.9 feet (80.4 m) above the mean tide of the Atlantic Ocean and the summit ridge 287 feet (87 m) above the same level. The gauge was 5 ft (1,524 mm) in 53 lb/yd (26 kg/m), ?-shaped rail. This gauge was that of the southern United States railway companies at the time. This gauge was converted to standard in the United States in May 1886 after the American Civil War, and remained in use in Panama until the railroad was rebuilt in 2001.
{snip}