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Modern Marvels, "Transcontinental Railroads"
Modern Marvels, "Transcontinental Railroads"
In the 1860s, two rival workforces attempted what many deemed impossible: to link the vast American continent with a transcontinental rail line. Men of vision - and men of greed - took on titanic challenges of engineering as they sought to lay 1,700 miles of track across untamed wilderness and extreme terrain.This episode of Modern Marvels traces the dramatic story of how the Union Pacific Railroad Company built east from Nebraska - and the Central Pacific forged west from California. For each mile of track laid, each company would earn generous government land grants and subsidies. With no rendezvous point specified, the corporate competitors were pitted in a great race to hurl as much track across the country as possible.Daunting obstacles faced both builders. On the Great Plains, the Union Pacific confronted Native American tribes fighting desperately to protect their territory and their way of life. In California, the Central Pacific smacked head-on into the mighty Sierra Nevada mountains. The Union Pacific's workers teemed with Civil War veterans, traveling in an innovative "city on wheels." And the Central Pacific was dominated by thousands of immigrants from China, forced to dig snow tunnels to survive the Sierra's harsh winters.Crossing America's frontier with towering trestles, long tunnels and tracks stretching to the horizon, the two great labor forces were destined to meet at a desolate spot in Utah called Promontory Summit. When a ceremonial spike was driven the...
AmazonUnbox | February 4, 1996
