What effect does the trancontinental RR have on America today?

Question

Hey. I'm writing a report in my History class on what effects the Railroads have on America today. Does anyone have any cool facts or good websites for me to find this out. We are talking about the late 1800's when the railroads first started. Thanks!

:)

Answer 1

I think hoghead explained it pretty well! Without railroads, our country would be a wreck!

Answer 2

Hoghead is right on the money.  Here a few fun filled facts that may help you and your group.

The Golden Spike ceremony was held on May 10 1869.  At Promitary Utah.  But that is not where the two railroads met.  They met a few miles away in a farmer's field.

The Central Pacific later became the Southern Pacific.

Labourers from the opsoing railway's would often brawl with each other in town.  (The AT&SF and D&RGW sometimes even shot at each other)

Most school text books are wrong when it shows the land grants for the rail roads.(Found this in an old book published in the 1940's.  It had a map of what the text books showed and one for the actual land grants.  The railways recieved less then what most text books show.  I campered this with our new text books and they were still wrong)

our time zones are a result of railroads

Answer 3

The question is a bit hazy.  On one hand, you speak of the transcontinental railroad system and its effect on today's America, yet mention the 19th century.  The two are linked, however.

North America’s rail network, including transcontinental routes, are the most important part of our transportation infrastructure.

From the coal fields of the east, to the steel mills of the northeast, the petro-chemical industry of the gulf coast, the grain fields of the mid-west, the timber industry of the southeast and northwest, the fruit and produce of the west, and the seaports of the east and west coast, none of it could move in quantities sufficient to support the needs of a population of 300 million.

Westward migration, as known in the 19th century, would still be under way.  The large urban centers of today would not be there, with out the ability to ship materials and finished products in the huge quantities necessary to support housing, fuel, and food to huge populations.

When taken in this context, the effects would be felt in demographics, quality of life, socio-political impact, economics and even education and health care.  Each and every part of our lives today would be affected without the rail networks, and not in a positive way.  Imagine paying $10 for an orange from Florida or California in northeast, if you could find one.  The same applies for a head of lettuce out of California’s San Juaquin valley or a loaf of bread that started in the wheat fields of the mid-west..

Fuel for your auto would be difficult to find, but it wouldn’t matter, because you’d be on a very long waiting list to even have an automobile to buy, with out the huge quantities of ore and fuels for the steel mills to produce the materials to build the cars in large quantities and in timely fashion, which will be shipped to its destination on a train.

Without the intermodal ability of today, our position in the global economy would be tenuous as well.  We import a tremendous amount of finished products from around the world, most notably from the countries of the Pacific Rim.  Again, the volume necessary to transport goods in suffieint quatities to support a large population just wouldn't be there.

On the socio-political front, it was America's industrial base that allowed for the production of goods and materials to have waged and won the second world war with our allies, including the ability to transport these materials, as well as the troops themselves on the troop trains of the era.  Who knows?  Without that capability, we may have all been speaking German and goose-stepping down the strasse today,  and you may have been in the Hitler Youth in addition to being in school.

No, this country, and others as well, just wouldn’t be the place we know today, which was born of the necessity and availability of transcontinental rail routes, the first built by the visionaries of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads, and President Lincoln who signed the Pacific Railway Act into law providing for some funding for the construction of the first transcontinental railroad, as well as other incentives for the two railroad companies who took on the challenge.

Heck.  You wouldn’t even be writing this report............

Answer 4

Try going to www.up.com there is alot of history there.