The Great Railroad Revolution

by Christian Wolmar

  Neither battles, financial difficulties, Indian attacks, nor the tough terrain prevented the railroads in the West from expanding exponentially, thanks largely to the land-grant system. The pattern of development of these western railroads was generally to complete the main line and then add a network of branches, turning them into extensive systems reliant on the settlers they could attract to the farms that had to be, of necessity, within easy reach of the rail lines. The scale of growth was staggering. At the end of the Civil War, there had been just under 1,000 miles of railroad west of the line stretching between the eastern borders of the Dakotas and Texas; by the outbreak of the First World War, there would be more than 90,000 miles. These first railroads were lengthy affairs that aimed to reach the Pacific coast, since otherwise they would have ended up, quite literally, in the middle of nowhere. The line built by the Union & Central Pacific quickly spawned imitators. The next two transcontinentals opened in 1883, and inevitably both included the word Pacific in their names, which seemed to be de rigueur to convince investors to part with their money. The Southern Pacific, whose terminus was in Los Angeles, then a modest Mexican-style town, ran along the border with Mexico through New Mexico and Texas and eventually to New Orleans, the mouth of the Mississippi. It was the brainchild of the Big Four of the Central Pacific, who were reliant on expanding their rail network in order to allow them to pay off the debts incurred in building the original transcontinental. To them, railroad construction was like a giant Ponzi scheme:17 they had to keep building in order to disguise the fact that their company was in financial trouble— although, personally, they had all enriched themselves. The Southern Pacific was not a single line but rather a collection of existing railroads that the Big Four had built or purchased in California, and in 1907 it joined with the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway to form the Northwestern Pacific.

  The Santa Fe, however, having reached Chicago in the East, had been keen to push its own rails all the way to the Pacific and funded itself through the sale of land it had been granted by the government. Sales offices were set up, and potential buyers were lured with cheap rail tickets— whose cost would be discounted from any future purchase, a clever strategy that brought in immediate cash and potential passengers. Despite its name, the railroad actually bypassed Santa Fe—which would later become the state capital of New Mexico—because the terrain was too difficult and instead continued west toward the Pacific. Eventually, a branch line did connect the railroad with its eponymous town. The main line of the Santa Fe extended as far as Deming, New Mexico, from where, under an agreement with the Southern Pacific, its trains were able to reach Los Angeles and the Pacific. This provided a connection between the interior of the United States and Australia, one of its key markets, that was 1,400 miles shorter than the route via San Francisco. Extension to the Pacific made the Santa Fe briefly the longest railroad in the world (until the Trans-Siberian was completed around the turn of the century). Later it acquired or built several other lines in California to ensure access to several ports. Consequently, despite its late start and a bankruptcy in 1893, when many other railroads went under because of an economic downturn, the Santa Fe would become the most successful of the transcontinental lines. A key factor was that it eventually had control of its own metals all the way between Chicago and the West Coast, whereas other companies had to use tracks belonging to other railroads, which would invariably prioritize their own services.

  Meanwhile, two other transcontinental railroads had been built to the north. These were epic affairs, on a scale with the original transcontinental. The Northern Pacific was a completely separate enterprise from its southern namesake and one that suffered, like its predecessor, from constant cash shortages that delayed progress. On the same day in July 1864 that Durant’s bribery had obtained from Congress those generous arrangements for the financing of the Union Pacific, the lawmakers also granted a charter and land to a second transcontinental railroad, with a route from the shores of Lake Superior in Minnesota to the northern Pacific coast. Whereas the first transcontinental had been completed within five years, it would take nearly two decades to build the Northern Pacific, not least because its construction was even more demanding than that of its predecessor. History has a habit of being unfair to runners-up, and the story of the Northern Pacific is rarely told. It was a massive enterprise, passing through territory that General Sherman said was “as bad as God ever made or any one could scare up this side of Africa,” which may explain why the land grant was even more generous than for the Union Pacific, totaling a staggering 46 million acres (71,852 square miles, larger than the state of Missouri).18 Built by a single company, unlike the original line, which required two, the Northern Pacific was the biggest railroad enterprise undertaken up to that date. The line progressed well initially, stretching nearly 500 miles from its starting point at a junction in Minnesota to Bismarck, North Dakota, on the Missouri River, but there it stalled for several years following the 1873 financial panic. The line, which had a checkered history, having been at one time controlled by the railroad baron Jay Cooke, and then fallen into bankruptcy, was taken over by Henry Villard, a German immigrant and reporter who had covered the Civil War. He managed to raise $8 million from investors and restart construction initially from the West, where he had gained control of the Oregon Central Railroad, but later work proceeded from both ends. With a workforce of twenty-five thousand men, more than on the original transcontinental, half of whom were Chinese, the line was completed in September 1883 when the two teams eventually met at the appropriately named Gold Creek, Montana, and celebrated with the usual gold spike ceremony.

  The achievement of building the Northern Pacific was matched by that of the Great Northern, which ran parallel to it, hugging the Canadian border. Remarkably, the Great Northern was built without the benefit of the generous land grants allocated to the other transcontinentals. Unlike many of the other pioneers of western railroads, its creator, an eccentric, one-eyed Canadian, James J. Hill, was a true railroad man, having “twenty years of frontier freighting, merchandising and transportation experience” when he decided, along with some Canadian associates, to stretch his railroad to the ocean.19 Hill, who was given the nickname of “Empire Builder,” was one of those hard taskmasters who nevertheless respected his men and knew most of his superintendents by name.20 He once arrived in his special coach at a place where a train had been blocked by a heavy snowfall and not only started shoveling snow himself but also told the men to get coffee from his coach.

  Hill started by taking over the bankrupt St. Paul & Pacific (again!) and built his railroad in fits and starts, recycling the profits from completed sections to pay for the next stretch. As Hill progressed westward, he would throw out branches where he could see easy potential profits. Unlike those of his rivals, therefore, the financing of his railroad was generated by its transportation activity rather than through land deals.

  By the time the line reached Seattle in 1893, it was already profitable, and its financial strength soon allowed Hill to take over the rival Northern Pacific. Hill had also ensured the line was built to a high standard, with lower gradients and gentler curves that, while increasing the cost of construction, reduced operating expenses. He had the satisfaction of being able to watch all the other transcontinentals collapse into bankruptcy during the financial panic of 1893, while his railroad continued to flourish. Moreover, Hill’s railroad continued to expand, with branches and new routes. According to John Stover, “Between 1891 and 1907, the year Hill retired from its presidency, the Great Northern built an average of one new mile of road for every working day.”21 Some of these lines proved to be largely useless branches that were soon abandoned, but others survive today.

  Remarkably, therefore, before the century was out, five transcontinentals (not counting those in Canada) and innumerable branches and connecting routes stretched across the West. Although all sorts of crooked deals had helped bring them about, the sheer extent of the enginee
ring achievement should be celebrated. However, as we will see in the next chapter, the unscrupulous nature of the railroads’ western expansion would be one of the reasons they became so reviled.

  These railroads had a common purpose: to allow the colonization of the western half of the United States. As Keith Bryant Jr. writes in the Encyclopedia of North American Railroads, “The old concept of the ‘Great American Desert’ disappeared as freight trains laden with wheat, corn and cattle flowed eastward and returned with finished goods from metropolitan manufacturers.” However, the West was not won as swiftly or as easily as Bryant’s description implies. Unlike in Europe or even in the eastern states of America, where the railroads served existing communities or gained business from other modes of transport, in the West they created communities and the transportation links between them from scratch. Their claim to have brought civilization to the West was, certainly at first, something of an exaggeration. The towns that sprang up along the line were little better than the Hell on Wheels temporary settlements described in Chapter 5. As the railroads spread west, so did the cowboys, and they seemed to get more disreputable the farther west the railroads went. In the words of George H. Douglas, “As the lines inched forward they invariably planted a series of towns that were savage and undisciplined— blights on the unspoiled landscape.” The Santa Fe left a particularly vile and violent set of shanty towns in its wake, including the most legendary, Dodge City, not only named after a crook but full of them. As Douglas puts it, “Dodge City collected so many bad characters so quickly that it needed a lockup even before the railroad was able to bring in the lumber to build one.”22 When the town did at last acquire a jail, it was little more than a huge hole in the ground that flooded in the rains, creating a pool into which the town drunks were thrown, notionally to “dry out.” The West was truly wild at this stage, and it would be some years before the railroads, by continuing to bring a stream of more respectable settlers and make it easier to establish the rule of law, could be said to have brought civilization. It is no exaggeration, however, to say that the railroads created the West. Before the iron road arrived, there were no settlements, vile or otherwise, other than the mostly peaceful villages of the Native Americans. It was the railroads that not only enabled people to go west, but also induced them to settle through their extensive publicity campaigns.

  1. The Atlantic, built by Phineas Davis at York, Pennsylvania, was introduced on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in 1832, pulling cars based on stagecoach designs. (The photograph is undated but is clearly from a much later period, suggesting it depicts a celebratory run marking an anniversary.) © UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD/CORBIS.

  2. In December 1830, the Best Friend of Charleston, the first locomotive built in America to haul a passenger train, began operating on the Charleston & Hamburg railroad, which was briefly the world’s longest line. Not long after, the locomotive met with an unfortunate end when a fireman closed a safety valve and was killed in the subsequent explosion. GETTY IMAGES.

  3. The most famous picture in American railroad history: the rather chaotic ceremony to mark the completion of the first transcontinental by the Central Pacific and Union Pacific rail in May 1869 at Promontory Summit, Utah. © BETTMANN/CORBIS.

  4. The arrival of the iron road changed the landscape of America in various unpredicted ways, such as helping to speed up the virtual extinction of buffalo. GETTY IMAGES.

  5. Until the First World War, agents were widely used to sell train tickets, often offering a discount on the normal price. © BETTMANN/CORBIS.

  6. The railroads used advertising and even speaking tours in order to attract settlers onto their land. © BETTMANN/CORBIS.

  7. Of the many opponents of the railroads in the later stages of the nineteenth century, the farmers proved to be the most effective and vociferous, helping to bring about regulation of the industry. © CORBIS.

  8. The completion of major railroads was a cause for celebration and, sometimes, innovative publicity campaigns. © MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY/CORBIS.

  9. The railroads did much to hasten the demise of the Native American culture both directly, through land grabs, and indirectly, by encouraging settlement. © CORBIS.

  10. As this 1904 picture of Houston, Texas, shows, freight was key to the profitability of many railroads. © CORBIS.

  11. 1885: At times the railroad companies struggled to keep up with demand for their services. CLASSICSTOCK/ALAMY.

  12. The railroads were used extensively to take vacationers to resorts such as the one served by this typical small station in the Catskills in upstate New York, shown here in 1905. © BETTMANN/CORBIS.

  13. The elevated railroad in New York was well used but proved unpopular with residents and workers in offices near its tracks. It was eventually replaced by the subway, although a similar system of elevated railroads survives in Chicago today. GETTY IMAGES.

  14. Although some electric locomotives, like this one on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, were introduced in the early twentieth century, electrification, with the odd exception, never spread much beyond the Eastern Seaboard states. © SCHENECTADY MUSEUM; HALL OF ELECTRICAL HISTORY FOUNDATION/CORBIS.

  15. Starting from humble beginnings, Edward H. Harriman became the biggest owner in railroad history who, at the time of his death in 1909, controlled the Union Pacific, Southern Pacific, Illinois Central, Central of Georgia, and Wells Fargo Express Company, among others. © CORBIS.

  16. As this picture of nicely turned-out Dutch immigrants shows, the railroads were crucial in encouraging settlement in the Midwest and West. © MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY/CORBIS.

  17. At their peak, there were more than 250,000 miles of railroad line across the United States, far more than in any other country of the world. © PEMCO-WEBSTER & STEVENS COLLECTION; MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND INDUSTRY, SEATTLE/CORBIS.

  18. The railroads’ influence on politicians was seen by the general public as contributing to scandals such as the Crédit Mobilier affair involving the builders of the Union Pacific. GETTY IMAGES.

  19. The railroads played a crucial role in the First World War, bringing troops and matériel to the ports. © MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY/CORBIS.

  20. Though they looked perilous, trestle bridges proved a cheap and effective way of fording rivers. © CORBIS.

  21. Railroad workers began to organize in the 1870s, and their unions eventually became very strong, resulting in numerous strikes, such as this one in Illinois in 1904. © BETTMANN/CORBIS.

  22. New York’s Penn Station, completed in 1910 and seen here in 1934, was demolished in 1963, although trains still operate from the lower level. © BETTMANN/CORBIS.

  23. Redcap porters were employed at many stations to carry luggage for passengers, who often took vast amounts on train journeys. © H. ARMSTRONG ROBERTS/CLASSICSTOCK/CORBIS.

  24. These sleek, streamlined locomotives, seen in a New York Central yard in 1939, were another attempt to attract customers to the railroads. © BETTMANN/CORBIS.

  25. The Twin Cities Zephyr passenger train running between Chicago and Minneapolis–St. Paul was so successful after its introduction in April 1935 that extra trains had to be quickly ordered. © UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD/CORBIS.

  26 and 27. In the interwar and immediate postwar years, the railroad companies, facing competition from the car, launched publicity campaigns using top artists of the day to produce a range of stunning posters. © SWIM INK 2, LLC/CORBIS.

  28. All sorts of facilities, such as secretarial services, gyms, lavish bars, and even a cinema, depicted here in 1947, were introduced on the prestige train services. © BETTMANN/CORBIS.

  29. The railroads were so heavily used in the Second World War that the government tried to deter ordinary passengers from using them—to no avail since, with fuel shortages, they once again became the main way to travel. © SWIM INK 2, LLC/CORBIS.

  30. The presidential campaign train, such as this one being used by Harry Truman in 1948, became a routine part of the election process. ©
BETTMANN/CORBIS.

  31. Rail accidents, such as this one on the prestigious Santa Fe Chief that killed four people near Lomax, Illinois, in August 1954, were relatively infrequent but nevertheless attracted considerable publicity. After a slow start in relation to safety in the early days of railroading, for the most part, railroad companies reacted after accidents by improving safety features on trains and introducing new technology. © BETTMANN/CORBIS.

  32. Amtrak’s Acela Express, pictured here in 2005 at Union Station in Washington, DC, is the most prestigious train service in the United States today. © KEN CEDENO/CORBIS.

  Eventually, the railroads tamed the Wild West that they had created. As they began to crisscross the vast lands of the West, they created enclosures, and soon the cowboys lost the open spaces that had made possible their long cattle trains north from Texas. Settlers began to fence in with barbed wire the lands that the railroads had sold them and, inevitably, ended the practice of cowboys driving the cattle over the prairies. The railroads could transport the beasts all the way to the stockyards of Chicago with much less loss of weight, and soon they would be traveling as carcasses in refrigerated wagons. The wilder elements of the population soon found their freedom curtailed: “Outlaws, gamblers, hoboes and other wanderers saw a gradual reduction in public wilderness land outside the bounds of any law, as most Western lands came into private hands before 1890.”23 The freedom of movement of the Native Americans, too, was curtailed. Not only was their land purloined by the government to give to the railroads, but the fences restricted their hunting grounds and effectively destroyed their way of life. Within a couple of decades of the arrival of the first transcontinental, the railroads had enabled the East to colonize the West and to impose its legal, economic, and social forms over it. It was not so much the union of two distinct parts of the United States, but rather the triumph of the East over the West and of the white men over the “red savages.”