Before the first railroad from the east to the west in America was built people could only travel by feet, horse, boat or wagon. If someone who lived in the east wanted to go to the west it is almost impossible. Before the pacific railroad was built people who wanted to go to the west could travel by horse or wagon or boat but nothing else. It was not convenient to go to the west by horse or wagons. People needed to let their horse rest a lot and it takes a lot of time, but if they were on a train the train wouldn't need to stop and rest. It just kept going on and we just needed to add coal to the train.
There was a problem in the east that trended the Americans to expand the west. There were not enough lands to live with. Well, there were a lot of lands in the west, and the most important was in the west there was gold. There was a California Gold Rush. Many people in the east wanted to be rich and found gold, so they decided to build a railroad to take them to the west. In 1862, Lincoln the President of America had signed the Pacific Railroad Act. The act chartered the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific Railroad Companies. What they needed to do is build a railroad from the east to the west.
This big project started in 1863 and it ended in 1869. You know it was a very long railroad, it was almost 3069 kilometers. Lots of people built this railroad together. More than 8000 people helped build this railraod. To build something this big we needed a lot of money. To build this railroad it cost almost 50 million. That’s 50 million! And that was only the money they used to build the railroad. President Lincoln had invested 100 millions in this big project. Half of them were used to build the railroad. And half of them were the awards for the two companies who built the railroad.
After the building of the railroad was finished, people found that it was much faster to use the train instead of riding horses or using wagons. It also opened up the east and the west. Now people can travel to the west anytime they want. People who wanted to go to the west for gold can easily come and get back if they need to easily too. The complement of this railroad connected the east and the west parts of the United States. This project made the USA more united because this giant engineering project needs a lot of people and because of that different kinds of people in America or other countries came together and worked together very hard.
The first railroad in America was called the pacific railroad. It connected the east and the west of the USA together. It took seven years to build this railroad. This railroad cost a lot of money, almost 50 millions were used to build this railroad, and another 50 millions were the awards for the companies who helped build the railroad. A lot of people were there to help, there were a lot of Chinese people helping the Americans building the railroad too. Building this railroad made travel easier to implement, and it united the USA. This project united the USA by bringing the different kinds of people together and focusing on one same thing.
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