1869

1869 - High - Transcontinental Railroad is completed at Promontory, Utah.

The two locomotives moved closer and closer, straight toward the other on the same section of track in the Utah desert. 

Moving east was the Central Pacific's 60, also known as Jupiter. When congressional funding had been approved for the Transcontinental Railroad, one requirement was that all iron had to be manufactured in the United States. As California did not have facilities capable of making a locomotive, Jupiter had been built in New York the previous year, shipped to San Francisco, transported to Sacramento (headquarters of the Central Pacific Railroad) and reassembled. It had traversed from there over 600 miles of track that had been laid across the Sierras, through Nevada and into Utah over the previous seven years. 

The westward-building Union Pacific railroad did not have these shipping difficulties, as it was able to use its tracks to ship from points east easily. The corresponding locomotive above, Union Pacific No. 119 had been in Ogden, Utah when it was unexpectedly chosen for this honor. The head of the Union Pacific, Thomas C. Durant, had his own locomotive which he had intended to take to the ceremony. When one of the bridges on the westward route washed out,  his engineer was unwilling to cross the river, although he did push the passenger cars across. Number 119 was brought down to take them the rest of the way.

As the two locomotives moved closer, they were about to finalize a link between the Atlantic and Pacific that would reduce travel times by an order of magnitude. It would be a symbolic connection across the continent, linking the original colonies, across the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains of the Louisiana Purchase, to the recent addition of California. Technically it was not a complete connection: The western end was in Sacramento, while the eastern end was at Council Bluffs, Iowa, where a ferry across the Missouri River was required to connect from eastern and central trains. And as the tracks continued to expand from east and west, there had already been opportunities to reduce travel times as the distance required for horse or stage sections continuously shortened, often by miles in a day.

These two trains met on May 10, 1869, at Promontory, Utah. A ceremonial golden spike had been driven to commemorate the completion of the first transcontinental railroad, and passenger service would commence soon after. While these two railroads and others would continue to expand across the country, this particular link between two sides of the country was a potent image of unity and exceptionalism, especially only four years after the end of the Civil War.