The Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) is the former name of the railroad network built between California and Utah, USA that formed part of the "First Transcontinental Railroad" in North America. It is now part of the Union Pacific Railroad.
Many 19th century national proposals to build a transcontinental railroad failed because of the energy consumed by political disputes over slavery. With the secession of the South, the modernizers in the Republican Party controlled the US Congress. They passed legislation to authorize the railroad, and created financing in the form of government railroad bonds. These were all eventually repaid with interest. The government and the railroads both shared in the increased value of the land grants, which the railroads developed. The construction of the railroad also secured for the government the economical "safe and speedy transportation of the mails, troops, munitions of war, and public stores."
Read more about Central Pacific Railroad: Authorization and Construction, Financing, Museums and Archives, Locomotives, Preserved Locomotives, Timeline, Acquisitions
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—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
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—William James (1842–1910)
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—M.F.K. Fisher (1908–1992)