Transcontinental Railroad

The Central Pacific broke ground in Sacramento, California in January, 1863. The Union Pacific broke ground at the Missouri River bluffs near Omaha, Nebraska in December, 1863. A competition arose between the construction crews of the two railroads, to see who could finish first.
In December 1862, the Central Pacific Railroad awarded its first construction contract to Charles Crocker & Company. The construction company subcontracted the first 18 miles to firms with hands-on experience, and the Central Pacific reached Newcastle, California on June 4, 1864. From that point on, it was a long haul up the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
The physical construction of the rail line was a job with an enormous scope, and it was often a painfully slow process. There was also constant pressure to meet time or geographical deadlines. The construction crews had to cut grade, build snowsheds, blast through hard rock and lay track through snow. Deep fills, switchback routes, high trestles, huge rock cuts and fifteen tunnels were necessary to make it over the Sierras.
To create this rail line, an enormous amount of tools, materials and supplies were required. Each mile of track required 100 tons of rail, about 2,500 ties and two or three tons of spikes and fish plates (metal pieces that joined the rails and prevented climatic expansion and contraction of the metal). Some of the tools needed included wheelbarrows, horse drawn scrapers, two-wheel dump carts, shovels, axes, crowbars, blasting powder, quarry tools and iron rods. On top of that, locomotives, wheel trucks, switch mechanisms and foundry tools were needed as well.
Providing these supplies was no small challenge. All supplies for the Central Pacific came from the East, and the Panama Canal shortcut did not exist at that time. All material, rails, rolling stock and machinery was shipped around Cape Horn on the southernmost tip of South America, en route to California. River steamers then took the material upriver to Sacramento, where it was offloaded to platform cars and hauled up into the mountains. If a shipment didn't leave the East Coast on time (and this happened frequently) or if an accident occurred in the shipping, the resulting delay could create a great hardship. The contractors often cut corners, spiking only seven of every ten rails or allowing other shoddy work along the line.
In 1865, the construction company faced another shortage, a labor shortage. They hired Chinese workers against the wishes of the other laborers and their foreman, but when the first group proved to be efficient and hardworking, the contractor recruited more from California and China itself. It was the Chinese men and their back-breaking labor that would get the railroad through the Sierra Nevada.
While the Central Pacific crews were struggling through the mountains, they heard tales of the speed with which the Union Pacific crews were able to work. As they grew closer to the point where the two railroads would meet, the Central Pacific crews decided they had something to prove. Spurred on by their supervisors, on April 28, 1869 they laid an extraordinary ten miles of track across the Utah desert between sunrise and sunset. They used 25,800 ties, 3,520 rails, 55,000 spikes and 7,040 fishplates. The Irish and Chinese crews worked together and completed the ten mile stretch in 12 hours. This feat has never duplicated by human beings in railroad construction since. It also brought the Central Pacific rail within ten miles of the Union Pacific line, ensuring the Union Pacific could not hope to replicate the achievement.
Led by construction superintendent Samuel B. Reed, chief engineer Grenville M. Dodge and contractors John S. and Dan T. Casement, the task facing Union Pacific construction crews was relatively easy at first. Their route went largely through flat plains, following the Oregon Trail through the Platte Valley, then crossing the Continental Divide through the Black Hills in Wyoming.
While the terrain was comparatively easy to work in, Union Pacific construction crews faced one problem that their Central Pacific rivals didn't: Indians. In Nebraska, the Sioux and Cheyenne tribes continually harassed Union Pacific construction crews. Forts were established along the line to protect the railroad. When the workers weren't at work or asleep, they were at war with rifles at their sides, ready for the next Indian attack. Sometimes the Indians fought the workers; other times, they damaged the progress made by the construction crews. In August 1867 at Plum Creek, Nebraska, Cheyennes pried up some rails and caused the derailment of a freight train. The train crashed and the Indians looted the cars.
The Union Pacific's construction materials were sailed up the Missouri or brought in by wagon. Their biggest difficulty lay in getting railroad ties, since there were few natural trees as were found in the Sierras. They had to import the ties until the Chicago & Western railroad line was extended to reach the Black Hills of Wyoming and the Wasatch Mountains of Utah.
Both companies laid track essentially the same way. They sent crews far ahead to do a preliminary survey, then location surveys. The graders would grade 100 miles of track at a time. In the mountains they graded as much as 200 to 300 miles at a time since the actual building took so much longer. Bridge, culvert and trestle crews worked five to 20 miles ahead. Then the tracklayers came in, grabbing rails out of horse-drawn carts. Then came the men to pound in the spikes. At the end of each line was a base camp that supplied material and food to the workers. As construction of the line was completed every 100 to 200 miles, the base camp would move up to keep in proximity to the crews.