The Central Pacific Railroad was a rail company chartered by U.S. Congress in 1862 to build a railroad eastwards from Sacramento, California, to complete most of the western part of the "First transco
Gold Spike at the California State Railroad Museum, Sacramento, California. The museum also has a wall-sized painting of the Gold Spike ceremony which includes images of Charles Marsh and Leland Stanford (who were the only two Central Pacific directors to attend the Gold Spike ceremony at Promontory Summit, Utah).
The Truckee River at Verdi, Nevada, c. 1868–75. When the Central Pacific Railroad reached its site in 1868, Charles Crocker pulled a slip of paper from a hat and read the name of Giuseppe Verdi; so, the town was named after the Italian opera composer.
Cape Horn on the Central Pacific RR, c. 1876. Despite the frequently repeated myth of Chinese workers being blown to bits here while suspended in wicker baskets, it never happened. The cliff here isn't vertical, the rock isn't granite, and no one was lowered over the edge in wicker baskets to set dynamite charges. The cut was dug down from the top and from each end, not blasted from the side.
Advertisement for CPRR First Mortgage Bonds (1867)
The Southern Pacific was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the n
Central Pacific Railroad
…First transcontinental railroad" in North America. Incorporated in 1861, CPRR ceased independent operations in 1885 when the railroad was leased to the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. Its assets were formally merged into Southern Pacific in 1959. Following the completion of the Pacific Railroad Surveys in 1855, several…
SP #8912 leads a freight train in Palm Springs, California, in February 1981.
"Mr. Maguire's Stand on the Railroad Question," a caricature of Democratic gubernatorial candidate James G. Maguire published in the San Francisco Examiner depicting him triumphant over the political forces of the Southern Pacific, October 8, 1898
An EMD FP7 leads a Pacific Rail Society Special through Floriston, California, in February 1971.
SP 4449 underway, wearing the Daylight scheme (April 1981)