1. Transcontinental Railroad

2. Who were these men? It took them two and a half years to go west.

3. Why would anyone want to move west?

4. Land!

6. And gold!!

7. How would you get there?

8. Would you like to go in a wagon train?

10. Or around South America?

11. Don’t worry. Those only take about four months.
And the bandits might not get you.

12. Could something else do the work for people. James Watt thought so
Could something else do the work for people? James Watt thought so. He invented the first good steam engine.

13. People had been using ruts and rails for a long, long time
People had been using ruts and rails for a long, long time. They did in Greece hundreds of years before Jesus was born. They did in Europe in the 1300s.

14. But it still took lots of work. Someone or something always had to pull.

15. Steam engines use steam to do work for them
Steam engines use steam to do work for them. When water gets hot, it turns to steam, and steam pushes on things. You can make it push on things that turn wheels.

16. In the first trains, coal was burned to make the water hot so it would turn to steam.

17. (Dirty, dirty, dirty.)

18. People still wanted to go back and forth across the United States
People still wanted to go back and forth across the United States. They had railroads now, but they all stopped on the east coast.

19. People said there needed to be a transcontinental railroad
People said there needed to be a transcontinental railroad. That means it would go all the way across the continent.

20. The Central Pacific Railroad began work in Sacramento, California, and boy did they have hard work to do.

26. And the Union Pacific Railroad began in Omaha, Nebraska.

27. And what if you didn’t have everything you needed to build with
And what if you didn’t have everything you needed to build with? You’d have to bring it with you.

28. It was a race!!! Whoever got to Promontory, Utah, first got lots of money.

29. In 1869, they made it!

30. They nailed in golden spikes to celebrate.

32. Impact? No more wagon trains
Safer and FASTER travel (about a week now to cross the country)
People could see loved ones more often
More frequent, cheaper, and faster mail
More frequent and faster news
People could get goods from other parts of the country and world
Wood for homes instead of sod houses
Food from other places
Pre-made goods from the east and from Asia and Europe
Boom towns
Your land might get cut in half
Time zones had to be created
The Native Americans were really imposed upon
Lots of new Chinese and Irish immigrants who’d built the railroad were now people’s neighbors