Once the decision to unite the railroads at Promontory Summit was made, May 8 was then agreed upon as the date for festivities and the “marriage” of the lines from the East and West. Dignitaries and officials from both railroads left their respective Mile 0’s and headed to Utah. Central Pacific’s delegation headed by Leland Stanford arrived in Utah on time, but Thomas Durant, head of the Union Pacific delegation did not. Durant and his party had first been held hostage in Piedmont, Wyoming, by angry railroad tie contractors who were owed $200,000 in back wages and later by the washed out bridge at Devil’s Gate in Echo Canyon, Utah. The tie contractors were pacified by a $50,000 payment arranged by Oliver Ames, and Durant’s train was allowed to proceed west. The washed out bridge would detain the Union Pacific party until early in the morning on May 10th.

Central Pacific already existed in 1862 when Abraham Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Act and its chief proponent, Theodore Judah, had surveyed the route Central Pacific would take over Donner Summit. Beginning on the Sacramento River banks Oct. 26, 1863, Central Pacific started east two years before Union Pacific started west.

When Central Pacific began construction, labor willing to work on the railroad was scarce. At the same time, tens of thousands of young Chinese men came to California for gold. Central Pacific construction superintendent Charles Crocker suggested the railroad hire them. The railroad worked to hire Chinese labor through Chinese labor agents, and despite some initial reservations, the experiment was an enormous success, and by 1865 several thousand Chinese worked for Central Pacific. These men, most coming from the Guangdong province in China, worked hard despite increasing racism and xenophobia. These same crews later set a world record, laying 10 miles of track by hand in a single day on April 28, 1869.

Five times more powerful than black powder, nitroglycerin – made on-site by Central Pacific chemist James Howden – was used on the Summit Tunnel but proved too dangerous to use elsewhere. Black powder also was used in enormous quantities by the railroad as it blasted a route through the Sierra Nevada. In a week, Central Pacific burned more powder than was ignited at the 1862 Battle of Antietam during the Civil War. Central Pacific constructed 15 tunnels through the Sierra Nevada – five on the west slope, one at the summit and nine on the east slope. The Summit Tunnel was the longest, at 1,659 feet through solid granite. Crews worked on both ends, digging toward each other. Since the Summit Tunnel was at the top of the mountain, crews dug an 8-foot by 12-foot shaft from the top to the middle of the tunnel and began digging out toward the ends. This permitted work on four tunnel faces at once. They even stripped a locomotive to its engine and boiler and carted it to the top to haul rock from the tunnel faster. The tunnel was completed in 16 months – considerably less than the three years projected.

The U.S. government offered Central Pacific military support and protection from Tribes who were resisting railroad incursion into their lands, but Central Pacific rejected the offer. Instead, the railroad offered jobs to the Shoshone and Paiute peoples they encountered during rail construction and also provided the Tribes free tickets on trains. The Shoshone and Paiute sometimes worked alongside Chinese railroad workers.
Still these Tribes were not spared the upheavals caused by the oncoming railroad and western settlement. The railroad encouraged settlers to seek land along their rail route in order to ensure future rail commerce. The Tribes were forced into competition with the new settlers for resources.

In 1837, the Lakota ceded their lands east of the Mississippi River and by 1851 the Lakota sold an additional 35 million acres of land for $3 million dollars to the U.S. government. Unfortunately, the U.S. government’s failure to uphold the promises made in these treaties caused animosity and suffering among the Lakota. In 1864, the U.S. Army massacred a Cheyenne settlement by Sand Creek, Colorado; the victims were mostly women and children. In retaliation, the Cheyenne attacked the small western town of Julesburg, Colorado. By the time the railroad entered the Great Plains in 1866, treaties had been broken several times. The Lakota and Cheyenne were under constant pressure from oncoming western settlement that resulted in sickness and starvation for the tribal people.

General Jack Casement and his brother Dan were in charge of laying track for Union Pacific. Jack served as a Civil War brigadier general, and he carried the same commanding presence into his work for Union Pacific. Dan also was a veteran, and together they commanded thousands of track layers. Though Jack was reportedly 5 feet 4 inches and Dan only 5 feet, they were imposing figures.

Telegraph lines were as much an icon of the revolutionary new era as the railroads they paralleled. Edward Creighton extended the first telegraph line from Omaha to Salt Lake City in 1861, replacing the short-lived but colorful Pony Express. The Pacific Railway Act of 1862 creating Union Pacific also stipulated: “An Act to aid in the Construction of a Railroad and Telegraph line from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean, and to secure Government use of the same for Postal, Military and other purposes.”