question about the transcontinental railroad?

Question

Well we are doing an activity in my history class, where half the class is northern united states citizens and the other half is southern, (this is during the civil war time by the way). I (as a southerner) am supposed to debate and argue for the transcontinental railroad to be set in the south, what are some reasons i would want that?

so basically as a southerner in the pre civil war era, what would i say for reasons to want the transcontinental railroad set in the south?

Thank you very much.
Bob Seesk

Answer 1

If you are a Southern Plantation owner the Trans continental Rail Road would have presented New Markets on the West coast for you Cotton crop. Right now to get there it would travel by Ship around South America. With the railroad people in San Francisco can be wearing Southern Cotton in a few weeks instead of a few Months. This would also encourage Growth of the Southwestern towns along the Route such as Santa Fe and Fort Worth. This would also allow the Beef supplies from the Texas ranches to flow east in an easier manner helping to feed the growing Southern Population which would grow due to the Railroad.

Answer 2

Some historical background:
A southern route was actually proposed. It would have started in New Orleans and run west across Texas, the Arizona Territory (New Mexico and Arizona) to southern California and then north to San Francisco. This route was eventually built as the Southern Pacific and is now a part of the Union Pacific.
Route length would have been about the same as that taken by the Union and Central Pacific west from Omaha, Nebraska to San Francisco. It would have offered connections from the Pacific Coast and international shipping through the port of New Orleans to the great Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio river steamboat networks that were the main transportation system of the day.
The real reason it didn’t get built (besides the Civil War) is that, from the beginning, it was intended to connect to the railroad empires of the northern industrialists – Vanderbilt, Gould and Frohman.
Additionally, the southern railway system was not as technically sophisticated as that of the north and connecting lines in the southeast would have needed to be extensively rebuilt to carry the increased traffic the transcontinental was projected to carry.
A technical problem also arose. Many southern railways were built to a gauge of 5’0” whereas the northern network was mainly 4 ’8 1/2”gauge (known as standard gauge).

A choice had to be made. President Lincoln favored the broader gauge but, following the war, very little of the southern system remained operable, so the choice of the northern route was obvious. Because of the extensive destruction of the southern rail network and the fact that connections would be to the narrower northern gauge, this was chosen and remains today. Besides this, at the end of hostilities the north controlled Congress who had the final say on the route to be chosen.

Some possible arguments in favor of a southern route:

The economy of the South was largely based on agriculture. It would be easier, faster and more economical to transport those goods by rail. This would be particularly true moving goods into areas west of the Mississippi like Texas and the territories beyond all the way to California. The eastbound traffic would pick up the cattle that were then being driven north to Kansas Territory and take them east without the great loss of weight as occurred on trail drives.

Having been through the troubles with Mexico just a decade or so earlier, and seeing how important the railroads were in the Civil War (Sorry. I mean the War between the States!) it would be very prudent to build a railway from the (restored) Union to that area in order to move the Army quickly should there be any further disturbances there. There was also the "Indian problem" in the area that could be addressed better with faster troop movements.

On a practical level, the weather is better! A southern route would not have to deal with the snow and cold of the northern winters. As the Santa Fe Railway and Southern Pacific discovered just a couple decades later, the southern mountain passes through New Mexico are much lower and drier than the northern route through the Rockies and Sierra Nevada that, even today, still get closed by bad weather.

Providing jobs building the railroad would be a good political move after the war to give the ex-Confederate soldiers some income to help rebuild the South. It would also give the South a sense of being connected to the future with a direct link to California rather than being left behind as a backwater if the new line ran to the north. Construction costs might also be less because the amount of heavy earth moving required through the mountains would be considerably less thus making the total time for construction less. The return on investment would happen more quickly.

There are probably further arguments to be made, but this should get you started!

Answer 3

as quickly as upon a time there have been 2 railroads (out of many). the government. placed out a bid to construct a railroad from Omaha, Ne to Sacramento Ca. The Union Pacific have been given the bid from Omaha west and the central Pacific bypass the bid from Sacramento east. as quickly as equipped, the related railroad lines have been general because of the fact the Transcontinental Railroad, because of the fact now rails spanned the U. S. from sea to shining sea. The chinese language immigrants have been utilized by way of the central Pacific as laborer as there have been lots of them living in California on the time.