Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America

This is an essential book for anyone with a serious interest in late 19th century American history.Though it deals with the early transcontinental railroads it’s a long way from your dad’s heroic account of what was, indisputably, a notable engineering accomplishment. The blizzards, the dynamiting, the tunnel borings and the accidents are left to the many other books and films that cover them so thoroughly.The author traces the business and political aspects. This includes a very detailed account of the financing of the projects with their bonds and mortgages and the federal subsidies that came in various forms and that sometimes makes for heavy going.It is no revelation that the men who built these early transcontinental railways were crooks but what is new and interesting is the author’s view of just how incredibly incompetent they were. They knew next to nothing about how to construct or operate railways and in many cases neither did the operating people they hired. Until I read this book I had understood that their modus operandi was to construct the railroads using dishonest financing methods, build them up until they were profitable and then realize on the value of their stock interests. They had a better system that did not depend upon the success of the venture. They would form construction companies that they, not the railroad’s other investors, owned and then contract with their own company at twice the going rate for the work to be done. The old dummy corporations/sweetheart contract scam for which people are still being indicted.On a more global level, the author believes that the many transcontinental railroads should not have been built until the increasing population and business in the areas served presented a demand. Some of them should not have been built at all. He stresses that the social detriments are too often ignored in evaluating the contribution of these businesses to the country. He notes that the choice was not between the transcontinental railroads as actually built and no railroads at all and that a more rational approach would have yielded better results.Still, it would seem that whatever the folly of the follow-on transcontinentals the original one had to be built. The country was just emerging from cataclysmic war between two sections with different economic systems and philosophies but which, were, at least, contiguous. Now the country had two sections, a potentially thriving West Coast separated from the rest of the country by 2,000 of what, for all practical purposes, could have been trackless wast. There was no reasonably rapid and safe way to get freight or passengers from the East Coast or from the Mississippi to California. Each of the existing routes involved long delay and deadly peril from the weather, hostile Indians, shipwreck or yellow fever. It was faster and safer to get to England from New York than to travel across the country and probably easier to get from San Francisco to China. This could not have been a politically acceptable situation for a growing country. The first transcontinental railroad was probably necessary as a symbol of a united countryThere was not sufficient traffic to make it a viable business opportunity and governmental subsidy was necessary. It would seem just possible that the project required the kind of reckless chicanery and lies and broken promises that brought it to fruition.

Of all the railroad histories I've read, this one took me the longest to read. This does not mean it is a bad book, but it's just not that good of a book. Author Richard White sets out to create a version of the past that the participants of it would recognize (his words paraphrased from his introduction), but then spends the next 500+ pages creating a book that is both informative yet cumbersome. He creates a world where the business leaders of the late 19th century, immortalized as "Robber Barons" by some, are driven by greed, corruption, and the need for government bailouts to sustain their choices to build railroads where they were not needed at a time when they were not needed.This is a fundamental flaw of railroaded. To say a railroad was to be a transcontinental but be built where it was not needed makes for a paradox. To be transcontinental a railroad has to traverse land that is not well suited for rail traffic. This is a fact of western United States geography. The Rocky Mountains or the Great Basin need to be crossed to get from the west coast to the Midwest. I do agree with White's assessment that the transcontinentals were not truly transcontinental, but rather half way continentals, often terminating in Chicago. But to say the roads were not built where they were needed could have been better stated as being built where there was no need but to cross a certain region. In other words to capture California rail traffic the Great Basin needs to be crossed, but in and of itself the Great Basin has limited need for rail transport.White's book does a better job in explaining how the federal (and state) governments teamed with the railroads to crush the worker's rights movement. In this respect, Railroaded is a good commentary on labor relations, particularly on how the Pullman Strike of 1894 was crushed and how the strikers found regional or local strengths based on local situations. Another good commentary is the racism of the Chinese Exclusion laws of the 1880s and 1890s. Too many people in this country are unaware of the incident at Rock Springs, Wyoming.But all in all Railroaded is a bit of a letdown. Other reviewers have written that White has an axe to grind and I see that in many of his pages where he is critical of the ineptness and corruptness of the primary railroad players (Huntington, Hill, Villard, Adams, etc.). This is more of a distraction to the reader and is perhaps the main reason it took me so long to read this book. I'd pick it up and wonder what White would be whining about in today's pages. But Railroaded is still worth reading as it offers a critical view of the 19th century industrial leaders in a light they are rarely shown in. It may take you a while to read it though.

I am a local historian in California with the first railroad in the West figuratively in my backyard, Sacramento Valley Railroad. Also being so close to Sacramento, I have in interest in the building of the Central Pacific Railroad. A friend told me about this book saying I needed to read it. He said there was catch it was a library book and I had to return it before it was due. I tried to read it under the pressure of its being due shortly and failed. I returned it unfinished. I felt bad because my friend thought it worthy enough to recommend it to me and I couldn't complete it. So your probably wondering how could I be rating it 5 stars, well I found it on Amazon, loaded it on my Kindle and just finished it.The book is a monster of read. It has so much content that you will wonder when reading it what's next. But as the author and the reviews indicated it is a significant effort that shouldn't be missed. It is like a fine wine sip it slowly and savor it.Being an e-book, there are links to a massive amount of supporting and peripheral data that you don't have with the hard copy. So read it, but take your time like I did. It's worth it.

An excellent book providing a detailed, factual account of the financing, operation and political skullduggery behind the building of the 19th century American railroads.

A heavy read, but very worthwhile. On reaching the end, it's hard to argue with the main thesis of the book: that too many transcontinental railroads were built, too soon, and at great cost to society. But to the great financial advantage of the rail barons who built them...