You would’ve had to use a ferry at Omaha. The first bridge wasn’t built until 1872.
The closet we’ve probably come to an Atlantic to Pacific transcon (so far) was the system George Gould put together. Common control but not one company in name.
Jeff
You can ship stuff from coast to coast on a single bill, so from the shipper standpoint…
…and a riverboat from Sacramento to SF?
Good point!
If the Class 1 roads were merged into two coast to coast and border to border railroads, what would be the incremental synergies?
I worked on several acquisitions and/or mergers for my Fortune 225 Corporation. A key driver was the opportunity to reduce costs while improving customer service and revenues. None of them lived up to management’s expectations.
Amtrak ran a through sleeper NYP-KCY-LAX, on the National Limited and Southwest Limited – rode it westbound in Sept. 1974 aboard ex-UP 10&6 Pacific Ocean (appropriately). Interesting to move into a roomette for three nights. Had dinner (and a much-appreciated shower) with friends in KCY during the layover before #3 arrived.
Also rode westbound sleeper WAS-NOL-HOU in 1977, when the Amtrak car moved in Southern’s Crescent. Oddest of all was a quick visit to NOL during Mardi Gras in 1985 – hotels were sold out, but Amtrak had a roomette open aboard the eastbound through sleeper arriving from LAX late in the day: partied, went to the station very late at night; at 7 am my hotel room departed for New York.
Yes there is a transcontinential railroad that directly links the Atlantic & Pacific. Its the Panama Railroad built in 1855 and still in operation. The 47 mile line is now owned by the Kansas City Souther and the MiJack Co. It carries both freight containers and passenegers.
In October of 1971, I boarded the Sunset in Houston, and rode through to Tuscaloosa, Alabama. We were running late, so I went to sleep well before we reached New Orleans, where I woke in the morning in time to get up and eat breakfast in the station before continuing on. The through service had been begun by the SP and Southern several years earlier, and continued, I believe, until Amtrak began using Superliners on their part of the route.
And lest we forget the Amtrak Sunset Limited that ran from Los Angeles to Miami for a few years. Nit pickers will note that LAUS, then LAUPT, is about 15 miles from the beach.
Your car would have changed trains to be on the Crescent, then; to my knowledge the Sunset never ran as far north as the Black Warrior area.
Yes, I thought this was understood from previous posts on this thread.
I found it interesting that my first ride in a truly cross country car was in an SP car–and my next ride (from New Orleans to Los Angeles), in 1980, was in a Southern car.
CNR operates in eight Provinces extending from Halifax, N.S. to Vancouver and Prince Rupert, B.C. CP operates in six provinces from Montreal and Quebec City in,Quebec Privince to Vancouver on the west coast.
When Amtrak had its ALL ABOARD AMERICA fare, I took a circle trip from Chicago-New York City, Philadelphia - Atlantic City, off train overnight in Philadelphia (1st break), to Miami, overnight in Miami, Sunset Limited to L.A. SanDiegan to San Diego. Overnight in San Diego (2nd break). San Diegan to L.A., Thruway bus to Bakersfield, San Joanquin to Stockton, Thruway bus to San Jose. 3rd trip break, and then via Portland to Chicago. The Sunset Limited at that time went all the way from Miami to L A. Fortunatly, I could break up the trip with some overnight stays and still comply with the three breaks in travel limit. I would think this would count as a Coast to Coast trip.
Even when I was a kid (I am in my 70s), the USA was more or less two places. Ads for products said “prices higher in the west” or “not available on the west coast”. Companies sometimes limited their scope of operations to east or west. 150 years ago it was even more like that. There was east of the Mississippi, and there was the west coast. So the idea of transcontinental meant linking the east and west halves of the country, not literally shore to shore on one railroad. Modern parlance has a different sense.