Original subtitles

In the 1860s, America is divided by civil war and 2 ,000 miles

of unclaimed land west of Mississippi.

At this time, it was way easier to travel to Europe from the east coast of

.S. than to get to California.

But one man has an audacious dream to connect the country.

America needs a transcontinental railroad.

Building it becomes a high -stakes race between rival companies.

Competition was very bitter.

Both are trying to seize as much land as they possibly can.

More miles of track we lay, the richer we get.

They'll stop at nothing to claim their fortune.

He is one of the most dishonest people to ever grace this planet.

It's a daunting engineering challenge.

This was one of the biggest accomplishments in world history.

mountains to finally connect the coasts.

This is the race to build the Transcontinental Railroad.

It's the middle of the 19th century, and the United States is extending its

territory westward, all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

But for settlers attempting the journey, what they encounter is nearly

unfathomable. Traversing this is a major undertaking. It's known as the Great

American Desert.

From about midway through Nebraska out to the Rocky Mountains, it's a no -man's

land as far as white Americans are concerned.

The thing about the West is a harsh environment. If you're riding in a

you can only go about 20 miles a day, which means that you're going to be on

wagon trail for months and months and months.

You might get caught in the winter in the mountains, which, of course, is

for you and your family.

Then, almost overnight, the number braving the journey explodes to some 300

in what will become known as...

the gold rush.

In the late 1840s, gold was discovered. Huge amount of wealth was being

generated in California.

People wanted to get out there and be part of that growth, but it was almost

impossible to get there.

You have to remember at this time, it was way easier to travel to Europe from

the east coast of the U .S. than to get to California.

There are alternative routes by sea, but they're exponentially longer.

It was tens of thousands of miles, or you had to take a steamship down to

Panama or Nicaragua, make an overland journey, then get another boat off the

coast to San Francisco.

If you were to go the long way around the tip of South America, it could take

six months because you're at the mercy of wind.

There is a faster method on the horizon.

Railroad. But of the little track that's been built by 1860, 96 % is east of St.

Louis.

There is only one established railroad west, but it's contained to California.

And now its innovative designer is working on something bigger.

Members of Congress, esteemed members of Congress, America needs a

transcontinental railroad.

to connect the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans.

Theodore Judah was a real visionary.

He was also one of the first civilian engineers in the U .S.

He was a big believer in using those skills to improve the world, to make

better for people.

At age 11, Judah's admitted to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, at the

the country's only civilian engineering college.

His whole life seemed to be moving towards this moment.

The notion of building a transcontinental railroad in the 1860s

fantastic to think about because nothing of that size had ever been even

attempted before.

And so it was like a moonshot.

Railroad companies struggling to cross something like the Allegheny Mountains.

And he says, let's cross the entire continent.

You're talking about 2 ,000 miles of rail. This would be like someone today

our environment saying, you know what we should do? We should colonize Mars now.

Let's do that.

The boldest part of Judah's plan, building east from Sacramento,

through one of the steepest mountain ranges in North America.

A steam engine can only climb a grade of a certain degree, a very gradual climb.

The Sierra Nevada are notoriously steep, rocky granite peaks.

There's a limited amount of friction that can be generated. Having a metal

on a metal railroad, they could only go so high so far in terms of the grade,

which means for every hundred feet you go.

Laterally, you can only go two feet up.

That means you have to engineer the line so that you make sure that that grade

is something that the train can manage.

And finally, once we've made it through the Sierra Nevada... Through mountains?

I am sure there's a way.

Who's funding this?

Well, I'm looking for investors.

It's a good plan.

I guarantee you it'll be profitable.

Crazy.

As Judah runs into a dead end in Washington, 1 ,500 miles away,

a former surgeon is making moves in the railroad industry, hoping

to strike it rich.

Thomas Durant is an ambitious man. He received a medical degree at the age of

20.

He practiced medicine for all of three years before he decided to move on. For

him, everything was about self -interest.

How to make the most money. He didn't let other people get in his way.

Now the co -owner of a small regional railroad, Durant is thinking bigger,

manipulating its finances for his own gain. It's gone.

The bond money, it's gone.

Expenses were higher than we anticipated.

He went behind my back.

God helps those who help themselves.

Durant tanks the railroad stock, buys in big, then spreads a false rumor to

inflate the stock back up again.

Durant then sells his company's inflated stock and buys in to the most powerful

railroad company in the U .S., the Union Pacific.

Thomas Durant finagled the $2 million he needed to buy into the Union Pacific,

and he manages to become the vice president.

Durant's move positions him as one of the biggest players in the U .S. train

industry.

He sees an opportunity to make fistfuls of money by building a railroad. He

really is not worried about how well it functions.

He just wants to make his cash and get out.

Meanwhile, out west, Judah convinces four Sacramento businessmen to invest in

his impossible dream.

Led by millionaire merchants Charles Crocker and Leland Stanford, who will go

to found Stanford University, they form the Central Pacific Railroad.

They're known as the Big Four.

To put Judah's ambitious plan into action, They need to convince Congress

award them the largest government contract in history.

Luckily for them, Washington is about to realize the true power of the railway.

In July of 1861, three months after war is declared, the first major battle of

the Civil War is underway.

A quick win for the North could end it all.

But when 11 ,000 Confederate reinforcements arrive by train, Lincoln

an embarrassing loss.

And a protracted war becomes inevitable.

The transcontinental railroad becomes critical for reaching Western states

during the expansion and ensuring that those territories don't secede to the

Confederate side.

Three months later, Lincoln signs the Pacific Railroad Act, authorizing the

building of a transcontinental railroad.

And Judah and the Central Pacific are hired to make it happen.

But there's a catch.

He's here.

Persistence paid off.

We have half the job.

Lincoln chartered a second company.

The Union Pacific Railroad.

They'll build from east to west and we'll build from west to east.

The Central Pacific is really driven by an idealistic dreamer who sees

incredible opportunity.

That's going to open up the West.

Well, the Union Pacific is driven by a man in Durant who recognizes the

opportunity for enormous profit.

He is a robber bearer. He sees this strictly in financial terms.

The act is intended to create competition, laying out incentives for

Central Pacific and his counterpart, Thomas Durant, to lay as much track as

can.

The way that Congress has legislated the creation of the Transcontinental

Railroad, any mile that the Central Pacific lays or the Union Pacific lays

going to mean a windfall of mineral rights for future mining and so forth,

well as just flat -out cash, U .S. bonds.

The payout is $16 ,000 for every mile, three times that over rough terrain,

between $250 ,000 and $800 ,000 per mile today.

With no designated meeting point, the faster each company works, the more they

take from their competitor.

The total windfall at stake, nearly $14 billion today.

Lincoln has just sparked one of the greatest competitions in the history of

business.

And the race is on.

By the end of 1862, Idealist engineer Theodore Judah's bold dream of

the United States by rail is underway.

But his new partnership is already having problems.

Behind his back, the big four investors remove railroad mastermind Judah as

construction chief, inserting merchant and railroad newcomer Charles Crocker.

Why wasn't I consulted?

You can't oversee a project like this. You know nothing about the railroads.

Why have you changed the original agreement?

Listen, Judah, we think the Sierra Nevada range begins 15 miles further

But that's a lie.

The big four have incentive to try and stretch out the definition of the Sierra

Nevada Mountains as much as possible because the legislation coming out of

Congress pays a higher rate per mile.

For more difficult terrain. If we add these 15 miles, we get an extra 240 ,000

from the government.

So we can turn your dream into a reality.

I won't be a part of this.

It's four against one.

Judah.

Forced out, Judah returns east, desperate to find someone to buy out the

four.

He travels by sea, crosses through Panama, and catches yellow fever.

Within weeks, he's dead.

Judah's death exemplifies the value of the transcontinental railroad, the

need for this thing.

Not only is it the length of time and the cost, but it's the danger.

About 5 % of those who...

that out west are going to end up dead.

Taking on Thomas Durant and the Union Pacific now rests in the inexperienced

hands of Charles Crocker.

Maybe we should pause construction.

That'll cost us a fortune.

Union Pacific's route is flat.

Durant will get ahead of us if we don't make headway. We can't let that happen.

Crocker.

views himself as a leader of men.

So the fact that he's not very good at engineering doesn't really matter to

He wants to be the man at the front who's pushing the project along.

But just 36 miles to the east of his Sacramento starting point, Crocker

faces his biggest challenge.

A 50 -mile -wide barrier created by the nation's tallest mountain range.

The Sierra Nevada.

From a geological perspective, granite is actually one of the hardest, most

dense forms of rock. And in the Sierra Nevadas, a huge chunk of it has been

thrusted up from the Earth's core. And they've got to take a railroad line and

go right through it.

They've got multiple crews working on one piece of rock.

You've got two men.

holding a long iron bar, and a third who's slamming that with a sledgehammer

a nonstop basis.

Eight -hour shifts, 24 hours a day.

It would dislodge maybe a few inches of rock, but it was not

enough. They were still only making progress at the rate of about one foot a

day.

As Crocker and the Central Pacific struggle, Halfway across the country, in

Omaha, Nebraska, Thomas Durant has yet to lay down a single mile of track.

He's taking his time to purposely plot the longest route through the most

valuable land.

From now on, this is our route.

The Union Pacific should have got going a lot sooner than it did.

But Durant's looking to milk everything he can out of the federal government.

We're not talking about the most direct route.

He adds massive oxbows, big horseshoe -looking loot. It's not something that

anyone would do if they were worried about being effective.

The more miles of track we lay, the richer we get.

And Durant doesn't stop there.

He creates a shell company.

Names it after French bank Credit Mobilier and uses it to skim profits.

And he's going to funnel Union Pacific cash into Credit Mobilier and then pay

himself out of Credit Mobilier.

He is now able to charge the Union Pacific for construction of the

He's able to overcharge for the construction costs. And of course,

running the Union Pacific, there's not going to be any questions asked, right?

He can jack up prices by about double what they actually are so that he can

simply line his own pocket. It's unethical. It's dishonest. It's

But by 1864, Lincoln's patience runs out.

He gives Durant a December 1867 deadline to complete 200 miles of track and

reach the continent's midway point, the 100th meridian, or lose the contract.

Meanwhile, 1 ,500 miles to the west, Crocker's Central Pacific is moving at a

glacial pace through the Sierra Nevada granite.

So he calls in reinforcement.

James Harvey Strobridge is set up by Charles Crocker basically as the

construction foreman and as the cracker of the whip on the workforce.

He's got a fearsome black patch over one eye due to a construction accident. He

wants the work done, and he'll mistreat his men if that's what it takes to get

it done.

But with most men still fighting the Civil War, manpower is hard to find.

facing a treacherous stretch of cliffs known as Cape Horn.

Strobridge turns to Chinese immigrants.

The Chinese workers are recruited in China to come to the United States after

the Taiping Rebellion broke out. And at that point, Manchu government ruling

China becomes very hard on the Chinese.

One of the things that the Chinese workers aren't afraid of is hard work

The

Central

Pacific goes from employing 50 Chinese immigrants to over 10 ,000

The slope is such that there's nowhere to actually build the rail.

There isn't enough of a flat edge for a person to even stand, let alone build a

track. They're going to have to blast and create a platform.

They're going over the edge with ropes.

that are not elastic, that's all they can rely on to keep them alive.

There's no redundant safety measures, and beneath them is about roughly

a 1 ,000 -foot drop.

There's an estimate that 200 Chinese workers died while building that ledge.

No one can give exact numbers on how many are lost, which unfortunately

kind of the lack of concern for life. The fact that the workers are

Chinese probably ups the lack of concern even more.

While the body count rises in the West, Durant's meandering roots, designed to

pad profits, have put the entire multi -million dollar job in jeopardy.

At their current pace, the Union Pacific won't hit Lincoln's milestone until two

years after the deadline.

If Thomas Durant's Union Pacific doesn't reach the 100th meridian in Nebraska by

Lincoln's deadline, he's going to basically get cut off.

Naturally, this lights a bit of a fire under...

the doctor.

Again, on April 9, 1865, after four years of fighting, the Confederates

surrender at Appomattox.

But the victory is bittersweet.

The man who devoted his presidency to uniting the nation and building a

to connect it is assassinated only six days later.

As the country mourns Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Durant sees opportunity.

The end of the Civil War frees up a lot of trained engineers, Confederate and

Union. They found themselves working on the railroads, solving logistical

problems, frankly, often together.

People who had fought on both sides of that conflict.

With more men.

The Union Pacific attempts to pull itself out of the hole Durant dug.

We are way behind schedule.

What do you want me to do?

You'll think of something.

And if you can't, I'll find someone who can.

If he's going to save his job and Durant's railroad, new foreman and

Union General Jack Casement needs a solution fast.

Okay, let's keep it moving.

Nine months after emerging from a bloody civil war, the United States turns to

rebuilding.

Completing the transcontinental railroad is now a top priority.

Thanks to labor shortages and Thomas Durant's scheming, the Union Pacific

made it 47 miles in two years from its starting point in Omaha.

Now, former Union General Jack Casement must lay 200 miles of rail in under a

year to meet Lincoln's deadline, or else they'll lose the massive government

contract.

While Durant might be playing games in the back room,

Someone at the end of the day has to make rubber meet the road.

Caseman assigns his men to mobile workstations along the line.

Like companies in an infantry brigade, they advance in concert while supplies

are brought in from the rear.

His rolling workforce becomes known as the city on wheels.

He's got multiple train cars that are filled with everything that his men need

to live on, but also everything he needs to continue building.

Thanks to Casement's City on Wheels innovation, Durant's crew more than

its output, reaching the 100th meridian ahead of the deadline.

But the City on Wheels comes with a downside.

Beyond what Casement is bringing along, we also have followers, those that are

happy to give the workers of UP a good time and relieve them of some of that

hard -earned cash.

And that includes mobile saloons, brothels, gambling houses, you name it.

this following town, which can number up to 1 ,000, is known as Hell on Wheels.

While Hell on Wheels lets the Union Pacific crew blow off steam, its liquor

lawlessness are a recipe for disaster.

Meanwhile, Crocker and the Central Pacific are stuck.

just 94 miles east of their California starting point, with six times that left

to go.

How is it possible that Union Pacific is laying five miles of track a day and we

haven't even made it out of the Sierras?

We're going to need more than black powder to get through those mountains.

Like what?

Like nitroglycerin.

Nitro?

It's too unstable.

While they were working with black powder, they knew there was a superior

of explosive. It had been invented by an Italian chemist, improved by the German

chemist Alfred Nobel.

Unfortunately, this stuff is very unstable, very dangerous.

The nitroglycerin Crocker wants to use is five times more powerful than the

black powder that's already killed dozens.

with a blast that burns at 9 ,000 degrees, rivaling the surface of the

It's illegal to transport.

I know a cat who can make it right at Donner Pass.

It's too dangerous.

If we don't get through the mountains, we'll never beat Union Pacific.

The insanity of using nitroglycerin is balanced with its effectiveness.

It's... A risk that has to be accepted by those people crazy enough to use it

because it's so good at what it does.

At its peak, English chemist James Howden cranks out 100 pounds of

a day, doubling progress through the mountain.

While the Central Pacific blasts its way toward the eastern slope of the Sierra

Nevadas.

on the Union Pacific line for every worker who dies on the job or are

killed after hours.

Jack Casement is the right type of person to handle the unruliness of hell

wheels.

You have all got one hour to get out of town!

When things do get sufficiently out of hand, he has no problem letting them

that if they don't mosey on, they're going to meet the end of his gun.

August 1867, foreman Jack Caseman has Thomas Durant's Union Pacific back on

track.

But as the company advances further west into the Great Plains, its native

people are becoming increasingly desperate to protect their land.

As the railroad is moving forward west and the federal government is offering

the railroad companies right -of -way corridors on each side of the railway

and calling it public land.

This land was actually Native American land that was either seized or accrued

through disreputable treaties.

As the railroad pushes west, the U .S. Army murders thousands of Native

Americans and forces many more onto reservations.

To support their efforts, the Army turns to the indigenous people's most

cherished resource, the American bison, killing over 5 million and

driving them close to extinction.

The legacy of the Transcontinental Railroad is absolutely sullied by the

in which that work was accomplished.

The way that indigenous people are treated and discarded by the United

which used its might.

to destroy peoples who are largely unable to defend themselves.

As Durant's Union Pacific moves west, crossing the 400 -mile mark, only 94

from their starting point,

Crocker's Central Pacific faces one final Sierra Nevada hurdle.

The biggest challenge at getting the railroad line through Sierra Nevada came

right at the top.

The summit ridge is very steep. There's no way to build a railroad up it. You

have to go through it.

So they planned what they called the summit tunnel. It would be about 1 ,600

feet long, and they had to bore that tunnel through solid granite, an

dense rock that does not want to fracture easily.

By working four separate tunnel crews, one on each end and two blasting from

within, Crocker accelerates the process.

using nitroglycerin to connect a single tunnel with incredible precision.

The fact that Crocker and the Central Pacific get through Summit Tunnel is

nothing short of a miracle.

Not only do they manage to get through this massive piece of granite, making a

tunnel that's over 1 ,600 feet long, they do so being only two inches off.

It's an incredible engineering feat.

Four years into their race, Crockers laid just one quarter the track Durant

But he's just cleared his biggest hurdle.

They may be ahead of us in miles, but we've faced a greater challenge and come

out stronger.

Yeah! We made it out of the Sierras, and no one is going to stop us from

winning. Yeah!

with just 800 miles between them and no mandated meeting point, both sides

intend to push as far as they can.

At between $16 ,000 and $48 ,000 a mile, there's still $33 million up for grabs,

over half a billion today.

And then there's the land.

There's a lot at stake.

Every mile of track that's laid means claiming land, mineral rights.

There are coal mines out there, and all those mineral rights are just waiting to

be had by whichever company can get there first.

Both companies are now in high gear, and in the summer of 1868, Durant's Union

Pacific reaches a milestone in Wyoming, 888 miles, the halfway point between

Sacramento and Omaha.

Yet Durant has no intention of slowing down until the government intervenes.

The government want us to finalize a meeting point with Central Pacific.

There is no way they could beat our mileage at this point. So it shouldn't

matter where we end.

That's not the point.

I prefer to keep making money.

The profits are so tempting that as both railroads reach Utah, they each lay

track beds that extend past their rival's track by more than 100 miles.

By January 1869, the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific have raided well past

each other. Both are trying to seize as much land as they possibly can, both

asserting that they are the ones laying the real transcontinental rail.

The unnecessary cost is the last straw for President Ulysses Grant.

He demands the sides come together and reach an agreement on where they'll

After six years of bitter competition,

The rulers of the railroads will finally clash face to face.

By the spring of 1869, six years after the first track was laid, the federal

government has had enough of Thomas Durant and Charles Crocker's

To encourage competition, Lincoln's original deal didn't specify a meeting

point.

But now, with the two companies preparing rail beds right next to each

that competition has spun out of control.

The competition between the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific towards

very end was very bitter.

President Grant demands a meeting point for the two tracks, forcing Crocker and

Durant to the table.

I think I speak for everyone when I say no one wants to be here any longer than

necessary.

We believe the point that makes the most sense is Ogden.

How about we move that finger about 50 miles west?

How about 50 miles to the east?

We'll get to that spot and have to wait a year for your truck to finally show

up.

We've already won this.

Promontory Summit.

That's our best offer.

With over 1 ,000 total miles to Crocker's 700, Thomas Durant has won the

war and the modern equivalent of over $3 billion that comes with it.

But Charles Crocker, who has 16 miles left to go, is determined to land one

blow against Durant, who is just nine miles away from the agreed -upon meeting

point.

What's the most amount of track we've laid in one day?

Six miles.

How about we go for ten?

I have an idea on how we get a head start.

We're not missing our chance to take what's ours from this smug crook.

Central Pacific will lay 10 miles of track a day.

If we fail, we'll wire you $10 ,000.

If we do it, we'll wire us $10 ,000.

Bet?

Durant's a little bit on the stuck -up side.

And he felt that, you know, he could do no wrong. His men could do no wrong.

And so Durant says, come on, give me a break. Look at how slow you've been

through Sierra Nevada. You can't go very far.

To win, Charles Crocker needs to lay a record 10 miles of track in a single

And he's willing to take a page from Durant's dirty playbook to do it.

Crocker takes extraordinary steps, like putting the ties down before the rest of

the track.

This is about accomplishing a feat that many thought was entirely impossible.

By waiting until Durant has just nine miles left to the meeting point,

cleverly made sure the Union Pacific has no way of matching his ten -mile

attempt.

Durant, what are you doing on this side of the summit?

Those railroad ties have already been embedded.

That's cheating.

By whose rulebook?

It's not every day I get to watch my competition bury themselves.

You'll eat your words before the day's out.

The completion of the Transcontinental Railroad has come down to a final

showdown between Crocker and Durant.

With the modern equivalent of nearly $20 million on the line.

April 28, 1869, and the final showdown between Charles Crocker and Thomas

comes down to a one -day battle worth almost $20 million in today's dollars.

If Crocker's Central Pacific can lay 10 miles of track in a single day, he'll

break Durant's seven -mile record and take the modern equivalent of $1 .5

million from him.

At dawn.

Over 4 ,000 men begin their Herculean effort.

Crocker's got his men all set up. They have cars coming up, dumping material,

moving to the back. It's very well orchestrated.

By noon, the Central Pacific's crew has six miles of track laid

and eight hours of light left to win the bet.

3 ,500 rail, 55 ,000 spike.

and 25 ,000 railroad ties later,

Crocker's men have won the wager.

The Union Pacific is livid.

Thomas Durant absolutely thinks that Crocker and his company cheated.

Two weeks later, after a six -year struggle and nearly 21 million

swings since President Lincoln began it, his goal of unifying the country has

finally become a reality.

as the Transcontinental Railroad connects the nation with a final golden

This was one of the biggest accomplishments in world history in

engineering.

The country went wild. More cannons were fired in celebration of that event

than during the Battle of Gettysburg.

Prior to completion, it would take six months and today's money, tens of

thousands of dollars to travel from New York to San Francisco. With the

completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, it takes a week, it costs a

of hundred bucks, and it's safe and efficient.

The railroad.

opens up the Western frontier to a whole greater swath of American citizens

at different price points, different class opportunities.

Different kinds of people are able to get access to the West in ways in which

was much more cost prohibitive just a few years earlier.

Over the next five years.

350 ,000 people cross the country on the Transcontinental Railroad, along with

today's equivalent of over $102 billion of freight.

Materials from all over the country could go from one place to another.

Industrialization could happen in different parts of the United States.

And whatever they produce... could be sent not only within the United States

also to Asia and to Europe.

Crocker and Durant are rewarded handsomely for connecting the coasts,

.3 and $3 .6 billion in today's money, respectively.

But the land grants they're awarded are worth even more.

At over 175 million acres, it's more land than the entire state of Texas.

But despite his success, Thomas Durant can't escape his past.

In 1872, the New York Sun publishes an expose on Credit Mobilier,

his profit -making scheme, and the congressional insider trading that made

possible.

Though his Central Pacific laid less track than Durant, in the long run,

Crocker is the winner.

He goes on to acquire the Southern Pacific Railroad, extending the line

the American Southwest.

A century later, the Union Pacific buys up both competitors and today operates

32 ,000 miles of track solely for hauling freight.

Rail now makes up the backbone of America's shipping industry, moving over

billion tons of goods a year, worth over $219 billion.

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