Rail transport in California
History of California
To 1899
Gold Rush (1848)
American Civil War
(1861-1865)
Since 1900
Maritime
Railroad
Highways
Slavery
Los Angeles
Sacramento
San Diego
San Fernando Valley
San Francisco
San Jose
The establishment of America’s transcontin-
ental rail lines securely linked California to
the rest of the country, and the far-reaching
transportation systems that grew out of them
during the century that followed contributed
to the state’s social, political, and economic
development. When California was admitted
as a state to the United States in 1850, and
for nearly two decades thereafter, it was in
many ways isolated, an outpost on the Pa-
cific. In recent years, passenger railroad
building has picked up steam, with the intro-
duction of services such as Metrolink, Cal-
train, Amtrak California, and others. This is
expected to continue, thanks to the passing
of various rail-construction measures on
November 4, 2008, including Proposition 1a.
Background
The early Forty-Niners of the California Gold
Rush wishing to come to California were
faced with limited options. From the East
Coast, for example, a sailing voyage around
the tip of South America would take five to
eight months,[1] and cover some 18,000 naut-
ical miles (33,000 km). An alternative route
was to sail to the Atlantic side of the Isthmus
of Panama, to take canoes and mules for a
week through the jungle, and then on the Pa-
cific side, to wait for a ship sailing for San
Francisco.[2] Eventually, most gold-seekers
took the overland route across the continent-
al United States, particularly along the Cali-
fornia Trail.[3] Each of these routes had its
own deadly hazards,
from shipwreck to
typhoid fever to cholera or Indian attack.[4][5]
Transcontinental links
The very first "inter-oceanic" railroad which
affected California was built in 1855 across
the Isthmus of Panama, the Panama Rail-
way.[6] The Panama Railway reduced the
time needed to cross the Isthmus from a
week of difficult and dangerous travel to a
day of relative c