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Glossary · Railroads & Industry

Central Pacific Railroad

The company that built the western half of the first transcontinental railroad, eastward from Sacramento over the Sierra Nevada.

The Central Pacific was incorporated in 1861 and chartered by Congress in 1862 to build a railroad east from Sacramento, completing most of the western part of the first transcontinental railroad. Its financing came from land grants and government bonds.

The company ceased independent operation in 1885 when it was leased to the Southern Pacific, and its assets were formally merged into Southern Pacific in 1959. Its Sacramento maintenance yards were expanded with the Southern Pacific shops, the site now called the Railyards.

Sources

Questions people ask

Where did the Central Pacific start?

In Sacramento, building east toward the Sierra Nevada.

What happened to the Central Pacific?

It was leased to the Southern Pacific in 1885 and merged into it in 1959.

Related terms

  • The Big FourLeland Stanford, Collis Huntington, Mark Hopkins and Charles Crocker, the Sacramento businessmen who financed the Central Pacific Railroad.
  • Theodore JudahThe civil engineer who surveyed the route over the Sierra Nevada and found the investors for the Central Pacific; he died in 1863, six years before the line was finished.
  • The RailyardsThe 244-acre former Southern Pacific shops site at the western end of the first transcontinental railroad, now being redeveloped as a downtown neighborhood.
  • Sacramento Valley RailroadCalifornia’s first incorporated transit railroad: Sacramento toward Folsom, first train February 22, 1856.

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