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These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated: 0 00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:04,000 BBC Seven Wonders Of The Industrial World 1 00:00:00,105 --> 00:00:05,000 http://subscene.com/ 1 00:00:06,940 --> 00:00:11,070 This is the true story of a line, two thousand miles long. 2 00:00:12,212 --> 00:00:16,205 A line that united a nation and tore it apart. 3 00:00:17,484 --> 00:00:18,849 The more lndians we can kill today 4 00:00:19,019 --> 00:00:21,249 the fewer we will have to be killed in the next war. 5 00:00:21,621 --> 00:00:23,282 Will someone go over there and help my men. 6 00:00:23,556 --> 00:00:28,687 A line that crossed the wilderness and turned it in to the wild west. 7 00:00:28,928 --> 00:00:33,126 For every worker who dies in that accident, we lose four in a shoot out. 8 00:00:34,567 --> 00:00:39,334 A line that fought men, and mountains. 9 00:00:39,539 --> 00:00:41,131 There`s a lot of men buried under those rocks. 10 00:00:41,674 --> 00:00:44,370 You can`t build a railroad under fifty feet of snow. 11 00:00:45,412 --> 00:00:48,506 lt was the greatest line the world had ever built. 12 00:00:48,815 --> 00:00:51,215 No one in the world, no one can do it as well as we do. 13 00:00:51,384 --> 00:00:53,909 lt`s not simply tracks for a railroad we`re laying. 14 00:00:54,087 --> 00:00:55,111 We did it damn it. 15 00:00:55,388 --> 00:00:58,255 lt`s the foundation for a magnificent highway of cities. 16 00:00:59,759 --> 00:01:03,354 We have finished the job that Christopher Columbus started. 17 00:01:03,830 --> 00:01:07,357 lt was the world`s first transcontinental railroad. 18 00:01:33,560 --> 00:01:37,326 ln 1863 the United States was falling apart. 19 00:01:38,398 --> 00:01:40,923 North and South were divided by civil war. 20 00:01:41,701 --> 00:01:43,794 East and West by the wilderness. 21 00:01:47,440 --> 00:01:49,908 The young nation stood on the brink of collapse. 22 00:01:52,045 --> 00:01:53,205 But at the height of the conflict 23 00:01:53,379 --> 00:01:56,314 President Lincoln issued a remarkable challenge. 24 00:01:56,583 --> 00:02:00,917 He called upon America`s finest engineers to build a railroad. 25 00:02:04,190 --> 00:02:07,023 lt would run from the Atlantic to the Pacific. 26 00:02:08,428 --> 00:02:10,123 lt would have to climb fast mountain 27 00:02:10,296 --> 00:02:13,754 ranges across hundreds of miles of desert and prairie. 28 00:02:15,401 --> 00:02:20,930 lt would have to bridge canyons a mile wide and chasms a thousand feet deep. 29 00:02:24,544 --> 00:02:27,843 This will be a work of giants. 30 00:02:28,882 --> 00:02:33,342 And Uncle Sam is the only giant we know who can grapple the subject. 31 00:02:34,654 --> 00:02:38,215 lt would be the world`s first transcontinental railroad. 32 00:02:41,594 --> 00:02:44,995 But this challenge was not taken up by the giants of industry, 33 00:02:45,165 --> 00:02:48,032 nor in the industrial powerhouse of the east. 34 00:02:48,635 --> 00:02:52,537 The world`s first transcontinental railroad began in the far west, 35 00:02:52,705 --> 00:02:56,232 in the small California township of Sacramento. 36 00:03:01,114 --> 00:03:07,144 On the morning of January 8th 1863 the entire population of thirteen thousand 37 00:03:07,320 --> 00:03:09,015 turned up for the inauguration 38 00:03:09,189 --> 00:03:14,024 as the President`s challenge was taken up by four local shopkeepers, a grocer, 39 00:03:14,194 --> 00:03:17,459 a draper and the owners of a hardware store. 40 00:03:18,831 --> 00:03:22,631 We`re all self-made men who er came out here from back east. 41 00:03:22,802 --> 00:03:26,533 Well none of us have any experience of building a railroad or, or running one. 42 00:03:26,839 --> 00:03:29,603 But we know how to run a business and we know how to manage men. 43 00:03:31,644 --> 00:03:34,340 People in the state have been crying for a railroad for some time, 44 00:03:34,747 --> 00:03:36,112 and they ought to have one. 45 00:03:37,684 --> 00:03:40,244 And by God, we plan to give them one. 46 00:03:41,754 --> 00:03:44,314 And so the grocer Leland Stanford shovelled 47 00:03:44,490 --> 00:03:48,256 the first earth of the transcontinental railroad. 48 00:03:51,764 --> 00:03:55,962 Four California shopkeepers had given birth to Lincoln`s dream. 49 00:03:58,404 --> 00:04:00,736 And advance with giant strides 50 00:04:00,907 --> 00:04:06,072 the prosperity of our state and of our country. 51 00:04:08,581 --> 00:04:12,415 The shopkeepers stood to make millions of dollars in government grants. 52 00:04:12,952 --> 00:04:17,218 But they wouldn`t get a cent until they had laid the first forty miles of track. 53 00:04:17,790 --> 00:04:21,021 And they lacked almost everything needed to get started. 54 00:04:21,461 --> 00:04:24,123 The west coast was an industrial desert. 55 00:04:24,764 --> 00:04:27,289 There is no industry in the west, this is it. 56 00:04:28,768 --> 00:04:29,928 We`re a repair shop. 57 00:04:31,971 --> 00:04:35,498 The draper Charles Crocker had been appointed head of construction, 58 00:04:35,742 --> 00:04:38,370 and he faced a major problem of supply. 59 00:04:38,745 --> 00:04:42,442 When it comes to building a railroad, it all comes from the east. 60 00:04:43,583 --> 00:04:49,613 The locomotives, rail stock, iron, steel, gunpowder and men. 61 00:04:55,461 --> 00:04:58,624 Everything had to come by sea, a four month, 62 00:04:58,798 --> 00:05:02,325 fourteen thousand mile voyage around the southern tip of America, 63 00:05:02,502 --> 00:05:04,367 the worst seas in the world. 64 00:05:04,804 --> 00:05:07,398 And the civil war had added to the dangers. 65 00:05:07,774 --> 00:05:12,074 Southern warships attacked the supply vessels on the long route to California, 66 00:05:12,512 --> 00:05:14,707 freight charges were crippling. 67 00:05:18,084 --> 00:05:21,281 The shopkeepers desperately needed money from government. 68 00:05:21,721 --> 00:05:25,885 But to get it they had to complete those first forty miles of track. 69 00:05:26,426 --> 00:05:28,485 And just a few miles outside Sacramento 70 00:05:28,661 --> 00:05:33,030 they confronted the highest mountains ever faced by a railroad. 71 00:05:39,072 --> 00:05:43,270 The Sierra Nevada rises to over fourteen thousand feet. 72 00:05:46,279 --> 00:05:48,008 Settlers from the east had to cross 73 00:05:48,181 --> 00:05:51,673 this final barrier in to California by wagon train. 74 00:05:58,791 --> 00:05:59,951 Lost in this mountain 75 00:06:00,126 --> 00:06:04,358 vastness many of the early pioneers had died of cold and hunger. 76 00:06:09,869 --> 00:06:13,396 Others resorted to cannibalism to survive. 77 00:06:14,907 --> 00:06:17,102 lt`s the strongest case we could have for building a railroad. 78 00:06:17,744 --> 00:06:19,712 l mean tens of thousands of people have died 79 00:06:19,879 --> 00:06:22,211 trying to cross this country by wagon train. 80 00:06:24,317 --> 00:06:25,807 God there has to be a better way. 81 00:06:27,387 --> 00:06:31,153 No one had ever attempted to build a railroad this high. 82 00:06:31,758 --> 00:06:34,591 But the shopkeepers had one major asset. 83 00:06:41,701 --> 00:06:45,728 Theodore Judah was the greatest railroad engineer in America. 84 00:06:46,973 --> 00:06:48,497 But his plans to build a railroad 85 00:06:48,674 --> 00:06:54,374 over the Sierras had earned him a new title, Crazy Judah. 86 00:06:56,682 --> 00:06:57,706 Well if it`s crazy to say 87 00:06:57,884 --> 00:07:01,945 that a locomotive can climb a mountain l stand condemned 88 00:07:02,121 --> 00:07:06,353 and you may have me let off and confined to an asylum but, 89 00:07:07,026 --> 00:07:11,019 but you know a railroad can go where a man or a mule can not, 90 00:07:11,197 --> 00:07:13,961 provided you find the right route for it. 91 00:07:16,803 --> 00:07:20,899 When an engineer looks at a mountain he sees a series of loops 92 00:07:21,073 --> 00:07:24,167 and curves that follow the contour rather like a river. 93 00:07:25,778 --> 00:07:30,613 There will be obstacles of course that they require a bridge or a tunnel and, 94 00:07:30,983 --> 00:07:36,717 well l, l`ve calculated that we will need up to, well fifty bridges between here, 95 00:07:37,256 --> 00:07:41,693 just to get up to the summit and then some thirteen or fourteen tunnels. 96 00:07:47,033 --> 00:07:49,695 Judah had drawn the route through the Sierras. 97 00:07:50,036 --> 00:07:53,062 The hundred and twenty miles over some of the toughest terrain in the world, 98 00:07:53,439 --> 00:07:55,464 reaching a height of seven thousand feet. 99 00:07:57,677 --> 00:07:59,804 But others had to build it. 100 00:08:04,951 --> 00:08:09,445 That would require thousands of men and tonnes of gunpowder. 101 00:08:12,859 --> 00:08:14,451 To lead the workforce Crocker hired 102 00:08:14,627 --> 00:08:17,391 the toughest construction boss on the west coast, 103 00:08:19,632 --> 00:08:21,657 James Harvey Strobridge. 104 00:08:22,668 --> 00:08:25,228 Strobridge who had lost his eye in a powder blast 105 00:08:25,404 --> 00:08:28,134 enforced a crew discipline backed by a pick axe handle 106 00:08:28,307 --> 00:08:32,004 he used as his persuader and a legendary profanity. 107 00:08:32,178 --> 00:08:34,271 Come on now get your ass up there, let`s go. 108 00:08:34,614 --> 00:08:38,072 Come on get a move on that wagon there, for Christ`s sakes. 109 00:08:38,251 --> 00:08:39,047 Come on. 110 00:08:40,319 --> 00:08:43,083 He has a way of persuading people to see his point of view, 111 00:08:43,456 --> 00:08:45,720 that`s what l hired him for and that`s what he does. 112 00:08:46,058 --> 00:08:48,390 Alright let`s go, come on now get this stuff up the hill, let`s go. 113 00:08:48,561 --> 00:08:49,858 Come on get it up here. 114 00:08:50,129 --> 00:08:52,757 Be careful, spark and we`re all gonners. 115 00:08:52,999 --> 00:08:54,489 Now watch what you`re doing there now. 116 00:08:55,067 --> 00:08:59,197 You lrish bastard, get your god damn ass down here and bring me up that wagon, 117 00:08:59,372 --> 00:09:00,839 you`re dirty piece of shit. 118 00:09:01,007 --> 00:09:03,498 Now come on, fill this thing up, let`s go. 119 00:09:04,410 --> 00:09:07,573 You can not talk to these men as gentlemen because they`re not gentlemen. 120 00:09:07,747 --> 00:09:09,544 There as mere brutes as you can get. 121 00:09:10,082 --> 00:09:12,915 But these men too had a dream, 122 00:09:13,319 --> 00:09:16,755 and it wasn`t the same as Abe Lincoln`s or the shopkeeper`s. 123 00:09:17,056 --> 00:09:18,819 lt`s the dream of the goldmines. 124 00:09:20,026 --> 00:09:23,120 These people make enough to stake themselves 125 00:09:23,296 --> 00:09:25,628 with shovels and picks and they`re gone. 126 00:09:26,032 --> 00:09:28,432 Mr Strobridge does his best to persuade them of their foolishness 127 00:09:28,601 --> 00:09:33,300 but er if they want to leave, they`re going to leave. 128 00:09:33,673 --> 00:09:35,470 Let`s go you over here come on. 129 00:09:36,142 --> 00:09:40,078 And they did leave, in their hundreds to dig for gold. 130 00:09:40,513 --> 00:09:42,504 The shopkeepers faced ruin. 131 00:09:44,016 --> 00:09:46,450 There`d be times that l`ve thought about giving up 132 00:09:46,619 --> 00:09:50,180 the whole thing for a clean shirt and a freedom of debt. 133 00:09:51,357 --> 00:09:53,621 Without a workforce the shopkeepers had no way of laying 134 00:09:53,793 --> 00:09:58,924 the vital forty miles of track, and unlocking the government treasure chest. 135 00:10:01,567 --> 00:10:06,334 Then in the Spring of 1864 the seas brought an unexpected bounty. 136 00:10:14,547 --> 00:10:17,141 Fleeing from famine in their homeland 137 00:10:17,350 --> 00:10:20,945 thousands of Chinese immigrants had arrived in San Francisco. 138 00:10:26,892 --> 00:10:31,795 As an experiment Crocker recruited fifty of these newcomers to work on the railroad. 139 00:10:34,200 --> 00:10:36,464 But he encountered fierce opposition. 140 00:10:38,037 --> 00:10:39,664 l will not force Chinese labour. 141 00:10:40,239 --> 00:10:42,264 They are nothing but a bunch of heathen weaklings and from 142 00:10:42,441 --> 00:10:45,205 what l have seen they are not fit for the most menial job of work, 143 00:10:45,378 --> 00:10:47,744 and they sure as hell can`t build a railroad. 144 00:10:51,884 --> 00:10:56,184 l`ve explained to Mr Strobridge he needs to give these men a chance. 145 00:10:57,023 --> 00:11:00,652 They`ve built the Great Wall of China, why not the Pacific railroad? 146 00:11:03,996 --> 00:11:06,487 The Chinese deserved Crocker`s confidence, 147 00:11:07,033 --> 00:11:11,231 they worked harder and faster than the Europeans and for less pay. 148 00:11:11,470 --> 00:11:13,461 Soon there were thousands of them. 149 00:11:21,313 --> 00:11:25,613 They are a great army, laying siege to nature in her strongest citadel, 150 00:11:25,985 --> 00:11:28,920 the rugged mountains look like stupendous anthills, 151 00:11:29,155 --> 00:11:31,419 they swarm with Chinese workers tunnelling, 152 00:11:31,590 --> 00:11:36,391 wheeling, carting, drilling and blasting the rocks and earth. 153 00:11:41,867 --> 00:11:44,131 The Chinese were also laying track. 154 00:11:52,445 --> 00:11:53,412 For the first time 155 00:11:53,579 --> 00:11:57,481 passenger trains were running deep in to the foothills of the Sierras. 156 00:12:06,225 --> 00:12:10,958 ln the Summer of 1865 the shopkeepers finally broke through the forty mile mark 157 00:12:11,130 --> 00:12:14,293 and unlocked millions of dollars in government aid. 158 00:12:27,113 --> 00:12:31,379 But they had taken over two years to lay just forty miles of track, 159 00:12:31,717 --> 00:12:36,017 and they were about to enter the greatest race in railroad history. 160 00:12:38,124 --> 00:12:42,026 Two thousand miles to the east a mighty power had been unleashed. 161 00:12:42,628 --> 00:12:47,031 The civil war was over, all the wealth and industry of the victims was now 162 00:12:47,199 --> 00:12:49,929 harnessed to building a railroad to the Pacific. 163 00:12:57,710 --> 00:13:02,238 ln 1866 on the plains of Nebraska thousands of ex-soldiers waited 164 00:13:02,414 --> 00:13:04,245 at the end of the line for the man 165 00:13:04,416 --> 00:13:08,512 who would lead them in to this new war, with the wilderness. 166 00:13:15,327 --> 00:13:17,989 He was one of the youngest generals in the civil war 167 00:13:18,164 --> 00:13:21,258 and the finest railroad engineer of his generation. 168 00:13:23,269 --> 00:13:26,170 His name was Grenville Dodge. 169 00:13:33,512 --> 00:13:35,946 A year ago we were killing each other in the civil war. 170 00:13:36,182 --> 00:13:39,083 Praise God we are now united in a single purpose. 171 00:13:40,052 --> 00:13:43,715 This will be a great national work transcending in magnitude 172 00:13:43,889 --> 00:13:45,379 anything yet attempted by man, 173 00:13:45,558 --> 00:13:50,018 well l believe this will be the making of the United States of America. 174 00:13:51,263 --> 00:13:54,061 With the war over Congress had upped the stakes. 175 00:13:54,600 --> 00:13:57,467 As well as money for every mile of track laid 176 00:13:57,636 --> 00:14:01,333 they were now giving twelve thousand acres of land. 177 00:14:02,641 --> 00:14:08,102 The railroad that built furthest and fastest would own a huge slice of America. 178 00:14:10,182 --> 00:14:14,778 Within a month of Dodge`s arrival the railroad had advanced forty miles west. 179 00:14:17,890 --> 00:14:21,792 Special supply trains ferried men and materials up to the rail head 180 00:14:21,961 --> 00:14:25,158 where the tracks were laid with military precision. 181 00:14:27,366 --> 00:14:30,460 These men can lay a length a track in just half a minute. 182 00:14:31,604 --> 00:14:32,298 That`s about the time 183 00:14:32,471 --> 00:14:36,339 it takes a highly trained gun crew to load and fire a field gun. 184 00:14:37,743 --> 00:14:38,539 Done. 185 00:14:41,547 --> 00:14:45,745 But Dodge`s army was about to fight its first major battle. 186 00:14:49,688 --> 00:14:53,920 At every railhead a vast city of tents sprang up on the prairie. 187 00:14:54,426 --> 00:15:01,594 lt catered for almost every need of the workers, including drink, gambling and women 188 00:15:02,935 --> 00:15:06,063 And with the gamblers and the girls came the gun men. 189 00:15:12,611 --> 00:15:15,671 The railroad had given birth to the Wild West. 190 00:15:17,483 --> 00:15:23,649 This was a hell on wheels, a hot bed of vice, violence and death. 191 00:15:24,757 --> 00:15:29,922 lt suckered in the free spending rail workers and sent them out in coffins. 192 00:15:32,564 --> 00:15:37,001 Angered and alarmed by the killings Dodge risked a secret visit. 193 00:15:42,908 --> 00:15:44,933 First place we visited was a dance hall 194 00:15:45,110 --> 00:15:47,738 where some fresh strumpets had just been received. 195 00:15:48,614 --> 00:15:50,605 The vulgarity, the profanity, 196 00:15:50,783 --> 00:15:54,776 the indecency would disgust any God fearing man or woman. 197 00:15:55,754 --> 00:16:00,919 These people are good for nothing, beside drinking, gambling, whoring and brawling. 198 00:16:06,365 --> 00:16:10,199 Most if not all of these creatures are squatters. 199 00:16:11,170 --> 00:16:13,638 On land granted by Congress to the railroad. 200 00:16:14,773 --> 00:16:19,870 Land that was intended to be leased to decent hardworking Christians, 201 00:16:20,846 --> 00:16:22,006 farmers and their families. 202 00:16:23,482 --> 00:16:27,077 lf we let this anarchy continue that will not happen. 203 00:16:29,888 --> 00:16:35,019 Dodge had to do something, and he had just the man to do it. 204 00:16:44,903 --> 00:16:50,170 Dodge`s enforcer as labour boss was Jack Casement, known as the Cossack, 205 00:16:50,376 --> 00:16:53,607 he was a ruthless disciplinarian with an explosive temper, 206 00:16:54,079 --> 00:16:57,446 and he was incensed by the toll on his workforce. 207 00:16:58,183 --> 00:17:02,882 For every worker who dies in an accident we lose four in a shoot out. 208 00:17:03,389 --> 00:17:05,857 That is not a figure we`re prepared to tolerate. 209 00:17:13,365 --> 00:17:17,734 Arming two hundred of his rail workers Casement set off on a mission. 210 00:17:22,508 --> 00:17:25,568 Civil law is nonexistent. 211 00:17:26,512 --> 00:17:29,481 The only sure preventative is marshal law. 212 00:17:37,022 --> 00:17:39,013 There were dead bodies all over. 213 00:17:39,224 --> 00:17:43,183 They fired right in to the crowd, the railroad thinks they`re law around here. 214 00:17:43,896 --> 00:17:45,557 They treat us like animals. 215 00:17:46,131 --> 00:17:48,895 l`ve seen men going down, women too. 216 00:17:50,069 --> 00:17:52,594 l saw the boss man from the railroad. 217 00:17:55,174 --> 00:17:58,234 He looked like a Cossack, with his hat and his whip. 218 00:18:02,214 --> 00:18:03,977 There was a whole load of railroad men 219 00:18:04,149 --> 00:18:06,481 packing pieces disputing the toss with the gaming boys. 220 00:18:07,052 --> 00:18:10,112 A whole crew of them came out in to the street cutting up a ruckus. 221 00:18:10,422 --> 00:18:14,449 And l hear someone shout, open fire. 222 00:18:23,735 --> 00:18:26,795 l gave the orders to Jack Casement to clean up the town, 223 00:18:27,406 --> 00:18:29,374 when l spoke to him after a while, after the event, 224 00:18:29,541 --> 00:18:32,032 he says General, they all died with their boots on. 225 00:18:32,211 --> 00:18:33,906 And Joesrth has been quiet ever since, 226 00:18:34,079 --> 00:18:36,047 as far as l`m concerned the subject is now closed, 227 00:18:36,215 --> 00:18:38,342 we can get on with building a railroad. 228 00:18:39,184 --> 00:18:43,917 Lynch law had come to the Midwest, and it was here to stay. 229 00:18:53,699 --> 00:18:58,159 But the prairies harboured a greater peril than gunmen and gamblers. 230 00:18:58,604 --> 00:19:03,064 And it drew closer with every mile the railroad advanced to the west. 231 00:19:14,887 --> 00:19:17,856 Within six months of Dodge`s arrival the Union Pacific 232 00:19:18,023 --> 00:19:20,651 had laid two hundred and fifty miles of track, 233 00:19:21,093 --> 00:19:24,324 worth five million dollars in government grants. 234 00:19:27,766 --> 00:19:30,826 Far to the west, after almost three years, 235 00:19:31,103 --> 00:19:33,230 the shopkeepers were still stuck in the mountains, 236 00:19:33,405 --> 00:19:35,930 just eighty miles from their start point. 237 00:19:45,317 --> 00:19:48,480 The Chinese workers were at home on the perilous rock face. 238 00:19:51,356 --> 00:19:55,087 But the gunpowder they were using was just not powerful enough. 239 00:19:59,865 --> 00:20:02,333 With the other railroad racing across the prairies 240 00:20:02,501 --> 00:20:05,368 the shopkeepers desperately needed to force the pace. 241 00:20:07,072 --> 00:20:10,838 Strobridge decided to try a dangerous experiment. 242 00:20:17,749 --> 00:20:23,483 lt`s safe enough, we have a chemist, an Englishman, fixes his stuff up on site. 243 00:20:23,722 --> 00:20:27,749 Nitro-glycerine, with eight times more power than gunpowder, 244 00:20:27,926 --> 00:20:30,190 but notoriously unstable. 245 00:20:31,597 --> 00:20:36,125 When he`s mixed it, well you wouldn`t want to go shaking the bottle. 246 00:21:30,789 --> 00:21:33,587 He say, they pull out seven bodies, 247 00:21:34,459 --> 00:21:39,328 some hands, some legs, a few men are still missing. 248 00:21:40,565 --> 00:21:43,898 He say one of the dead man was his older brother. 249 00:21:44,870 --> 00:21:49,432 Our average daily progress is twelve inches, twelve inches a day 250 00:21:49,608 --> 00:21:52,839 that`s how long it takes us to drill and blast through this rock. 251 00:21:53,111 --> 00:21:54,339 We`ve got to do better than that. 252 00:21:56,648 --> 00:21:59,742 There`s a lot of men buried under those rocks, good men. 253 00:22:00,252 --> 00:22:01,480 Bury the stuff. 254 00:22:08,126 --> 00:22:11,061 Now it`s back to packed powder and twelve inches a day. 255 00:22:11,363 --> 00:22:13,923 At this rate we`ll be in Nevada by the end of the century. 256 00:22:16,868 --> 00:22:21,168 The shopkeepers` dreams of riches were being buried on the slopes of the Sierras. 257 00:22:27,512 --> 00:22:31,039 After three years they were still twenty miles short of the summit. 258 00:22:31,883 --> 00:22:35,375 Beyond lay a fortune in government grants and real estate. 259 00:22:36,188 --> 00:22:38,884 But first they had to beat the mountain. 260 00:22:41,193 --> 00:22:44,720 Dodge meanwhile had advanced three hundred miles from his start point. 261 00:22:45,197 --> 00:22:50,430 He was now deep in to lndian territory, and facing his greatest challenge. 262 00:22:58,276 --> 00:23:02,007 The Sioux and Cheyenne were two of the most warlike tribes in America 263 00:23:02,180 --> 00:23:04,910 and the railroad threatened their way of life. 264 00:23:05,984 --> 00:23:07,645 The sight of these iron monsters 265 00:23:07,819 --> 00:23:11,778 hurtling across their homeland was both alien and alarming. 266 00:23:12,958 --> 00:23:14,323 They fought back with a fury 267 00:23:14,493 --> 00:23:18,429 that struck terror in to every railroad worker in the Midwest. 268 00:23:31,343 --> 00:23:34,244 On the night of August 27th 1867 269 00:23:34,413 --> 00:23:37,576 a supply train was heading westward across the prairies. 270 00:23:41,052 --> 00:23:45,079 About four miles out from the rail depot at Plum Creek in Nebraska, 271 00:23:45,257 --> 00:23:48,090 the engineers saw a fire on the tracks. 272 00:23:58,570 --> 00:24:02,233 Out of the smoke two men came running towards them. 273 00:24:05,343 --> 00:24:06,435 lndians coming. 274 00:24:06,745 --> 00:24:07,837 Get on the back cart. 275 00:24:13,985 --> 00:24:16,886 The train ahead had been derailed by the Cheyenne, 276 00:24:17,389 --> 00:24:19,789 and the wrecked engine had caused a fire. 277 00:24:20,258 --> 00:24:22,692 The war party could still be heard in the darkness. 278 00:24:27,199 --> 00:24:31,568 The rescuers fled from the scene taking the terrified survivors with them. 279 00:24:32,737 --> 00:24:34,898 l looked out of the window and l see this, this, 280 00:24:35,073 --> 00:24:37,769 this whole pass of lndians out there. 281 00:24:38,343 --> 00:24:39,833 They, they was riding alongside locomotive, 282 00:24:40,011 --> 00:24:41,808 you know firing, shooting their rifles at it, 283 00:24:42,214 --> 00:24:46,617 and er, and we was going full chisel, engineers he`s trying to outrun them. 284 00:24:46,985 --> 00:24:52,218 Er, and all of a sudden we, we, we were in a heat you know. 285 00:24:56,828 --> 00:24:59,524 l didn`t see what happened to the engineer or the fireman. 286 00:25:02,634 --> 00:25:04,829 l don`t reckon they stand much of a chance back there. 287 00:25:07,506 --> 00:25:10,839 Of the twelve victims of the ambush seven were still missing. 288 00:25:13,879 --> 00:25:16,507 The train sought refuge at Plum Creek depot. 289 00:25:20,218 --> 00:25:23,153 lsolated the handful of men prepared for attack. 290 00:25:25,991 --> 00:25:29,256 But instead of the Cheyenne daybreak brought a different sight. 291 00:25:34,666 --> 00:25:37,601 He was the sole survivor of the missing men. 292 00:25:40,005 --> 00:25:43,702 And he was carrying his own scalp in his hand. 293 00:25:53,885 --> 00:25:58,049 By noon Grenville Dodge had arrived at a scene of carnage. 294 00:26:00,825 --> 00:26:05,421 Seven dead, five linemen shot and scalped. 295 00:26:06,631 --> 00:26:10,158 An engineer and a rail man burnt to death. 296 00:26:12,971 --> 00:26:14,370 This is a war. 297 00:26:15,507 --> 00:26:18,874 We have got to clear the damned lndians out or give up building the railroad. 298 00:26:28,620 --> 00:26:32,784 The massacre at Plum Creek spread panic throughout the railroad. 299 00:26:33,258 --> 00:26:35,920 The march westward came to a dramatic halt. 300 00:26:38,029 --> 00:26:42,625 Meanwhile up in the mountains the shopkeepers confronted their own killers. 301 00:26:54,045 --> 00:27:00,712 Frequent avalanches swept all before them equipment, track and men. 302 00:27:14,666 --> 00:27:17,533 They were blowing out tree stumps and a portion of snow fell on them. 303 00:27:18,169 --> 00:27:20,330 l don`t know how many are dead, we don`t keep track of them. 304 00:27:20,739 --> 00:27:21,467 To tell you the truth l don`t know 305 00:27:21,640 --> 00:27:24,370 who they are when they`re alive let alone when they`re dead. 306 00:27:35,120 --> 00:27:36,712 We`re sending the bodies back to China. 307 00:27:37,756 --> 00:27:39,587 Well that`s the deal we had with the agents. 308 00:27:41,626 --> 00:27:43,526 They got a right to be buried where they came from. 309 00:27:45,430 --> 00:27:46,727 That`s about all we can do. 310 00:27:48,299 --> 00:27:53,259 As blizzards swept across the mountains the shopkeepers floundered in the drifts. 311 00:27:54,305 --> 00:27:56,830 The death toll rose even higher. 312 00:28:05,550 --> 00:28:08,542 Down on the prairie Dodge too was counting his dead. 313 00:28:09,688 --> 00:28:13,180 Seven bodies were recovered from the train wreck at Plum Creek. 314 00:28:30,675 --> 00:28:32,939 This is a savage useless waste of life, 315 00:28:33,411 --> 00:28:36,278 if it continues at this present rate we`ll have no one left to build a railroad. 316 00:28:37,015 --> 00:28:40,712 ln the wake of the killings the railroad was in constant fear of attack. 317 00:28:41,419 --> 00:28:43,887 Workers were ordered to carry guns at all times. 318 00:28:45,657 --> 00:28:48,683 For Dodge, a veteran of the conflict between the states, 319 00:28:48,960 --> 00:28:51,656 this war had become personal. 320 00:28:54,933 --> 00:29:00,303 l`ve fought in the late conflict, l saw many good men killed and wounded. 321 00:29:03,108 --> 00:29:05,804 Never did l see anything to cause me to hate my enemy. 322 00:29:08,046 --> 00:29:09,843 l have seen what they do when they kill a man. 323 00:29:11,449 --> 00:29:12,643 This is a different kind of war, 324 00:29:13,818 --> 00:29:18,255 there is no room in this land for us and them and that`s about it. 325 00:29:19,390 --> 00:29:22,621 For Dodge nothing must stand in the way of the railroad. 326 00:29:24,229 --> 00:29:25,457 He began a process 327 00:29:25,630 --> 00:29:30,226 that would lead to one of the bloodiest chapters in American history. 328 00:29:41,513 --> 00:29:46,610 Dodge used the power of the railroad to launch a war of annihilation. 329 00:29:47,585 --> 00:29:50,213 To fight it the government sent in one of the most ruthless generals 330 00:29:50,388 --> 00:29:54,791 in the Federal Army, William Tekomsay Sherman. 331 00:30:00,064 --> 00:30:03,693 Sherman, the man who raised Atlanta to the ground 332 00:30:03,868 --> 00:30:08,498 and burned a swathe through Georgia to win victory in the civil war. 333 00:30:10,375 --> 00:30:12,070 l have six companies of cavalry, 334 00:30:12,544 --> 00:30:15,411 and General Custer is coming from the Smoke Hill route. 335 00:30:19,117 --> 00:30:20,482 The more lndians we can kill today 336 00:30:20,652 --> 00:30:22,984 the fewer will have to be killed in the next war. 337 00:30:23,555 --> 00:30:25,318 But the more l see of them the more l am convinced 338 00:30:25,490 --> 00:30:31,053 that they will all have to be killed, or maintained as a species of pauper. 339 00:30:35,333 --> 00:30:38,825 We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux and the Cheyenne, 340 00:30:40,738 --> 00:30:43,832 to the point of their very extermination. 341 00:30:44,742 --> 00:30:48,644 Men, women and children. 342 00:30:48,980 --> 00:30:54,043 For Sherman there would be no compromise and no mercy. 343 00:30:57,121 --> 00:31:00,181 The first task was to hunt down the Cheyenne war party 344 00:31:00,358 --> 00:31:04,556 that had attacked the train at Plum Creek and killed the seven men. 345 00:31:08,733 --> 00:31:10,701 A number of prisoners were taken, 346 00:31:10,902 --> 00:31:14,167 one of them a Cheyenne warrior called Porcupine, 347 00:31:14,539 --> 00:31:17,201 he gave a first hand account of the incident. 348 00:31:21,946 --> 00:31:26,440 We said among ourselves now the white people have taken all we had, 349 00:31:26,851 --> 00:31:28,409 we are to do something. 350 00:31:31,556 --> 00:31:36,152 lf we can throw these wagons off the iron they run upon and break them open 351 00:31:36,527 --> 00:31:41,760 we should find what is in them and can take whatever might be useful to us. 352 00:31:45,236 --> 00:31:48,535 We cut down one of the big sticks that stand by the track, 353 00:31:48,907 --> 00:31:51,774 and just before sundown we tied it to the rails 354 00:31:51,943 --> 00:31:54,207 and sat down to watch what would happen. 355 00:31:55,680 --> 00:32:00,117 Then looking east we saw small light close to the horizon, 356 00:32:00,518 --> 00:32:03,180 someone said the morning star has risen. 357 00:32:06,824 --> 00:32:10,590 We sent men on the best horses along the track to yell 358 00:32:10,762 --> 00:32:13,697 and shoot in the hope that they might frighten it. 359 00:32:14,532 --> 00:32:19,094 But it kept going until it hit the sticks we had put on the track. 360 00:32:21,539 --> 00:32:24,167 The railroad is death to us. 361 00:32:24,342 --> 00:32:29,336 When the people hear the sound of the bell on the iron horse they mourn. 362 00:32:30,081 --> 00:32:34,711 lt is the signal that the life they have known is over. 363 00:32:39,090 --> 00:32:41,024 lt was over. 364 00:32:42,593 --> 00:32:47,292 Sherman and the army would drive the native Americans out of the path of the railroad. 365 00:32:49,567 --> 00:32:55,028 Every mile further west would be laid over the grave of their homeland. 366 00:33:00,578 --> 00:33:06,949 Dodge`s Union Pacific was now in Wyoming, five hundred miles from its start point. 367 00:33:07,585 --> 00:33:09,644 While in the mountains the shopkeepers were approaching 368 00:33:09,821 --> 00:33:12,949 the highest point of their route across the Sierras. 369 00:33:25,236 --> 00:33:28,399 They were now running trains high in to the mountains, 370 00:33:28,573 --> 00:33:32,475 helped by the invention of small pilot wheels or bogeys 371 00:33:32,643 --> 00:33:37,046 that enabled the locomotives to twist and turn with the contours of the track. 372 00:33:45,056 --> 00:33:48,924 As they climbed the mountain threw more obstacles in their path. 373 00:33:52,497 --> 00:33:55,364 The route was severed by deep chasms. 374 00:33:55,900 --> 00:33:57,993 Too deep for conventional bridges. 375 00:34:01,572 --> 00:34:05,633 So the engineers built wooden trestles, hundreds of feet tall. 376 00:34:07,045 --> 00:34:09,570 The largest wooden structures ever built. 377 00:34:20,391 --> 00:34:23,360 But the worst problem was above the snow line. 378 00:34:24,395 --> 00:34:26,056 This winter we had forty four snow storms, 379 00:34:26,230 --> 00:34:29,199 varying from a small squall to a two week blizzard. 380 00:34:29,634 --> 00:34:34,162 February 18th we had six feet of snow, the drifts had measured up to fifty feet. 381 00:34:34,572 --> 00:34:37,234 You can`t build a railroad under fifty feet of snow. 382 00:34:37,542 --> 00:34:39,271 And you sure as hell can`t run a train through it. 383 00:34:42,713 --> 00:34:45,739 For six months of the year the track was blocked with snow. 384 00:34:47,118 --> 00:34:48,642 The engineers had a solution. 385 00:34:49,720 --> 00:34:52,018 To run the trains under the snow. 386 00:34:53,524 --> 00:34:57,961 On the worst stretches of track they built long wooden sheds angled in to the mountain 387 00:34:58,129 --> 00:35:00,495 to keep the rails clear of drifts. 388 00:35:11,275 --> 00:35:15,473 As the snow melted it caused major problems for Dodge down on the plains. 389 00:35:16,547 --> 00:35:19,948 Normally placid rivers turned in to raging torrents, 390 00:35:20,118 --> 00:35:23,019 sweeping away miles of track and trestle. 391 00:35:26,190 --> 00:35:28,181 And then came the rain. 392 00:35:32,163 --> 00:35:36,224 Sandbags were all that stood between Dodge and disaster. 393 00:35:41,806 --> 00:35:43,967 The river has taken a hundred feet of trestle, 394 00:35:44,175 --> 00:35:47,372 and if we don`t shore up the bank it will take as many miles of track. 395 00:35:47,545 --> 00:35:49,376 l`ve never seen a winter like this. 396 00:35:51,582 --> 00:35:54,517 We`ve had temperatures as low as minus forty degrees. 397 00:35:55,620 --> 00:35:58,384 Hundreds of miles of track have been destroyed by frost. 398 00:35:59,724 --> 00:36:01,555 And now with the thaw we get this. 399 00:36:09,433 --> 00:36:11,901 The weather had stopped Dodge in his tracks. 400 00:36:12,737 --> 00:36:16,036 And he was about to face a financial storm that would make his problems 401 00:36:16,207 --> 00:36:19,643 with the weather pale in to insignificance. 402 00:36:21,579 --> 00:36:25,606 Up in the mountains the shopkeepers were just a few hundred feet from the summit. 403 00:36:26,450 --> 00:36:30,853 Beyond they had a clear run across hundreds of miles of mountain plateau, 404 00:36:31,022 --> 00:36:33,855 Worth millions of dollars in government grants. 405 00:36:36,861 --> 00:36:41,491 But those few hundred feet would be the worst along the entire route. 406 00:36:42,433 --> 00:36:46,199 They had to tunnel through sixteen hundred feet of solid granite. 407 00:36:51,509 --> 00:36:54,069 The burden fell on the Chinese labourers. 408 00:36:57,281 --> 00:36:59,647 They tackled it from both sides of the mountain. 409 00:37:00,284 --> 00:37:02,115 Toiling in shifts around the clock. 410 00:37:02,653 --> 00:37:06,521 working and even sleeping seven thousand feet above sea level. 411 00:37:13,364 --> 00:37:15,889 They sleep in cabins buried under the snow. 412 00:37:16,667 --> 00:37:20,125 With er tunnels, they`re more like burrows 413 00:37:20,304 --> 00:37:23,034 that link them to wherever the hell it is they have to get to work. 414 00:37:23,874 --> 00:37:26,342 They stay there all winter, never see the light of day. 415 00:37:29,313 --> 00:37:32,612 The long suffering Chinese finally cracked. 416 00:37:33,417 --> 00:37:34,679 They went on strike. 417 00:37:37,321 --> 00:37:40,381 For once Strobridge was on their side. 418 00:37:40,925 --> 00:37:43,450 Now if you don`t go in there and negotiate this thing is coming to a standstill. 419 00:37:43,628 --> 00:37:45,528 l`ve got four hundred men that have already stopped. 420 00:37:45,896 --> 00:37:47,329 There is no plans to negotiate. 421 00:37:47,698 --> 00:37:51,031 There`s only one man running this railroad, by God it`s not them. 422 00:37:51,202 --> 00:37:52,191 You`re not listening to what l`m saying. 423 00:37:52,370 --> 00:37:54,634 You either put this to an end or l`m out with them. 424 00:37:55,506 --> 00:37:58,339 Strobridge was now the voice of moderation. 425 00:37:59,143 --> 00:38:02,943 But Crocker was determined to starve the men back to work. 426 00:38:06,517 --> 00:38:09,213 Greed had made the shopkeepers ruthless. 427 00:38:12,023 --> 00:38:17,086 The race to unite America had been transformed in to a race for riches. 428 00:38:23,834 --> 00:38:28,737 Down on the plains greed was about to plunge the Union Pacific in to a scandal 429 00:38:28,906 --> 00:38:32,865 which threatened to bring the entire venture crashing to a halt. 430 00:38:34,011 --> 00:38:38,539 Unknown to Dodge the railroad was being robbed by its own directors. 431 00:38:40,284 --> 00:38:45,221 Behind the fraud was the rail baron Dr Thomas Durant, a supreme salesman. 432 00:38:45,489 --> 00:38:46,717 Durant had raised millions 433 00:38:46,891 --> 00:38:50,918 by bringing potential investors on joyrides to the Wild West. 434 00:38:51,996 --> 00:38:54,396 lt`s not just simply tracks for a railroad we`re laying. 435 00:38:55,633 --> 00:38:58,727 lt`s the foundation for a magnificent highway of cities. 436 00:38:59,203 --> 00:39:01,728 Cities that will make the United States of America 437 00:39:01,906 --> 00:39:04,568 the richest and most powerful nation in the world. 438 00:39:05,076 --> 00:39:09,706 But Durant`s patriotic fervour hid a spectacular fraud. 439 00:39:11,248 --> 00:39:13,682 And it was about to be exposed. 440 00:39:17,788 --> 00:39:22,225 The scandal was first uncovered by a freelance journalist Charles Adams. 441 00:39:24,562 --> 00:39:29,556 Well by law all the construction, labour, the materials from the um the timbers, 442 00:39:29,734 --> 00:39:34,034 the locomotives, the ore for the grating, it all has to go out to private tender. 443 00:39:34,472 --> 00:39:37,032 Which is to say to independent contractors 444 00:39:37,208 --> 00:39:41,474 who are supposed to bid with each other to keep the cost down. 445 00:39:42,580 --> 00:39:46,038 But Adams had discovered that instead of going to different companies 446 00:39:46,217 --> 00:39:50,847 the contracts were going to just one, the Credit Mobille. 447 00:39:52,123 --> 00:39:56,526 And just who do you suppose owns the Credit Mobille? 448 00:39:56,727 --> 00:39:58,524 Why the good doctor Durant, 449 00:39:58,696 --> 00:40:04,760 and a handful of shareholders who also happen to be directors of the railroad. 450 00:40:05,836 --> 00:40:08,532 Posing as a legitimate contractor Durant and 451 00:40:08,706 --> 00:40:13,666 his partners were illegally charging the government double what it needed to pay. 452 00:40:14,311 --> 00:40:19,112 For every mile of track that`s laid twenty thousand dollars 453 00:40:19,283 --> 00:40:22,775 finds its way to Doctor Durant and his shareholders. 454 00:40:22,953 --> 00:40:28,892 Now over the course of the rail this adds up to many, many millions of dollars. 455 00:40:30,494 --> 00:40:31,722 lt`s a swindle. 456 00:40:33,330 --> 00:40:39,701 This is perhaps the greatest swindle ever perpetrated on the American people, 457 00:40:39,870 --> 00:40:43,431 and that congress can stand by and allow this to happen is, 458 00:40:43,607 --> 00:40:46,804 really is a little short of incredible. 459 00:40:47,344 --> 00:40:50,211 lt would be some years before the American people discovered 460 00:40:50,381 --> 00:40:53,908 that congress too was in Durant`s pocket. 461 00:40:54,485 --> 00:40:59,980 But the exposure of the Credit Mobille had had an immediate impact at the railhead. 462 00:41:01,792 --> 00:41:03,817 l will not allow my men to be directed by a man 463 00:41:03,994 --> 00:41:07,794 who has not an honest drop of blood in his veins, 464 00:41:08,199 --> 00:41:11,498 and is connected to the railroad for the sole purpose of bleeding it dry. 465 00:41:13,571 --> 00:41:18,873 Dodge threatened to quit, unless Durant gave up his role in the construction. 466 00:41:21,045 --> 00:41:24,378 High in the Sierras Crocker`s tactics had paid off. 467 00:41:25,282 --> 00:41:28,809 Starved of supplies the strikers returned to work. 468 00:41:35,626 --> 00:41:39,255 Only a few feet of rock now separated the two sections of tunnel 469 00:41:39,430 --> 00:41:40,920 in the heart of the mountain. 470 00:41:47,505 --> 00:41:52,738 Finally after five years the light at the end of the tunnel. 471 00:41:55,880 --> 00:41:59,611 After digging in opposite direction for over sixteen hundred feet 472 00:41:59,783 --> 00:42:02,809 the tunnels were just two inches out of line. 473 00:42:08,225 --> 00:42:13,060 We did it damn it, damn it we did it. 474 00:42:15,966 --> 00:42:20,426 The completion of the summit tunnel was a watershed in the shopkeepers` fortunes. 475 00:42:20,905 --> 00:42:22,839 The worst was now behind them. 476 00:42:26,310 --> 00:42:29,541 Regular train services were now running through the Sierras. 477 00:42:30,281 --> 00:42:33,739 At last there was an alternative to the wagon trains. 478 00:42:34,451 --> 00:42:38,683 Men, women and children would no longer die crossing the mountains. 479 00:42:42,726 --> 00:42:44,523 But the race was not over yet. 480 00:42:45,629 --> 00:42:49,565 There was still hundreds of miles of wilderness between the two railroads. 481 00:42:54,471 --> 00:42:57,565 The Union Pacific was still mired in scandal. 482 00:42:58,609 --> 00:43:03,376 With the men idle Durant had no option but to agree to Dodge`s demands. 483 00:43:04,448 --> 00:43:06,177 The affair has been settled amicably. 484 00:43:06,483 --> 00:43:07,814 l have no further comment to make. 485 00:43:13,524 --> 00:43:17,051 Dodge could now get on with building the railroad. 486 00:43:21,298 --> 00:43:23,664 The two routes were fast converging, 487 00:43:24,001 --> 00:43:30,031 and congress finally drew a line where they would meet, Promontory Point in Utah. 488 00:43:31,041 --> 00:43:35,034 lt now became a race not for money but for prestige. 489 00:43:35,746 --> 00:43:38,442 Who would be the first to reach the finishing post? 490 00:43:48,292 --> 00:43:51,022 ln the twelve months after breaking through the Sierras, 491 00:43:51,195 --> 00:43:56,462 Crocker`s Chinese labourers laid three hundred miles of track across Nevada. 492 00:43:58,402 --> 00:44:00,996 We`ve now got this track laying down to an exact science. 493 00:44:01,905 --> 00:44:04,999 There`s no where in the world, no one, not the French, not the British, 494 00:44:05,175 --> 00:44:07,700 not even Grenville Dodge can do it as well as we do. 495 00:44:09,346 --> 00:44:12,975 The shopkeepers were now racing across the salt flats of Utah. 496 00:44:13,350 --> 00:44:17,081 And Dodge was heading through the one gap he had found in the Rockies. 497 00:44:18,355 --> 00:44:22,223 After six years they were just fifty miles apart, 498 00:44:22,526 --> 00:44:25,393 and racing flat out for the finishing post. 499 00:44:28,565 --> 00:44:32,262 Close to their goal the Chinese labourers set an historic record. 500 00:44:33,370 --> 00:44:37,739 ln a single day they laid an astonishing ten miles of track. 501 00:44:43,714 --> 00:44:46,410 Dodge too was setting a remarkable pace. 502 00:44:56,627 --> 00:45:00,825 The two companies were neck and neck, anyone could win. 503 00:45:05,769 --> 00:45:11,901 On April 30th 1869 a single train crossed the finishing line at Promontory Point. 504 00:45:24,288 --> 00:45:26,483 Six years and seven hundred miles 505 00:45:26,657 --> 00:45:29,683 after spreading the first shovel of earth in Sacramento 506 00:45:29,860 --> 00:45:32,795 the shopkeepers had reached their goal. 507 00:45:35,566 --> 00:45:37,898 We`re now waiting on the Union Pacific, 508 00:45:38,535 --> 00:45:42,369 l have been reliably informed they`ve been delayed by rain. 509 00:45:46,243 --> 00:45:51,374 lt would be two days before the Union Pacific finally arrived at Promontory. 510 00:45:57,454 --> 00:46:03,222 On May 10th 1869 the two rival companies were face to face. 511 00:46:03,827 --> 00:46:09,060 A single length of track apart, at the end of the line. 512 00:46:15,572 --> 00:46:20,600 And in a symbolic gesture of unity that last length of track was laid by a team, 513 00:46:21,912 --> 00:46:23,209 from each railroad. 514 00:46:26,750 --> 00:46:27,739 Done. 515 00:46:36,326 --> 00:46:37,588 l can`t believe we did it. 516 00:46:38,395 --> 00:46:41,364 l know we did it, hell l was there for the best part of it. 517 00:46:42,599 --> 00:46:45,261 But damn l don`t know how we did it. 518 00:46:46,003 --> 00:46:50,030 l know we would have never done it if it hadn`t been for these men. 519 00:46:51,542 --> 00:46:52,474 And l don`t forget 520 00:46:52,643 --> 00:46:56,079 that l was opposed to the notion of employing them in the first place. 521 00:46:56,480 --> 00:47:01,679 This railroad, this nation owes these men a great debt, 522 00:47:02,419 --> 00:47:06,253 and l sure as hell hope we don`t forget it, because l know l won`t. 523 00:47:08,358 --> 00:47:11,816 Where we`re standing now l feel in a sense it was nothing here 524 00:47:11,995 --> 00:47:13,724 but the path of wild deer. 525 00:47:14,965 --> 00:47:16,830 And now a thousand wheels roll, 526 00:47:17,000 --> 00:47:19,901 on their axles will be carried the wealth of half the world. 527 00:47:20,537 --> 00:47:25,270 l think by this day`s work we`ve changed the commerce and finance of the whole world. 528 00:47:25,709 --> 00:47:30,043 We have finished the job that Christopher Columbus started. 529 00:47:31,048 --> 00:47:32,811 What had started as a shovel of earth 530 00:47:32,983 --> 00:47:38,751 in a small town in California had become the world`s first transcontinental railroad. 531 00:47:39,790 --> 00:47:45,023 lt had taken six years, claimed the lives of over two thousand men, 532 00:47:45,462 --> 00:47:48,329 and changed the course of American history. 533 00:47:49,466 --> 00:47:51,058 But a single line of track now stretched 534 00:47:51,235 --> 00:47:54,636 across America from the Atlantic to the Pacific. 535 00:47:55,472 --> 00:47:59,033 Two thousand miles of wilderness have been opened to settlement. 536 00:47:59,576 --> 00:48:02,272 A journey which had taken six months by wagon train 537 00:48:02,446 --> 00:48:06,610 and cost the lives of tens of thousands of immigrants could now 538 00:48:06,783 --> 00:48:09,911 be completed in just seven days. 539 00:48:10,487 --> 00:48:14,719 Lincoln was dead but his dream was a reality. 540 00:48:15,425 --> 00:48:19,828 lt was now truly the United States of America. 541 00:48:20,828 --> 00:48:30,828 http://subscene.com/ 50378

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