| Broke ground at Sacramento | January 8, 1863 | |||
| Laid first rail | October 27, 1863 | |||
| Sacramento to Roseville (18 miles) | Constructed in 1863 | |||
| Road opened as follows: | ||||
| To | Newcastle | 31 | miles | January, 1865 |
| ” | Auburn | 36 | ” | May 15, 1865 |
| ” | Clipper Gap | 42 | ” | June 10, 1865 |
| ” | Colfax | 54 | ” | September 4, 1865 |
| ” | Secret Town | 66 | ” | May 8, 1866 |
| ” | Alta | 78 | ” | July 10, 1866 |
| ” | Cisco | 94 | ” | November 9, 1866 |
| ” | Summit | 105 | ” | July, 1867 |
| ” | State Line | 278 | ” | January, 1868 |
| ” | Reno | 294 | ” | May, 1868 |
| ” | Wadsworth | 329 | ” | July, 1868 |
| (362 miles constructed in 1868) | ||||
| ” | Monument Point | 667 | ” | April 15, 1869 |
| ” | Ogden | 743 | ” | May 10, 1869 |
| Driving last spike, and openedfor business from Sacramento;distance San Francisco toOgden, per time card | 883 | ” | May 10, 1869 | |
Relations with Western Pacific
It has already been noted that the line from Sacramento via Stockton to San José was not part of the original plan, and that the rights, grants, and franchises of the Central Pacific in it were assigned to other parties in the course of the Congressional fight. The original assignment of December 4, 1862, was to a group of men which included Timothy Dane, the original projector, and president of the San Francisco and San José Railroad, Charles McLoughlin, and A. H. Houston. In 1864, the first assignees having waived their rights, the Central Pacific Railroad made the same assignment to the Western Pacific Railroad of California.[126] The Western Pacific Railroad in turn let contracts for construction to Houston and McLoughlin, but by 1867, McLoughlin had become involved in litigation regarding his contracts and asked that all arrangements between himself and the Western Pacific be canceled.[127]
This led the Western Pacific to enter into a contract with the Contract and Finance Company, with the result that substantially all the stock of the first-named corporation came into the hands of the Huntington group. McLoughlin retained the federal land grant; the federal subsidy, however, of $16,000 per mile, reverted to the Western Pacific as did the local subsidies, and through it passed to the Contract and Finance Company. The railroad from Sacramento to San José was opened September 15, 1869; on June 22, 1870, the Central Pacific and the Western Pacific filed articles of consolidation.
Lack of Terminal Facilities
In September, 1869, the transcontinental railroad from Omaha to San José was in working order. It would be an exaggeration to say that the line was in good shape. There was little or no ballast, and a good rain was said to make miles of the road-bed run like wet soap. Little had been done to eliminate grades and curves, sleeping-car accommodation at first was insufficient, the journey speed from Sacramento to Ogden was only 19 miles an hour, while schedules were not always adhered to. Cars were heated by stoves, and passengers disembarked for their meals. But in a measure these were conditions to be expected at the start, and interfered only in a minor degree with the interest and excitement of a transcontinental trip. The great fact was that a railroad existed which could be used, and over which relatively direct, rapid, and cheap communication with the East could be secured.
The greatest weakness of the Central Pacific Railroad in 1869 lay in its lack of terminal facilities on San Francisco Bay. When the company decided to begin work at Sacramento, its reasonable expectation had been that a railroad under one management would be built from that city around the southern end of San Francisco Bay to the city of San Francisco. The Central Pacific was willing to forego the advantage of this construction itself in order to gain friends, and did it the more willingly because this stretch of line was likely to be unprofitable by reason of steamship competition on the bay and on the Sacramento River. These conditions changed, however, when the Contract and Finance Company took over the construction of the railroad from Sacramento to San José. The Central Pacific interest then obtained a connection of its own with Niles near Oakland, and it was thus led to consider the question of terminals on the eastern side of San Francisco Bay.
The easiest part of San Francisco Bay for the Western Pacific Railroad to reach was undoubtedly the shore south of Oakland or Alameda. It would probably have been possible to build from Stockton to Richmond, as the Santa Fé did later, or to develop Benicia or Port Costa, or even to build a terminus on an island in the bay. Yet as compared with these alternatives, the Oakland terminus had many advantages. It was near to the Western Pacific main line; it was served by two railroads which possessed valuable franchises that could be bought at not too great expense; and, most important of all, the conditions under which the water-front at Oakland was held were favorable to the acquisition of the necessary terminal facilities.
Oakland Water-Front