During the period of Reconstruction after the Civil War, the railroad industry was maturing and expanding with great force. However, the railway industry already existed before; for example, the first regular steam-powered rail service in the United States. . . began in the gentrified city of Charleston in 1830 (Abrams 325). Some of the major events in the railroad industry in the late 19th century were the construction of the transcontinental railroad, economic obstacles to railroad expansion, the expansion of the New York Central Railroad, and the graft and corruption of Commodore Cornelius Van-derbilt. We say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The public demand for a transcontinental railroad for westward expansion was originally inspired by an 1836 proposal by American statesmen John Plumbe and Robert John Walker (Railroads) . Finally, in July 1862, Congress authorized the construction of two railroads that together would provide the first rail connection between the Mississippi Valley and the Pacific Coast (Allen 57). One was the Union Pacific, running west from Council Bluffs, Iowa; the other was the Central Pacific, running eastward from Sacramento, California. Each of these companies has won business through deception, excessive pricing and government chicanery. To encourage the rapid completion of those roads, Congress provided generous subsidies in the form of grants and land loans. These grants depended on where the trail was laid, in the mountains or on the plains, and there were land grants granted in one hundred and sixty acre lots on alternate sides of the trail. Even with government subsidies, construction was slower. than Congress had anticipated. Union Pacific actually got off to an extremely slow start, with only forty miles of track laid in the first two years. Central Pacific, wanting to exploit this opportunity, was threatening to build tracks in territory assigned to Union Pacific. This additional trail laid by Central would increase profits for them and threaten large losses for Union Pacific. The owner of Union Pacific has decided to get back on track by increasing the number of men on duty and increasing working hours. These changes led to the laying of over eighty miles of track in the third year, increasing production by approximately 400%. The two lines, which stretched a full 1,750 miles (Allen 58), met on May 10, 1869, at Promontory, Utah. Elaborate ceremonies then followed, including the driving of the last spike, which was made of pure gold (Anderson 223). Unfortunately, workers' lives and good construction practices have been carelessly cast aside. This completed the first of several transcontinental railroads built in the late 19th century. The West developed at the same time as the construction of the Western railroads, and nowhere in the nation was the importance of railroads more generally recognized. The railroad brought vitality to the regions it served, but by suspending service it could condemn a community to stagnation. Despite the success and completion of the transcontinental, further rail success was not always easy. Other railroads had begun construction westward, but the Panic of 1873 and the resulting depression halted or delayed progress on many of those lines (Foner 518). As prosperity returned after 1877, some railroads resumed or even accelerated construction. In 1883, three more rail connections were completed between the Missis-sippi valley and the coastwestern North Pacific, from St. Paul to Portland; the Santa Fe, from Chicago to Los Angeles; and the South Pacific, from New Orleans to Los Angeles. Southern Pacific had also acquired, through purchase or construction, lines from Portland to San Francisco and from San Francisco to Los Angeles. By the late 1890s, many of the lines were nearly bankrupt due to competition and poor economic conditions, again slowing expansion. The building of railroads from the Midwest to the Pacific Coast was a very noteworthy event in the short period following the Civil War. No less important, in terms of the national economy, was the simultaneous development of a massive railroad network linking virtually every major community west of the Mississippi with Chicago. The railroads seemed ruthless in exploiting their position of power, both in the West and in America. the Midwest: they set prices according to their convenience; they discriminated among their customers; they attempted to obtain, where possible, a monopoly on transport; and they interfered in state and local politics to elect favorites to office, to block hostile legislation, and even to influence court decisions. One of the people known to be a ruthless railroad baron was Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt. As a boy, Vanderbilt transported cargo and passengers by ferry from Staten Island to Manhattan. He soon gained control of most of the ferry lines and other short-line shipping lines in the vicinity of New York City. He further expanded his steamship empire and, due to his success and status, became known as Commodore Vanderbilt. In 1851, with the California Gold Rush at its height, Vanderbilt opened a shipping line from the East Coast to California, including overland transit through Nicaragua along the route of the proposed Nicaragua (Vanderbilt) Canal. After the outbreak of the Civil War, he entered the railroad arena and by 1867 had gained control of the New York Central Railroad. Although his efforts to gain control of the Erie Railroad proved unsuccessful, Vanderbilt greatly expanded his railroad empire and in 1873 connected Chicago with New York City via rail. A son, William Henry Vanderbilt, succeeded Cornelius Vanderbilt as president of the New York Central Railroad. The enormous family fortune financed Vanderbilt University, the College of Physi-cians and Surgeons, and various other institutions. The Vanderbilts were, to put it mildly, very rich and very powerful. By 1900, the Vanderbilt boys owned over 10,000 miles of railroads, (Allen 60) more than any other family at the time. There were many cartoons drawn during that time that depicted the control Vanderbilt had over the railroad, the people who worked for him, and the government. The cartoons were often unflattering: the Vanderbilts were unscrupulous and corrupt. Cornelius Vanderbilt and his descendants gained control of New York's central rail system by systematically incorporating other, smaller rail systems. One of the major American railroads connecting the East Coast with the interior was the New York Central Railroad. Founded in 1853, it was a consolidation of 10 small railroads that ran parallel to the Erie Canal between Albany and Buffalo; the first was the Mohawk and Hudson, the first railroad in the state of New York, opened in 1831. The driving force behind the New York Central was Erastus Corning, four times mayor of Albany, who for 20 years had been president of the Utica and Schenectady , one of the established railways. He served as president of New York Central until 1864. In 1867 Cornelius Vanderbilt gained control of it, after knocking down Central's stock, and combined it with his.