Summarize “By 1856 the railroads extended west to the Mississippi River. Three years later, they crossed the Missouri. Just over s decade later, crowds across the United States cheered as the Central Pacif.: and Union Pacific Railroads met at Promontory, Utah, on May 10, 1869. A golden spike ceremony marked when the first transcontinental railroad spanned the nation. Other transcontinental lines followed, and regional lines multiplied as well. At the start of the Civil War, the nation had about 30,000 miles of track. By 1890 that figure was nearly six times greater.
Cornelius Vanderbilt of New York was one of the key figures in the expansion of regional railroads. After the Civil War, Vanderbilt purchased several small railroads in the New York area. Like most regional railroads of the time, each of them was very short, linking only two cities. Vander-bilt, however, chose to link these small railroads into a larger network.
Over time, he expanded his network westward from New York into the Midwest, greatly improving interstate travel. Before Vanderbilt's consoli-dation, a train trip from New York City to Chicago required a passenger to change trains 17 times and took at least 50 hours. On Vanderbilt's new network, the same trip took place on a single train and took less than half the time. By the time he died, Vanderbilt controlled more than 4,500 miles of track and was one of the wealthiest men in the country.”