Editing First transcontinental railroad (section)

===Labor===
The majority of the Union Pacific track across the Nebraska and Wyoming territories was built by veterans of the Union and [[Confederate States of America|Confederate]] armies, as well as many recent immigrants. [[Brigham Young]], President of [[the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints]], landed contracts with the Union Pacific that offered jobs for around 2,000 members of the church with the hope that the railroad would support commerce in Utah. Church members built most of the road through Utah.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Arrington |first=Leonard J. |title=Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900 |publisher=University of Illinois Press |year=2005 |isbn=978-0252072833 |edition=New |location=Urbana |page=261 |lccn=2004015281 |quote=Under the terms of the contract the Mormons were to do all the grading, tunneling, and bridge masonry on the U. P. line for the 150-odd miles from the head of Echo Canyon through Weber Canyon to the shores of the Great Salt Lake. |author-link=Leonard J. Arrington}}</ref> Construction superintendent Durant repeatedly failed to pay the wages agreed upon. The Union Pacific train carrying him to the final spike ceremony was held up by a strike by unpaid workers in [[Piedmont, Wyoming]], until he paid them for their work. Representatives of Brigham Young had less success, and failed in court to force him to honor the contract.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Allen |first1=James B. |title=[[The Story of the Latter-day Saints]] |last2=Glen M. Leonard |publisher=Deseret Book Company |year=1976 |location=Salt Lake City, Utah |pages=328–329 |author-link=James B. Allen (historian)}}</ref>

[[File:Chinese railroad workers sierra nevada.jpg|thumb|right|Chinese railroad workers greet a train on a snowy day.]]
The manual labor to build the Central Pacific's roadbed, bridges and tunnels was done primarily by many thousands of [[19th-century Chinese immigration to America|emigrant workers from China]] under the direction of skilled non-Chinese supervisors. The Chinese were commonly referred to at the time as "[[Celestial Empire|Celestials]]" and China as the "Celestial Kingdom". Labor-saving devices in those days consisted primarily of [[wheelbarrow]]s, horse or mule pulled carts, and a few railroad pulled gondolas. The construction work involved an immense amount of manual labor. Initially, Central Pacific had a hard time hiring and keeping unskilled workers on its line, as many would leave for the prospect of far more lucrative gold or silver mining options elsewhere. Despite the concerns expressed by [[Charles Crocker]], one of the "big four" and a general contractor, that the Chinese were too small in stature<ref>Ambrose, p. 148.</ref> and lacking previous experience with railroad work, they decided to try them anyway.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Griswold |first=Wesley |title=A Work of Giants |publisher=McGraw-Hill |year=1962 |location=New York |pages=109–111}}</ref> After the first few days of trial with a few workers, with noticeably positive results, Crocker decided to hire as many as he could, looking primarily at the California labor force, where the majority of Chinese worked as independent gold miners or in the service industries (e.g.: laundries and kitchens). Most of these Chinese workers were represented by a Chinese "boss" who translated, collected salaries for his crew, kept discipline and relayed orders from an American general supervisor. Most Chinese workers spoke only rudimentary or no English, and the supervisors typically only learned rudimentary Chinese. Many more workers were imported from the [[Guangdong]] Province of China, which at the time, beside great poverty, suffered from the violence of the [[Taiping Rebellion]]. Most Chinese workers were planning on returning with their newfound "wealth" when the work was completed. Most of the men received between one and three dollars per day, the same as unskilled white workers; but the workers imported directly from China sometimes received less. A diligent worker could save over $20 per month after paying for food and lodging—a "fortune" by Chinese standards. A snapshot of workers in late 1865 showed about 3,000 Chinese and 1,700 white workers employed on the railroad. Nearly all of the white workers were in supervisory or skilled craft positions and made more money than the Chinese.

Most of the early work on the Central Pacific consisted of constructing the railroad track bed, cutting and/or blasting through or around hills, filling in washes, building bridges or trestles, digging and blasting tunnels and then laying the rails over the Sierra Nevada mountains. Once the Central Pacific was out of the Sierras and the Carson Range, progress sped up considerably as the railroad bed could be built over nearly flat ground. In those days, the Central Pacific once did a section of {{convert|10|mi|km}} of track in one day as a "demonstration" of what they could do on flat ground like most of the Union Pacific had in Wyoming and Nebraska.

The track laying was divided up into various parts. In advance of the track layers, surveyors consulting with engineers determined where the track would go. Workers then built and prepared the roadbed, dug or blasted through hills, filled in washes, built trestles, bridges or culverts across streams or valleys, made tunnels if needed, and laid the ties. The actual track-laying gang would then lay rails on the previously laid ties positioned on the roadbed, drive the spikes, and bolt the [[fishplate]] bars to each rail. At the same time, another gang would distribute telegraph poles and wire along the grade, while the cooks prepared dinner and the clerks busied themselves with accounts, records, using the telegraph line to relay requests for more materials and supplies or communicate with supervisors. Usually the workers lived in camps built near their work site. Supplies were ordered by the engineers and hauled by rail, possibly then to be loaded on wagons if they were needed ahead of the railhead. Camps were moved when the railhead moved a significant distance. Later, as the railroad started moving long distances every few days, some railroad cars had [[bunkhouse]]s built in them that moved with the workers—the Union Pacific had used this technique since 1866.<ref name="nps.gov">{{Cite web |date=1868-11-09 |title=Alta California (San Francisco) |url=http://www.nps.gov/archive/gosp/research/track_laying.html}}</ref> Almost all of the roadbed work had to be done manually, using shovels, picks, axes, two-wheeled dump carts, wheelbarrows, ropes, scrapers, etc., with initially only black powder available for blasting. Carts pulled by mules, and horses were about the only labor-saving devices available then. Lumber and ties were usually provided by independent contractors who cut, hauled and sawed the timber as required.

[[File:CPRR Tunnel No. 3 East Portal @ Cisco, CA.jpg|left|thumb|CPRR Tunnel#3 near [[Cisco, California]] (MP 180.1) opened in 1866 and remains in daily use today.]]
Tunnels were blasted through hard rock by drilling holes in the rock face by hand and filling them with black powder. Sometimes cracks were found which could be filled with powder and blasted loose. The loosened rock would be collected and hauled out of the tunnel for use in a fill area or as roadbed, or else dumped over the side as waste. A foot or so advance on a tunnel face was a typical day's work. Some tunnels took almost a year to finish and the Summit Tunnel, the longest, took almost two years. In the final days of working in the Sierras, the recently invented [[nitroglycerin]] explosive was introduced and used on the last tunnels including Summit Tunnel.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kraus |title=High Road to Promontory |page=110}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Howard |first=Robert West |title=The Great Iron Trail: The Story of the First Transcontinental Railroad |publisher=G. P. Putnam's Sons |year=1962 |location=New York |page=231}}</ref>

Supply trains carried all the necessary material for the construction up to the railhead, with mule or horse-drawn wagons carrying it the rest of the ways if required. Ties were typically unloaded from horse-drawn or mule-drawn wagons and then placed on the [[track ballast]] and leveled to get ready for the rails. Rails, which weighed the most, were often kicked off the flatcars and carried by gangs of men on each side of the rail to where needed. The rails just in front of the rail car would be placed first, measured for the correct gauge with gauge sticks and then nailed down on the ties with [[spike maul]]s. The fishplates connecting the ends of the rails would be bolted on and then the car pushed by hand to the end of the rail and rail installation repeated.

Track ballast was put between the ties as they progressed. Where a proper railbed had already been prepared, the work progressed rapidly. Constantly needed supplies included "food, water, ties, rails, spikes, fishplates, nuts and bolts, track ballast, telegraph poles, wire, firewood (or coal on the Union Pacific) and water for the steam train locomotives, etc."<ref name="nps.gov" /> After a flatcar was unloaded, it would usually be hooked to a small locomotive and pulled back to a siding, so another flatcar with rails etc. could be advanced to the railhead. Since juggling railroad cars took time on flat ground, where wagon transport was easier, the rail cars would be brought to the end of the line by steam locomotive, unloaded, and the flat car returned immediately to a siding for another loaded car of either ballast or rails. Temporary sidings were often installed where it could be easily done to expedite getting needed supplies to the railhead.

The railroad tracks, spikes, telegraph wire, locomotives, railroad cars, supplies etc. were imported from the east on sailing ships that sailed the nearly {{convert|18000|mi|km|adj=on}}, 200-day trip around [[Cape Horn]]. Some freight was put on [[Clipper ship]]s which could do the trip in about 120 days. Some passengers and high-priority freight were shipped over the newly completed (as of 1855) [[Panama Railroad]] across the [[Isthmus of Panama]]. Using [[paddle steamer]]s to and from Panama, this shortcut could be traveled in as little as 40 days. Supplies were normally offloaded at the [[Sacramento, California]], docks where the railroad started.