BUILDING AMERICA.

Union Pacific paint that on the sides of their locomotives.  Perhaps the casual observer dismisses it as so much hype, observing a train idling along the Geneva Sub or dawdling across all the road crossings on town.

But imagine the Moon landing (fifty years on in July) or the Normandy landings (seventy-five years on in June without the Pacific Railroad).  You can't.

Ever wonder why North America’s development wasn’t like that of South America? Ever wonder why the Union prevailed in the Civil War? Ever wonder why the United States became an industrial and commercial powerhouse in the second half of the 19^th century, or was able to attain E Pluribus Unum—“Out of Many, One”?

 It was because of the railroad—or more generally, the kind of reliable, all-weather, effective, almost universal transportation railroading offered. That is why the modern United States developed as it did. Our Nation was possible because it quickly and effectively embraced the concept of “Railroad Mobility.” I have been making that argument for 40 years.

Arguably, the two continental powers that won the War were both products of Railroad Mobility and a seasoning of Manifest Destiny (we'll let the culture studies types and the historians engage those controversies.)

Rarely do we have the opportunity to associate a single day with a long, difficult, momentous accomplishment. In a few weeks, we will celebrate the 75^th Anniversary of the Allied invasion of Normandy, marking the beginning of the end of World War II. That Anniversary will grab much attention. It is another example of a significant day standing in for a world-changing project.

Am I suggesting that connecting the East and West coasts of the United States with a rail line is in the same league as defeating the Nazis in Europe 75 years later?

Absolutely. Railroad history has never been good at asserting how central it was to the successful creation of the United States as we know it today.

Without the United States that existed in the mid-20^th century, Fascism in Europe would likely have prevailed. It is one of those “what if” arguments that historians try to avoid. But the development of the United States as a powerful, continental nation was never a given. It was, in fact, utterly unnatural—except that railroad transportation made it possible as an idea, and then as a reality.

On May 10, 2019, we acknowledged the Sesquicentennial of the railroad connection across the vast North American continent. It was, in my opinion, the closing chapter of the War for Independence and the last act of the Civil War. At that point, for better or worse, the path of American History was pretty much determined. That is how important I think this day was.

Unfortunately, the railroad industry was more interested in rent-seeking in Washington City than in letting the public in on the accomplishment.  "Train World is so narrow-minded and so stuck in its own silos that it couldn’t grasp an opportunity to collectively share a major Anniversary and reinforce the idea that railroading is an important aspect of American history, culture, and life." That's an unforced error.