Talk:First transcontinental railroad

An event mentioned in this article is a May 10 selected anniversary (may be in HTML comment)

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This article is americentric. What about the first transcontinental railway for all the _other_ continents?. Bryan Derksen

Good comment. Do you have any ideas on what else this article should be titled? Perhaps we could then have First Transcontinental Railways point to the different continental railroads and have First Transcontinental Railroad (singular) redirected to First Transcontinental Railways. maveric149

Is "First Transcontinental Railroad" the proper name of the first transcontinental railroad in North America? The capitalization suggests this might be the case. If so, then it's appropriate for this content to remain here, but I think there should still be links to the other major rail lines. Not sure what I'd call it. Perhaps we could have a link-list article named "First transcontinental railways" (or maybe "Major railways" to include other significant routes such as the Orient Express) and then link to various important railways from there? I wasn't expecting to contribute to any of these articles, so I don't want to make any grand pronouncements on these matters. :) -BD

Perhaps when the new wiki software is ready, we can remane this article First Transcontinental Railroad (North America). However, some Canadians might object to this.... If that becomes the case, then "North America" could be changed to "(America)" or even "(United States of America)". maveric149

There was a railroad built across Panama in 1854. Shouldn't that be called the First Transcontinental Railroad? Moving this article to First Transcontinental Railroad (United States of America) would be a good idea. SFGiants

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The Canadian National railway across Canada was not completed until 1885 (16 years after the American one.)

The first trans-Australia was completed 1912. The first north south trans-Australia should be completed in 2003.

The TransSiberia was completed 1905. Rmhermen 04:24, Sep 19, 2003 (UTC)

I don't understand what makes this article "Americentric." The railroad was built with the intention of linking the east coast of the United States with the west coast, and it was the first time anywhere in the world that a transcontinental railroad was built. Unless this conclusion is wrong, I can see nothing wrong with the title of the article. Leo Okonski

Hunh? If you actually read the article, you will find that the one in the USA was not the first transcontinental railroad built. -- Infrogmation 17:48, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Note the capitalization - it is a proper name. --21:01, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Subject: panning for gold?

Isn't that a sluice that the central man's stirring with the pitchfork? Isn't that a pan whose contents are being shown to us at the left? In spite of the national archival cataloguing of this image, aren't these men actually panning for gold? Wetman 20:38, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It looks like it. -- Infrogmation 22:49, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

removal of quick summary

I removed the "Quick Summary" section that was added by an anonymous user 165.121.61.105 on May 5 [1]. It was unwikified and written in a quite unencyclopedic (it seemed like it was written for children, perhaps as a standalone essay that someone decided to include wholesale in the article). At first I made an attempt to salvage it, removing the unencyclopedic sections, but I realized it wasn't worth it, since there was little left that wasn't already covered, and the section was a gross oversimplification of U.S. history. -- Decumanus 01:32, 2005 May 10 (UTC)

Indians or Native Americans

Should the caption under the picture showing the train passing infront of the peak read:

The train pictured is the Jupiter which carried Leland Stanford, one of the "big four" owners of the Central Pacific, and other railway officials to the Golden Spike Ceremony. Notice the Indians on the hill overlooking the train.

Or:

The train pictured is the Jupiter which carried Leland Stanford, one of the "big four" owners of the Central Pacific, and other railway officials to the Golden Spike Ceremony. Notice the Native Americans on the hill overlooking the train.

The latter is more correct, as they are probably not from the Sub-Continent of India, but rather native peoples living in North America.

A few missing people

As a Brit I should not be writing about American history, so would someone over there add the names and roles of General Grenville Dodge and Thomas Durant? JMcC 00:43, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Now added a couple of paragraphs JMcC 12:39, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm sure there were African slaves out in the west. Has no one found documentation on that?Aminatam 12:07, 24 February 2006 (UTC)