Talk:First transcontinental railroad

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First transcontinental railroad was one of the Engineering and technology good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
April 1, 2007	Good article reassessment	Delisted

Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on May 10, 2004, May 10, 2005, May 10, 2006, May 10, 2007, May 10, 2011, May 10, 2016, and May 10, 2016.

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Total Land Grants

Total land grants do not appear to be backed up by source 51. I believe the intended source was 50. However, that source is a map of all land grants to railroads, not just to the continental railroad. I would appreciate someone else looking into this! If no one does, I will change the text to reflect my understanding that the listed grants refer to all railroads. Warr40 (talk) 08:02, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Horace Hamilton Minkler

Horace Hamilton Minkler was my second great grandfather I am John E Barkley James D Barkley's son I'm also in transportation but not the railroad side of it. I just want to thank Wikipedia for keeping America and our history alive I will continue to educate people about our history of America it's very important to me and the history of America that everything comes from transportation anything you buy in your home and or business is from transportation.. 2601:647:5E00:7940:E0A2:F927:2AEC:1472 (talk) 23:12, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Discrepancies in railroad length

Hello,

This article provides two figures for the First Transcontinental Railroad's full length. In the opening paragraph of the article, the length is claimed to be 1,911 miles (3,075 KM). But in the right-hand box where the length is re-stated again beneath the image used for the article, the length is described to be 1,912 (3,077 KM). It's a small error but a noticeable one nonetheless - and also, I'm not sure which one is correct. 153.33.89.251 (talk) 20:21, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There's actually a 3rd figure. If you add the mileage figures given for each of the 3 contractors listed in the construction section, that adds up to 1909 miles. While none of these 3 figures is cited to a source, most of the text of this article came from a knowledgable volunteer from the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento, who unfortunately appears to be inactive nowadays. As such, I have no reason to doubt these figures are as accurate as can be reasonably expected for such a long line built in the 1860s, and given the primitive tools for measuring distance of the day. However, the article mentions that even though the line was declared complete in May 1869, there were still missing bridges that meant the line wasn't truly complete until 1872. It is not clear if any of these figures include those missing bridges or not. That could also easily explain the discrepancy. All this to say, I don't know, but I'm not concerned about it either. Dave (talk) 05:33, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Adding a bit more to the discussion. A quick Google search yielded 2 sources. However, these two sources only include the Union Pacific and Central Pacific portions of the line, they exclude the Western Pacific portion. Per the Wikipedia article the WP portion was 132 miles, so take that 132 mile difference into account if we want to do an apples to apples comparison. This one gives a figure of 1779 miles and matches the figures for CP and UP portions listed in the Wikipedia article. this one gives the figure of 1776 miles and has a different figure for the Union Pacific portion than the figure cited on the Wikipedia article, the Central Pacific portion matches. Dave (talk) 05:51, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]