The Denver Post
November 28, 1999 Sunday
Dick Kreck, Denver Post Staff Writer
The construction of the transcontinental railroad is territory as
familiar as the oft-seen photographs of early-day trains blocked by
herds of buffalo.
But David Haward Bain, a self-confessed train buff from age 11, delves into the story of the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific more deeply than any of the previous chroniclers of one of the great engineering feats of the 19th century. This includes Maury Klein's two-part history of the UP, generally regarded as one of the best business studies ever written.
Where Klein concentrated on the front-office machinations (and there were plenty, in and out of government), Bain spent 14 years researching the paper trail of diaries, letters, telegrams and official documents to paint a detailed picture of how the coast-to-coast rail line, which finally bonded the country, came to pass.
It was not a place for Boy Scouts. Land deals, payoffs and political finagling were commonplace, and those who physically built the line were tough, hardened men who attracted all kinds of hangers-on.
Bain notes that construction created its own society: ' when the end of track would be pushed farther west and the laborers moved on, the camp followers would simply fold up their tents, dismantle their gimcrack structures, crate their whiskey and corral their women, and ship them out to the new end of track to start up all over again.'
When the deed had been done, the inevitable questions followed, leading to exposure of the Credit Mobilier scandal, one which swept over the good names of many politicians, including Vice President Schuyler Colfax, whose political career was left in shambles.
'Empire Express' is more than a study of the building of a railroad. It encompasses the range of 19th-century American life as it swept up Native Americans, women, settlers, con men and speculators in one of man's greatest accomplishments. It is not, however, a quick read. Any book with 23 pages of bibliographies deserves careful attention.