Show:
Ways Used to Travel West Before and After Trans. Rail
How Trans. Rail affected Travel West
The West after the Transcontinental Railroad Was Built
The West before the Transcontinental Railroad Was Built
Miscellaneous Changes After the Building of the Transcontinental Railroad
100
What was the first form of transportation (other than by foot) used for people to travel west?
Wagon trains
100
After building the Transcontinental Railroad, did more or less people go to the West?
More
100
Did the Transcontinental Railroad make people want to travel west (after it was built)?
Yes, most of the US population traveled west because of the Transcontinental Railroad.
100
How long did it take to travel west in a wagon train?
6 months
100
Did the population grow after the Transcontinental Railroad was built?
Yes, it did; the Transcontinental Railroad attracted many Chinese, Irish, etc. immigrants.
200
About how many people went west by wagon train? More than 10 thousand or less than 10 thousand?
More than 10 thousand.
200
About how many people went to the West after the Transcontinental Railroad was finished? (A couple hundred thousand people, a million people, or a thousand?)
A couple hundred thousand people.
200
How long did it take to travel west by Transcontinental Railroad?
About a week.
200
What would you consider to be the fastest type of transportation before the Transcontinental Railroad?
Steamboats
200
What is one positive change after building the transcontinental railroad?
Sample Answers: Travel was faster, Travel was cheaper, people thought of America differently, travel West was easier.
300
What were three ways used to travel west before the Transcontinental Railroad?
Sample Answers: Steamboat, by foot, wagon trains, canal, flatboat.
300
How long did it take to travel west before and after the building of the Transcontinental Railroad?
Before it took about six months; after, only a week.
300
How did they start building the Transcontinental Railroad?
They started building from California and Omaha and met at Promontory Point, Ohio (Golden Spike Ceremony.)
300
When did the Transcontinental Railroad start to be built? (Hint: it was in the late 1800's.)
Track for the railroad started to be laid in 1863 in Omaha.
300
How much money did it cost to travel across the country before and after the Transcontinental Railroad was built?
Before the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, it cost nearly $1,000 dollars to travel across the country. After the railroad was completed, the price dropped to $150 dollars.
400
What were the advantages of railroad travel over other types of travel in that era?
1)The railroad provided a much faster means of transportation. 2)The railroad also decreased the chance of illness and other health problems on the way there. 3)Transportation by wagon was many times more expensive than by railroad.
400
Traveling west by wagon was supposed to be dangerous, but were trains actually safer and was that why it changed travel to and from the west?
Traveling west in a train was unsafe in quite a few ways. There were outlaws that would take over trains, Native Americans would tear the tracks, during the Civil War many trains were at risk of being destroyed, and overall the tracks were likely to break at any moment.
400
How long was the Transcontinental Railroad popular?
It was popular for about 35 years, starting from 1869 and ending in 1904 (being bypassed by the Lucin Cutoff)
400
Why was the Transcontinental Railroad built so late when it could have started earlier?
The railroad was off to a slow start because of a lack of money (investors) and the Civil War was in progress.
400
After the Transcontinental Railroad was built, how was the nation affected (and how did people think of the nation afterwards)?
Everyone thought of the US as a united nation, whereas before it was thought of as a "divided nation". Also, it made travel west that much easier and therefore played a leading role in making the US a bigger and better nation.