Isambard Kingdom Brunel: The Second Greatest Brit of All Time

In the second half of the 1800 's, the railroad, which was invented in England,

Have you ever seen a railroad? Well, there was a time when railroads were desperately needed. This was the time of the Transcontinental Railroad. In my paper I will explain the purpose of the railroad, challenges the workers faced, and the results of the finished railroad.

“The iron rail, flanged wheel and puffing locomotive appeared in America by 1830. In the next twenty years the railroad brought a new dimension and added a new flavor to American transportation. The first railroads frequently helped American cities (and in turn were aided themselves) as they sought a larger share of western markets. (Stover, p10) As the canal craze was replaced with the rail craze, America once again found a means to connect north to south and east to west. Rails could do what canals could not; they could penetrate the dry arid areas, steep mountainous areas, span rivers, go up, over, or down under any impedance. But the penultimate advantaged was speed and time saved.

Amid the 1800’s, America was experiencing a period of development known as the Industrial Revolution. America was in its first century of being an autonomous and creative nation. One of the greatest commitments to this huge innovative progression was the foundation of the Transcontinental Railroad. The westward expansion designed to be the key to a nation-building project and a change for the United States.[1] The Pacific Railroads cleared the path in which built the remaining railroad tracks connecting the West to the Midwest and East. The Union Pacific Company built from Omaha, Nebraska towards the west meeting up with the Central Pacific Company who started building from Sacramento, California.[2] This

American Experience: Transcontinental Railroad. The railroad was a very big accomplishment in America's history. Transcontinental Railroad showed more then anything America's persistence, intellectual advancement, and above all else, Courage. This accomplishment came with many hardships and many sacrifices as well as achievements. While this accomplishment shows the good traits of America like drive and courage, It also reveled the darker traits of America, like betrayal, inequality, and most of all, greed. This paper will go over, How the Transcontinental Railroad was set into motion, the construction of the railroad and how it was used.

He was also a designer of iron-clad gunships, a riverboat captain, and a salvage operator. “The design of the bridge did not use the popular form of construction, the truss, or even the newer suspension system. Instead used the ancient Roman arch for support” (Museum Gazette 1). Eads constructed the ironclad steamboat, the shallow-draft boats, and the first sand pump of its time. It removed the sand and silt from the bottom more effectively and easier. The original sand pump was a rope and bucket. Eads salvage company was the most successful company on the river. He also designed a surface boat, the submarine to go to the bottom of the river and retrieve sunken cargo from barges. Eads used a cofferdam to build the Western abutment and had to dig through 6o years of metal scraps. Spring floods and tornadoes affected the work on the bridge for moment at a time. The best way to build the bridge was to use a caisson to make the foundation at the bottom of the river in 80 feet of mud and 12 feet of bedrock. “The caisson was a huge rectangular box made of wood and sheeted in iron panels and stiffened with girder plates” (Bennett 111). The only way to keep water from coming into the caisson was to pump in air to equalize the pressure. The caisson had a stone foundation built around it, and then it was slowly start to sink to the bottom of the river. It had seven airlocks, where the

Thomas Paine helped build the Sunderland bridge in England. He was a director of one part of the bridge. He managed some of the building materials. The bridge was built over the River Wear. Some of the arches were rebuilt in 1770.

The Declaration of Independence was written on July 4, 1776 and declared the Thirteen Colonies Free states from the mighty power of Great Britten. Although it was a very bold and daring act from such a new and meagre country it would prove to become one of the world’s super powers.

The transcontinental railroad is accepted as one of the greatest accomplishments during the 19th century. “In a petition submitted to the U.S. Congress on Jan. 29, 1845, New York merchant Asa Whitney proposed one of the most audacious ventures in American history: the construction of a railroad from Lake Michigan to the Pacific Ocean, spanning two-thirds of the North American continent. In bold and stirring words, describing how such a rail network would revolutionize “the entire commerce of the world,” Whitney urged the federal government to underwrite the ambitious project.” (Visions of Empire). The Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 was authorized and passed, the railroad companies began to build a transcontinental railroad. Connecting over 2,000 miles of land, crossing deserts and mountains. It’s an amazing achievement since it lowered the traveling time to just a few days compared to the months.

The growing industry of travel in the United States can be somewhat attributed to the massive birth of railroads in the 18th century. Incredibly fast movement of both goods and people along rails has changed how business plan expansion, where people live, how ideas and knowledge move around the continent, as well as how people travel for pleasure. This paper details the development of the locomotive and railroad over the 18th century, describes the societal and economic impact of railroads, and lists the desires reflected within the United States that led to the advent of railroads.

The first transcontinental Railroad is being called one of the best civil engineering marvels of 19th century.

The Transcontinental Railroad was the largest project the United States had ever seen. Due to lack of technology, the enormous size of the project, and the environmental conditions, the railroad seemed to be an impossible task.  This construction project posed a huge challenge to those working on it. The railroad’s route would span nearly seven hundred

The Pacific Railroad, the first railroad to cross the North American continent, was named by BBC as one of the seven wonders of the world since the industrial revolution. The Pacific Railway has made great contributions to the economic development of the United states. It is more than 3 thousand km across the entire North American continent, is the world's first transcontinental railway, which in the eyes of the Americans as a miracle of the railway, the conditions at the time, the construction process is extremely difficult. The Sierra Nevada mountain steep terrain, is the most difficult construction of the Pacific

British engineers conquered more than 40,000 miles of railway, 70,000 miles of paved roads, and a great many of bridges. Different routes to travel on were opened up after the building of these transportation ways. Irrigation was also brought to the people. Crops now had better growing conditions on a very large scale. This brought over 30 million more acres to be able to grow safe and healthy crops.

Gustave Eiffel was born on December 15th, 1832 in “Dijon, France” ((Alexandre)), the son of François-Alexandre Eiffel and Catherine Mélanie Moneuse. Gustave spent his “childhood with his maternal grandmother in the same city, where he will integrate high school” (Biography). Eiffel exhibited talent for the sciences, and he enrolled in the “College of Art and Manufacturing”, and graduated “in 1855”, where he soon began to specialize in metal construction, especially bridges” (Editors), despite leaving the university with a degree in “chemistry”. Eiffel soon established himself as a “builder” in “metal framing”, and in 1864 “supervised the work of the important railway bridge in Bordeaux” .The “iron railway bridge over the Garonne River” (Condit) proved to be Eiffel’s major expo before the building of the Eiffel tower in 1889.