Question

what did the union pacific and central pacific railroad companies do

Answer 1

In 1862, Congress hastily passed the Pacific Railroad Act. This act led to the creation of the Union Pacific, which would lay rails west from Omaha, and the Central Pacific, which would start in Sacramento and build east. Since congressmen wanted the road built quickly, they made two key decisions. First, they gave each line twenty alternate sections of land for each mile of track completed. Second, they gave loans: $16,000 for each mile of track of flat prairie land, $32,000 per mile for hilly terrain, and $48,000 per mile in the mountains.

The UP and CP, then, would compete for government generosity, and the line that built the most miles would get the most cash and land. The railroad would be financed by selling this land. Consequentially, since building fast brought in more cash than building efficiently, the two lines spent little time choosing routes; they just laid track and cashed in[27]. Burton Folsom, in The Myth of the Robber Barons, separates entrepreneurs of this time into two groups; the political entrepreneurs and the market entrepreneurs. The former tried to be successful in business through federal aid, pools, vote buying, or stock speculation. The latter tried to create and market a superior product at a low cost. The political entrepreneurs usually were the classic Robber Barons, as in the case of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads[28].