Talk:First transcontinental railroad

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Former good articleFirst 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
DateProcessResult
April 1, 2007Good article reassessmentDelisted
On this day...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, and May 10, 2016.

"Emigrants" leave and "immigrants" arrive[edit]

Which parallel?[edit]

The first paragraph of the Authorization and Funding section reads:

In February 1860, Iowa Representative Samuel Curtis introduced a bill to fund the railroad. It passed the House but died when it could not be reconciled with the Senate version due to opposition from southern states who wanted a southern route near the 42nd parallel.

This doesn't make sense, because the final route through Omaha, Nebraska and Promontory, Utah goes close to the 42nd parallel. Is the 32nd parallel intended? It comes close to Jackson, Mississippi; Shreveport, Louisiana; Dallas-Fort Worth; El Paso, Texas; and Tucson, Arizona.

Msramming (talk) 21:30, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

You are correct that the southern states did not want the railroad near the 42nd parallel. It looks like some editing back in 2016 confused the language that southern Democrats opposed the 42nd parallel with them supporting a 42nd parallel route. This edit appears to be where the erroneous change occurs:

"20:10, 12 October 2016‎ Btphelps talk contribs‎ 132,147 bytes -281‎ →‎Authorization and funding: edit intro graf undo"

The previous version said:

"The Acts were approved in part because the American Civil War removed southern Democratic opposition to a central route near the 42nd parallel."

Then the modified version changes to speak to the initial failure to pass:

"It passed the House but died when it could not be reconciled with the Senate version due to opposition from southern states who wanted a southern route near the 42nd parallel.[25]"

Reference 26 in the original became Reference 25 and was used to cite the opposition from southern states to the location of the route but did not originally mention a parallel.

This needs to be corrected but I'll defer to someone more capable to correct the statement without messing up the structure of the section.

--Kchambers (talk) 17:39, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Great Transcontinental Railroad?[edit]

Someone has recently added this as an alternate title. I have never heard of this as an alternate name, and doing a Google search doesn't seem to support it either. Most hits on Google are links to prose something like this "The First Transcontinental Railroad was a great race...." Any objections to me removing this title? Dave (talk) 23:55, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

To add to article[edit]

To add to the article: a map showing the route of the First Transcontinental Railroad--something readers would expect to see at the top of an article such as this. 173.88.241.33 (talk) 23:08, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 10 February 2021[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Strong and valid consensus. Andrewa (talk) 06:41, 18 February 2021 (UTC)


First Transcontinental Railroad → First transcontinental railroad – It's the "first transcontinental railroad", not the "First Transcontinental Railroad", which would imply it was an official or at least a widely used name. The article should be retitled in lower case and corresponding changes made within it.

(The Panama Railroad was decades earlier, and what this one really was is only the first railroad connecting the west coast of the US to the existing eastern rail network, but the description "first transcontinental railroad" is widely used, so never mind these points.) -- 142.112.149.107 (talk) 02:48, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

  • Support per WP:COMMONNAME. The Google Ngrams indicate that the uncapitalized version is the most common.[1] Rreagan007 (talk) 03:33, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Images[edit]

Wow, of all the many images in this excellent article currently only one is unfree, and it's one of the last few... the movie poster. But it just shows you do need to check them all. Andrewa (talk) 06:56, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

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