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| Joseph Hubert Becker (Artist), First Train Coming through the Central Pacific Railroad, c. 1869 (from his sketch The Snow Sheds on the Central Pacific Railroad in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, 1869) Courtesy http://www.artistaswitness.com |
“The angle from which you view any object, the perspective you bring to any subject, the way you perceive any issue or idea, conditions and regulates your judgment, attitude, or feeling about whatever is under observation. Indeed, everything depends on your point of view.” —Janet Fireman, “From the Editor: Point of View,” Railroaded, California History 89, no. 1 (2011)The story of railroads in the West is a complex stew, often fraught with contradiction, where one’s perspective of people, events, and the relative merit of a particular railroad shifts with time.
This month we note the 147th anniversary of the completion of the first transcontinental railroad, at the same that Californians grapple with the benefits—or not—of a new high-speed railroad that will link northern and southern California.