Transcontinental Railroad?

Building the Transcontinental Railroad: How did they manage all those trains on a track just being built?

• I'm reading Stephen Ambrose's book on the Transcontinental Railroad. One thing I'm not clear on: When the great railroad was being built, how were they managing all the trains? The book speaks of ten thousand men working, and train after train after train of rolling stock, living quarters, shops, and more, coming and going with supplies. But how the hell did they pull it off, with all the trains needing to be near the end of a single track? And how did all these trains get turned around in the other direction to go back for more?PS I have recently found out the book is not considered historically sound. But these answers are gold!

• Answer:

  In the same way that railroads today move lots of equipment around on very few tracks. (The Long Island Railroad has only one single track by the time it reaches the Hamptons, and they're moving many thousands of people an hour during peak summer weekends.) The trick is that railroads cover long distances with trackage, but the two-trains-on-one-track problem only occurs at the precise point where they pass each other, which can be as short as a few hundred feet. For that reason, you frequently see sidings which let one train move out of the way to allow another through (in the same or opposite direction.) This is also the case in stations... and in rail yards where trains are made up and cars and motive equipment stored: As for "turning the train around", it's important to note some interesting facts first: Freight cars of all kinds and most passenger cars don't have "front ends" and "back ends". The former are symmetrical, and the latter typically have seats facing in both directions (so half the riders are always traveling "backwards".) Locomotives typically work just as well going "backwards" as they do going "forwards" The set of individual cars that make up a train (called a "consist") can be put into motion from either direction. While they are typically pulled from the front, they can also (or additionally) be pushed from the back. Sometimes if a train is going up a long grade (hill), the railroad will add on one or more 'pusher' locomotives to help the primary one in front. OK, with those preliminaries out of the way, we now see that "turning around a train" is a whole lot less difficult than it might otherwise appear! You've got the following choices: 1) Simply put the locomotive into reverse and push the train the other direction 2) Put a "turning loop" at the end of the line, and just run the train in a semi-circle until it's pointing back the way it came: (the turning loop is the outside curved track around the yard) 3) Keep the consist in one place and run the locomotive around from one end to the other. This can be done with simple "runaround siding", with the engine reversing its direction of travel... Or the engine can be rotated to face the "right" direction on a turntable... Or the engine can do what car drivers know as a "three point turn" by using a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wye_(railroad)#For_turning_equipment: