Transcontinental Railroad

Although one U.S. senator called the nation's west "a land which no American citizen should be required to inhabit…unless as a punishment," 19th century visionaries thought differently. One such was a civil engineer named Theodore Judah, who went to Washington in 1859 with his dream of a transcontinental railroad linking east and west--a technological manifestation of the popular if philosophically dubious concept of Manifest Destiny. On October 26, 1863, the first spike in the proposed continent-spanning railroad, laid by two competing companies--the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific--was driven. Part of PBS's acclaimed American Experience series, Mark Zwonitzer and Michael Chin's Transcontinental Railroad, narrated by Michael Murphy, is an absorbing historical tale of romantic idealism, monumental greed, bureaucratic stasis, dangerous back-breaking labor, and, ultimately, national triumph when the connecting "Golden Spike" was pounded into place on May 10, 1869 at Promontory Summit, Utah. Intertwining interview footage with contemporary reenactments and archival stills, the documentary traces the nigh-impossible task of taking the railroad over the Sierra Mountains, the trials and tribulations of the overworked and underpaid Chinese laborers, the underhanded machinations of the Central Pacific's overseer Thomas C. Durant (who, among other scams, purposely built some extra doglegs into the route since he was being paid the outrageous sum of $50,000 a mile), the bold attacks of Native Americans from the Plains (who saw in this new iron horse something more ominously permanent than the heretofore transitory wagon trains), and the rise of makeshift towns ("hell-on-wheels") that sprung up along the route to tend to the workers' basic needs (sex and liquor). A solid program that deftly interweaves mid-19th century American historical, political, and cultural insights together with a thrilling story, Transcontinental Railroad is also blessed with a notable musical score by Brian Keene. Definitely recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (R. Pitman)