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When did rail service in the United States reach from coast to coast?

On May 10, 1869, the last tracks of the United States cross-country railroad were laid, making North America the first continent to be spanned from coast to coast by rail and fulfilling a national dream to unite the country by train. Although short-run railroad lines had been in place since the 1840s, there was no nationwide system to transport goods and people across distant regions. In the 1860s the U.S. Congress (the country's law-making body) decided to undertake a massive railway project that would establish this network. The federal government granted land and millions of dollars in loans to two companies chosen to build the rail system. It was eventually decided that the railroad should run along the forty-second parallel (a line on a map running parallel to Earth's equator) from Omaha, Nebraska, to Sacramento, California, due to...

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