Legends of the Old West - HELL ON WHEELS Ep. 1 | “The Great Race”

Episode Date: May 21, 2025

For decades in the early 1800s, engineers and merchants attempt to convince the United States to build a railroad that could link the east to the west. But it isn’t until the nation is thrown into Civil War that the government passes a bill to construct a transcontinental railroad. Two companies are formed: the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific. The Union Pacific begins building west from Omaha. But the man who oversees everything, Thomas Durant, uses the project to enrich himself.  Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join Apple users join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes, bingeable seasons and bonus episodes. Click the Black Barrel+ banner on Apple to get started with a 3-day free trial. For more details, visit our website www.blackbarrelmedia.com and check out our social media pages. We’re @OldWestPodcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. On YouTube, subscribe to LEGENDS+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: hit “Join” on the Legends YouTube homepage. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There you are, pushing your newborn baby in a stroller through the park. The first time out of the house in weeks. You have your Starbucks, then tea, because, you know, sleep deprivation. You meet your best friend, she asks you how it's going, you immediately begin to laugh, then cry, then laugh cry, that's totally normal, right? She smiles, you hug, there's no one else you'd rather share this with. You know, three and a half hours sleep is more than enough. Starbucks, it's never just coffee. to your door, a well-marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool.

Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. November 1st, 1855 was a crisp autumn day in St. Louis, Missouri. Over at the train station, a tinge of coal smoke filled the air for something unusual. A special excursion train from St. Louis to Jefferson City, about 125 miles west. The trip was meant to be a celebratory journey, a testament to the progress of the Pacific Railroad, one of the many railroad companies in the nascent but booming rail industry. The train was filled with the most esteemed citizens of St. Louis, railroad executives,

politicians, and their families. Among those travelers were the mayors of St. Louis and Carondelet, as well as Henry Chouteau, whose father founded St. Louis. Roughly 600 or so loaded into the train, whose locomotive was dubbed O'Sullivan and headed west. As the train rolled out of town, the passengers reveled in the Missouri landscape. In the VIP cars, champagne glasses clinked, laughter rang out, and titans of industry spoke in bold tones of the fortunes they envisioned being built on rails of steel. But soon after they left St. Louis, things went south.

At mile marker 39, the train reached a bridge over the Gasconade River. The bridge was an engineering marvel, a 760-foot-long wooden structure stretching across the water. But there was a caveat. It was a marvel built-in haste and barely tested under a full load. And yet, the O'Sullivan rolled onto the bridge. As the train began its crossing, disaster struck. With a sickening snap, the span between the east bank and the first pier collapsed. Wooden timbers splintered beneath the weight of the engine. The O'Sullivan tipped backward as it fell, crashing down onto the first passenger car. Behind it, seven

cars followed, falling into the river below. Miraculously, one passenger car remained upright on the tracks. It didn't take long for the chorus of screams to rise above the wreckage. Survivors clawed their way out of the twisted cars, dazed and bloodied, and stumbled over splintered beams and jagged iron. Some managed to crawl out of the river. Thirty-one people died in the crash, including Henry Chouteau, the son of the founder of St. Louis.

More than 100 were injured, and in a single heartbeat, the celebration had turned into catastrophe. News of the disaster sent shockwaves through the nation. In Washington, Congress buzzed with alarm. As it turned out, the Gasconade Bridge disaster was not an isolated incident. Rather, it was a harbinger of worse things to come. It was a tragedy that revealed the risks of a young nation hurtling toward the future without restraint, and it cast a long shadow over the ambitious vision of a railroad that could unite the country and span the continent. And yet, even as the wreckage and debris of the Gasconade Bridge disaster was cleared and families mourned their dead, the nation pressed forward.

Politicians and industrialists across the country discussed the feasibility of a transcontinental railroad project. It didn't matter how much it cost or how many people needed to die, the future was rail. There needed to be a line that connected east to west. And just over a decade after Gasconade, a race would begin. A race between two rival rail companies hell-bent on connecting the United States of America. From Black Barrel Media, this is Legends of the Old West.

I'm your host Chris Wimmer. And this season is Hell on Wheels. The epic story of the transcontinental railroad. Despite countless hardships and obstacles, the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific did what many thought was impossible. They connected the American nation by rail. This is episode one, The Great Race.

The Gasconade Bridge disaster was a tragedy, but the train crash wasn't something out of the ordinary. In fact, it was a symptomatic warning of the danger of the rapid progress of the booming railroad industry. By the mid-1850s, derailments, boiler explosions, and collisions were frequent, and they exposed just how fragile and dangerous the nation's rail system had become. In less than a generation, the country had gone from wagons rumbling over dirt trails to a sprawling web of steel stretching across the east and creeping toward the Mississippi River. As the

U.S. became an industrialized nation, the only way to speed up progress was by embracing the rail. But the rail system was as fragmented as it was fast growing. America's railroads were a chaotic patchwork of privately owned lines. Each company had its own schedule, its own track gauge, and its own safety practices. There were no national standards and no centralized oversight. As a result, track widths often changed at state borders,

which forced passengers and freight to be unloaded and reloaded onto different cars. Meanwhile, communication between trains and stations was limited. Critical decisions were often left to guesswork, instinct, or haste. It was this lack of cohesion, standardization, and rush to build that helped create tragedies like the one at Gasconade Bridge, as well as the one that occurred less than a year later in White Marsh Township, Pennsylvania. July 17, 1856 was the hottest day of the year in Philadelphia. Even at dawn, the heat was heavy as families

gathered outside St. Michael's Roman Catholic Church. But the heat didn't stop St. Michael's from organizing a special summer picnic for families to some nearby woods. When everyone had gathered, the large party headed toward the train station and loaded onto an excursion train of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad. At the head of the train was the powerful Shackam-Maxson locomotive. When all 12 wooden passenger cars were loaded, the Shackam-Maxson blew its whistle and rolled out of Philadelphia, heading north. It was 6 a.m. and the Shackam-Maxson had actually left Philadelphia slightly behind schedule. But the conductor was confident

he could make up for lost time. In doing so, he failed to telegraph ahead to alert stations along the line, which would be a costly mistake. As the Shaka-Maxson got underway, a second locomotive, the Aramingo, was on its way south toward Philadelphia. The Aramingo traveled along the same single track line, and under normal circumstances, the two trains could have passed each other safely

using the siding track at Edge Hill. But the delay in the Shackamaxon's departure and the lack of communication put the two trains on a collision course. At 6.18 a.m., both trains approached a blind curve just past Camp Hill Station. Dense summer foliage concealed their approaches from each other. The Shackamaxan rolled downhill into the bend while the Aramingo had just begun to round the same curve from the opposite direction.

Because it was a blind turn, both trains blew their whistles. But neither engineer could hear the whistle of the other train over the sound of his own whistle. By the time they saw what was coming, it was too late, and the two trains collided at full speed. The boilers exploded on impact, creating a blast that was heard as far as five miles away. The first cars of the Shackamaxon, packed with children, priests, and teachers, were

destroyed instantly. Wooden walls splintered like matchsticks. Iron bars twisted like vines. Flames surged through the wreckage as overturned oil lamps ignited what was left. Nearby farmers heard the explosion and rushed to help. They dragged bodies from the flames and carried the injured into homes and barns where neighbors tried to help the wounded. Sadly, there wasn't much they could do.

More than 60 people, many of them children, died in the great train wreck of 1856. The bodies pulled from the wreckage were often crushed beyond recognition or burned beyond hope. A church outing that was meant to celebrate and enjoy a summer day had become one of the worst rail disasters in American history. Public outrage was immediate and unrelenting. The New York Times called it quote, a horror unparalleled. Citizens demanded regulation. They wanted standardized schedules, mandatory telegraph use, safety inspections, and federal oversight. Politicians,

especially at the state level, introduced bills and commissions aimed at curbing the most dangerous practices. They desperately wanted to bring some level of consistency to an industry that operated free for all. But the railroad companies, owned by wealthy, powerful, and fiercely independent barons, resisted at every step of the way. They aggressively lobbied politicians, funded sympathetic candidates, and used their economic influence to stall, weaken, or kill most of the regulatory efforts.

All the while, they continued to lay track unabated. Before long, railroad barons began to consider expanding their reach farther west, beyond the mighty Mississippi River, and maybe even to the Pacific Ocean. But it would take a cataclysmic event to finally set the fantasy of a transcontinental railroad in motion. To support sustainable food production,

BHP is building one of the world's largest hot ash mines in Canada, essential resources responsibly produced. It's happening now at BHP is building one of the world's largest hot-ash mines in Canada. Essential resources responsibly produced. It's happening now at BHP, a future resources company. Long before the Civil War, the idea of a rail line crossing the continent had captured the imagination of American visionaries. Even with advancements in wagon technology or steamboats, traveling from coast to coast took months.

But building a railroad across the great expanse of the nation would cost millions. It seemed like a fool's dream. Still, innovators tried to find a way to get it done. In the 1840s, a dry goods merchant named Asa Whitney submitted one of the earliest formal proposals to Congress. He called for a line to traverse the continent and spent much of his own fortune lobbying

Congress and gaining popular support for the project. But nothing materialized. In 1853, Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, soon to become president of the Confederacy, oversaw a series of surveys that explored possible transcontinental railroad routes. But no presidential administration wanted to take it on. Critics said the obstacles were too great and the costs were too high. Private investors balked at the massive scope of the project. The Sierra Nevada mountains were impenetrable and the Great Plains were a desolate void.

Critics mocked the whole enterprise, calling it a railroad to nowhere, an impossible line stretching across the Great American Desert. But not everyone scoffed. Abraham Lincoln had been a believer in the power of railroads long before he reached the presidency. As a young lawyer, he had represented rail companies in court. As a congressman, he supported internal improvements and read Asa Whitney's proposals. Lincoln was so enamored with the prospect of a transcontinental railroad that the final plank of the 1860 Republican Party platform declared, quote, A railroad to the Pacific Ocean is imperatively demanded by the interests of the whole country, and the federal government

ought to render immediate and efficient aid in its construction. But before the United States could render immediate and efficient aid to construct a railroad, it had to fight a war for its survival. By April 1861, the United States was no longer united. Eleven states in the South had seceded from the Union, and the first shot of the Civil War was fired on April 12. Ironically, the war helped intensify the need to clean up America's rail system. For decades, North and South had developed separate rail networks, each with different

track gauges, that is, the distance between the two steel rails. The southern states had relied on a heavily decentralized patchwork of small, privately-owned railroads that were often poorly maintained and loosely connected. Trails couldn't switch lines without unloading cargo or soldiers. In many cases, as the war progressed, the trains couldn't move at all. But the Union had a more integrated system. More importantly, it had better leadership in this one specific area. Herman Haupt, a Union general and railroad engineer, transformed the Union's railroads into its greatest strategic advantage.

Haupt streamlined logistics, rebuilt bridges overnight, and replaced sabotage tracks within hours. Under Haupt's control, the Union was able to move troops and supplies faster than the Confederacy could anticipate, and that advantage helped the Union immeas move troops and supplies faster than the Confederacy could anticipate, and that advantage helped the Union immeasurably as the war progressed. Lincoln became increasingly convinced that if the nation was to endure after the war, it would need infrastructure to hold it together in peacetime. It needed a single rail line from coast to coast, and luckily for Lincoln, Congress agreed.

The war forced Washington to act boldly. Congress had raised armies, nationalized currency, and expanded federal power in ways which were once unthinkable. The prospect of building a transcontinental railroad no longer seemed impossible. So in 1862, Congress passed and Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Act. The legislation authorized the construction of the first federally funded transcontinental railroad. The act provided generous land grants and government bonds for two companies, the Central Pacific Railroad building eastward from Sacramento, California, and the Union Pacific Railroad, which would build westward from Omaha, Nebraska. Almost instantly, it became apparent that the first transcontinental railroad project

wasn't just going to be a major public works program. It was going to be a race. Within the upper echelons of the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific, a sense of competition arose. The race was based solely on financial incentives. The company that laid the most track, the fastest, received the most government subsidies. Already, the financial incentives were enough to bring out the most ruthless and conniving businessmen. But the man leading the Union Pacific would come up with a scheme unlike anything ever seen in the United States.

After Congress passed the Pacific Railway Act of 1862, the Union Pacific Railroad, the company set to build from east to west, was nothing more than a paper entity. The earliest leadership included a man named John Dix, who was elected president of the company in 1863. Dix was a respected former senator and union general, and he gave the Union Pacific legitimacy. But he lacked the appetite for financial risk and the ruthlessness required to push the

project forward under the government's incentive structure. Very quickly, it became clear that the Union Pacific needed someone with grit to oversee the operation. That man was Thomas Durant, a financier, a backroom operator, and a master manipulator who was well known in New York's financial circles. Durant had made his fortune in grain speculation, and he thrived on deception. He knew how to twist laws, lobby Congress, and manipulate markets to his advantage. Throughout late 1863 and 1864, Durant began acquiring stock in the Union Pacific and consolidating influence behind the scenes. John Dix was the president on paper, but Thomas Durant quickly became the man running the

railroad in practice. He leveraged proxies, coerced allies, and maneuvered to marginalize anyone who opposed him. And he had a key ally in his mission. George Francis Trane was a flamboyant entrepreneur and self-proclaimed visionary with a gift for selling ideas. Technically, Trane had no formal role with the Union Pacific. He was mostly a showy promoter. Trane gave speeches and handed out pamphlets in order to help secure more funding from

investors. He had previously helped finance streetcar lines in England, and he saw the Transcontinental Railroad as an investment opportunity and a path to historical greatness. Thomas Durant liked what he saw in George Trane, especially as Durant noticed a way opportunity, and a path to historical greatness. Thomas Durant liked what he saw in George Train, especially as Durant noticed a way to make millions of dollars from the railroad project. Congress had promised land and loans for every mile of track laid. For each completed mile, the railroad would receive 6,400 acres of land and government bonds worth between $16,000

and $48,000 depending on the terrain. The intent was to incentivize rapid construction, but it was a system with a flaw. It rewarded quantity, not efficiency. Durant recognized the flaw and he turned it into a fortune. In 1864, Durant and Trane joined forces and acquired control of a dormant shell company known as the Pennsylvania Fiscal Agency. They renamed it Credit Mobilier of America. Ever the schemers, they chose the name with purpose. It was similar to an elite French investment firm known for funding major public

works. To investors, the name signified scale and safety. Behind the name, it was neither. Instead, it was a way for Durant and Train to funnel federal dollars straight into their pockets and those of other Union Pacific insiders. The scheme was simple. Durant placed Credit Mobilier in charge of construction, and then he overbilled Union Pacific for every contract. Since he secretly controlled both companies, the excess profits simply looped back to him and his associates.

The railroad paid inflated rates and billed them to the government. The government issued bonds, and Credit Mobilié quietly cashed them in. Millions of dollars in public funding passed through the scheme, and Durant and his cronies pocketed much of it before a single rail was placed. But Durant didn't act alone. George Train helped sell Credit-mobilier stock to powerful allies in Congress, many of whom either turned a blind eye to the fraud or became financially entangled in it. Whether they understood the full scope of Durant's deception or not, their investments ensured one thing. When Durant needed more money, Congress approved it. When George Train wasn't promoting in Washington, he was promoting in the heartland.

He touted Omaha, Nebraska as the gateway to the West. He personally invested in its growth and declared it the future commercial heart of the continent. He built hotels, founded businesses, and poured his efforts and energy into public relations. And in 1864, Omaha was selected as the Eastern Terminus of the Union Pacific Railroad. But Thomas Durant wasn't done scheming. In early 1865, as the Civil War neared its end, the federal government began demanding legitimate progress on the railroad. Three years after the passage of the Pacific Railway Act, there had been a lot of talk and a lot of money spent, but no work had been done. Durant knew payments were awarded by the mile, so he ordered his survey crews to chart an inefficient route through Nebraska.

And to continue his fraud, Durant knew he needed to get rid of John Dix, the man who was still technically president of the Union Pacific. Dix wanted the company to operate as a legitimate enterprise and Durant knew was only a matter of time before Dix discovered the fraud. So, Durant began to stack the company's board with loyalists. Durant tried to squeeze Dix out of the company, but Dix refused. So Durant decided he needed to launch a coup. On May 17, 1865, Durant used proxies to take control of the board of the Union Pacific. A few days later, Durant's lawyers served an injunction to freeze any further interference

from Dix or his supporters. Durant's men physically seized the company's New York headquarters and locked out Dix's supporters. Dix knew he was no match for Durant and he relented. Over the next few months, Durant consolidated control of the Union Pacific and paid off Dix with $50,000 for his share of the Union Pacific and paid off Dix with $50,000 for his share of the Union Pacific stock.

Dix walked away in disgust, and Durant didn't care. With Dix out of the way, Durant had full authority over the company's finances, contracts, and direction. Construction of the Union Pacific Railroad could now begin on his terms. The first ceremonial spike had been driven in Omaha back on December 2nd, 1863, but not a single track had been laid since then. Now in July, 1865, with Durant fully in control, construction finally commenced for the Union Pacific.

The great race between the two trained companies was on. The Union Pacific assembled a workforce of men who were hardened and desperate, fellows with few options in life or dreams of anything beyond surviving from one day to the next. The promise of a steady wage and hot food in return for honest work seemed hopeful, even if the work was backbreaking labor. The vast majority of the Union Pacific's workers were recent Irish immigrants, fresh off the docks in Boston and New York and looking for prosperity in their new home. Some workers were Civil War veterans from both sides of the conflict, and some were newly freed slaves from the South,

hoping to start a new life now that they were no longer in bondage. No one thought building a railroad would be easy, but right out of the gate, the Union Pacific's workforce discovered just how hard the project was going to be. While the Nebraska prairie didn't feature mountains, the terrain offered its own kind of punishment. Starting in December meant starting in winter. The ground was frozen, which meant breaking through the soil with pickaxes was damn near impossible.

Making matters worse, relentless winter winds tore at their skin and sandblasted their faces. On top of the weather conditions, the work itself was daunting. Each rail weighed around 600 pounds and had to be carried by hand and set and hammered into place. Injuries quickly became common. Slipped hammers shattered hands. Crushed feet meant permanent disability. Black powder accidents could kill a dozen men at once with a single explosion. Those who died were buried where they fell, sometimes right next to the track they had just laid moments before. But men told themselves the hardship would be worth it because of the steady pay. Except there was a problem. They were barely getting paid at all. As it turned

out, wages were extremely low and inconsistent, and it was all part of Thomas Durant's scheme to make as much profit as possible. Under Durant's direction, the early months of Union Pacific construction were filled with delays and setbacks. Materials failed to arrive on time. Shipments of rails, timber, and tools sometimes vanished or were endlessly rerouted. Some of the workers suspected that the delays were deliberate, that Durant was holding up construction to manipulate Union Pacific stock so he could secure more funding.

Durant knew he needed to keep up appearances. Whenever government inspectors or investors visited the construction site, Durant staged elaborate scenes of progress. Hundreds of workers would labor furiously for a few days, spiking rails, laying ties, and performing the act of building the railroad for cameras and congressmen. Then when the officials left, the tempo slowed down and the crews sat idle. Supplies once again started to disappear.

But the charade could only last for so long. As the months began to tick away throughout 1866, reports on the lack of progress made several politicians suspicious. By the summer, after six months of quote-unquote work, only 50 miles of track had been laid west of Omaha. Pressure from Washington began to mount as headlines turned hostile toward the Union Pacific. Thomas Durant knew he needed to find a new narrative

that could help explain the delays, justify the costs, and shift the blame. If he wanted to maintain control of the railroad, as well as the flow of money into his pockets, he needed a scapegoat. Luckily for him, the Great Plains provided the perfect solution. plains provided the perfect solution. By late 1866, the Union Pacific had laid its 100th mile of track west of Omaha, a modest

achievement considering the grand vision of a transcontinental railroad that would cover more than 1,500 miles between Omaha and Sacramento. As the Union Pacific crept further onto the Great Plains, the land it crossed and claimed as its own wasn't empty. The route cut through the ancestral hunting grounds of the Pawnee, Cheyenne, Lakota, and Arapaho, along with several smaller tribes. For the indigenous people, the arrival of the railroad signified far more than a new

mode of transportation. It meant permanent occupation. Thomas Durant saw an opportunity. He knew that native attacks, both real and imagined, could provide the perfect cover for construction delays. In the decades before the transcontinental project, the U.S. government had signed treaties with tribal nations that shaped the geopolitical boundaries of the region. Chief among the treaties was the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie,

which recognized native sovereignty over vast portions of the Great Plains. The treaty guaranteed hunting rights and the protection of tribal lands from development, and it permitted safe passage along selected trails. But it did not include clauses for permanent infrastructure of railroads, forts, and telegraph lines. The coming of the transcontinental railroad suddenly gave way to an existential crisis. Many Native leaders initially responded to the threat of the railroad with diplomacy.

They had watched for years as buffalo herds dwindled and wagon trains poured west. Some tribes had actually guided settlers and traded along the North and South Platte Rivers in Nebraska, Wyoming, and Colorado. Now there were tribes who saw the coming railroad as an opportunity to solve their own squabbles with different tribes. The Pawnee, for example, welcomed the arrival of the Union Pacific because they wanted the Americans' help against their own bitter rival, the Lakota. Pawnee warriors offered their assistance in protecting railroad workers and helped prepare

the workers against hostile tribes by staging mock attacks. It was basically 19th century war games. But few tribes were as friendly as the Pawnee. The Northern Cheyenne, the Lakota, and the Arapaho hated the encroachment. Throughout 1866, Lakota warriors raided the Union Pacific, often stealing livestock from the railroad's supplies. Occasionally, the two sides engaged in small-scale skirmishes. Nothing scared Union Pacific workers like seeing a Lakota scouting party on the horizon, watching them work. In the camps, whispers of marauding war parties kept tempers high and revolvers loaded. Workers swung their hammers by day and stood watch by night, waiting for violence and bloodshed

to erupt. And Durant used the fear as propaganda and an excuse for delay. Whenever Washington officials or investors questioned the Union Pacific's stagnant progress or ballooning expenses, Durant pointed to what he called Indian troubles. He circulated reports of roving bands of warriors setting fire to rail ties, attacking camps, and stealing livestock. The attacks were sporadic, but they were enough to stir real panic and to gain Durant and the Union Pacific more political capital. Before long, Durant demanded that Washington send the Army for help. If Congress truly wanted to see the railroad built, the crew was going to need protection. Washington obliged and sent soldiers

to guard the railhead and protect survey teams. In the eyes of Washington, the Union Pacific was no longer just an infrastructure project, it was a military campaign. But for Durant, bringing in the army was just one more cog in his money-making scheme. As the railroad limped through Nebraska toward Wyoming, Durant continued to funnel all aspects of the project, materials, labor, and military

security through his shell company. His scheme continued to make a fortune, but it was on borrowed time. The following year, there would be a reckoning for Thomas Durant. And while Durant held up construction on the Great Plains, another railroad company was tackling the most daunting and dangerous part of the transcontinental railroad. If the Union Pacific crew hated the conditions in Nebraska in the winter, they would hear stories from the Central Pacific crew that would blow their minds. More than 1,000 miles to the west in California, the Central Pacific had men dangling over cliffs in baskets and plowing tunnels

through snow so they could blast tunnels through the Sierra Nevada mountains. Next time on Legends of the Old West, the focus shifts to the Central Pacific Railroad. While the Union Pacific was hampered by corruption and mismanagement, the Central Pacific fought its way through the towering Sierra Nevada mountains. It would take ingenuity and sheer willpower from an unlikely source of labor to conquer California's most formidable landmass. That's next week on Legends of the Old West. Members of our Black Barrel Plus program

don't have to wait week to week to receive new episodes. They receive the entire season to binge all at once with no commercials, and they also receive exclusive bonus episodes. Sign up now through the link in the show notes or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. Memberships are just $5 per month. This series was researched and written by Matthew Kearns.

It was produced by Joe Guerra. Original music by Rob Valier. I'm Chris Wimmer. Thanks for listening.