This extra track laid by Central would increase profits for them and threaten great losses for the Union Pacific. The owner of the Union Pacific decided to get back on track by increasing the number of men working and increasing working hours. These changes resulted in over eighty miles of tracks laid in year three, an increase in production of about 400%.
The two lines, stretching a whopping 1750 miles (Allen 58), met on May 10, 1869, at Promontory, Utah. Elaborate ceremonies then ensued, including the driving of the last spike, which was made of made of pure gold (Anderson 223). Unfortunately, workers lives and sound construction practices were carelessly thrown aside. This com-pleted the first of several transcontinental railroads built the late 19th century. The West developed simultaneously with the building of the Western railroads, and in no part of the nation was the importance of railroads more generally recognized. The railroad gave vi-tality to the regions it served, but, by withholding service, it could doom a community to stagnation.
Despite the success and completion of the transcontinental, further railroad suc-cess was not always easy. Other railroads had begun construction westward, but the panic of 1873 and the ensuing depression halted or delayed progress on many of those lines (Foner 518). With the return of prosperity after 1877, some railroads resumed or even accelerated construction. By 1883 three more rail connections between the Missis-sippi Valley and the West Coast had been completed "the Northern Pacific, from St. Paul to Portland; the Santa Fe, from Chicago to Los Angeles; and the Southern Pacific, from New Orleans to Los Angeles. The Southern Pacific had also acquired, by purchase or construction, lines from Portland to San Francisco and from San Francisco to Los Angeles. By the late 1890s, many of the lines were nearly bankrupt from competition and poor economic conditions, slowing expansion again.