Title: Transcontinental railroad
Content:   A transcontinental railroad in the United States is any continuous rail line connecting a location on the U.S. Pacific coast with one or more of the railroads of the nation's eastern trunk line rail systems operating between the Missouri or Mississippi Rivers and the U.S. Atlantic coast. The first concrete plan for a transcontinental railroad in the United States was presented to Congress by Asa Whitney in 1845. A series of transcontinental railroads built over the last third of the 19th century created a nationwide transportation network that united the country by rail. The first of these, the 1928 mi "Pacific Railroad", was built by the Central Pacific Railroad and Union Pacific Railroad to link the San Francisco Bay at Alameda, California, with the nation's existing eastern railroad network at Council Bluffs, Iowa/Omaha, Nebraska, thereby creating the world's first transcontinental railroad when it opened in 1869. Its construction was made possible by the US government under Pacific Railroad Acts of 1862, 1864, and 1867. Its original course was very close to current Interstate 80.
Title: First transcontinental railroad
Content:   Among the early proponents of building a railroad line that would connect the coasts of the United States was Dr. Hartwell Carver, who in 1847 submitted to the U.S. Congress a "Proposal for a Charter to Build a Railroad from Lake Michigan to the Pacific Ocean", seeking a congressional charter to support his idea.
Title: First transcontinental railroad
Content:  One of the most prominent champions of the central route railroad was Asa Whitney. He envisioned a route from Chicago and the Great Lakes to northern California, paid for by the sale of land to settlers along the route. Whitney traveled widely to solicit support from businessmen and politicians, printed maps and pamphlets, and submitted several proposals to Congress, all at his own expense. In June 1845, he led a team along part of the proposed route to assess its feasibility. Legislation to begin construction of the Pacific Railroad (called the Memorial of Asa Whitney) was first introduced to Congress by Representative Zadock Pratt. Congress did not immediately act on Whitney's proposal.
Title: First transcontinental railroad
Content:  Joseph Railroad. ; Kansas City, Kansas / Leavenworth, Kansas accessed via the Leavenworth, Pawnee and Western Railroad, controlled by Thomas Ewing Jr. and later by John C. Frémont. ; Council Bluffs, Iowa / Omaha, Nebraska, accessed via an extension of Union Pacific financier Thomas C. Durant's proposed Mississippi and Missouri Railroad and the new Union Pacific Railroad, also controlled by Durant. The U.S. Congress was strongly divided on where the eastern terminus of the railroad should be—in a southern or northern city. Three routes were considered:  Once the central route was chosen, it was immediately obvious that the western terminus should be Sacramento. But there was considerable difference of opinion about the eastern 
Title: Empire Express
Content:  Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad is a book written by David Haward Bain, published in 2000. It follows the initial conception of the idea of a transcontinental railroad, during the two decades before the Civil War, to the work of the engineers and entrepreneurs who fixed the route, assembled financing, drafted a work force and launched the two lines toward the eventual meeting point at Promontory Summit, Utah, in 1869. The story alternates between the Union Pacific driving west from Omaha and the Central Pacific blasting through the mountains from California. Bain examines the impact of the railroad on the Plains Indians, whose traditional way of life was eradicated by the line. He also deals with the imported Chinese workers, the "Celestials", who became known for their tenacity and work ethic.
Title: Asa Whitney
Content:  Although Whitney’s plan fell through, word began spreading of the idea of a transcontinental railroad. His plan inspired many young, ambitious engineers, one of which being Theodore Judah, a man who helped make the dream of a transcontinental railroad into a reality.
Title: Transcontinental railroad
Content:  challenge. The construction took five years after ground was first broken for the line in May, 1850, cost eight million dollars, and required more than seven thousand workers drawn from "every quarter of the globe." This railway was built to provide a shorter and more secure path between the United States' East and West Coasts. This need was mainly triggered by the California Gold Rush. Over the years the railway played a key role in the construction and the subsequent operation of the Panama Canal, due to its proximity to the canal. Currently, the railway operates under the private administration of the Panama Canal Railroad Company, and its upgraded capacity complements the cargo traffic through the Panama Canal.
Title: Gadsden Purchase
Content:  In January 1845, Asa Whitney of New York presented the United States Congress with the first plan to construct a transcontinental railroad. Although Congress took no action on his proposal, a commercial convention of 1845 in Memphis took up the issue. Prominent attendees included John C. Calhoun, Clement C. Clay, Sr., John Bell, William Gwin, and Edmund P. Gaines, but James Gadsden of South Carolina was influential in the convention's recommending a southern route for the proposed railroad. The route was to begin in Texas and end in San Diego or Mazatlán. Southerners hoped that such a route would ensure Southern prosperity, while opening the "West 
Title: Rail transportation in the United States
Content:  of track by connecting Portland, Maine, and the three northern New England states with the Canadian Atlantic provinces, and west as far as Port Huron, Michigan, through Sarnia, Ontario. Authorized by the Pacific Railway Act of 1862 and heavily backed by the federal government, the first transcontinental railroad was the culmination of a decades-long movement to build such a line and was one of the crowning achievements of the presidency of Abraham Lincoln, completed four years after his death. The building of the railroad required enormous feats of engineering and labor in the crossing of the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains by the Union Pacific Railroad (UP) and Central Pacific Railroad, the two federally 
Title: David Rice Atchison
Content:  When the First Transcontinental Railroad was proposed in the 1850s, Atchison called for it to be built along the central route (from St. Louis through Missouri, Kansas, and Utah), rather than the southern route (from New Orleans through Texas and New Mexico). Naturally, his suggested route went through Atchison.

Question: who came up with the idea of the transcontinental railroad?
Answer: Dr. Hartwell Carver.