Empire Express
Subtitle: building the first transcontinental railroad
Publisher: Viking
Published: 1999
Place of publication: New York, USA
Number of pages: 797
ISBN-13: 067080889X
Description: "Beginning in 1842 with a visionary's dream to span the continent with a single railroad line, Empire Express captures three dramatic decades in which the United States effectively doubled in size, fought three wars, and began to discover a new national identity.

Culminating in the driving of the Golden Spike in the Utah desert in 1869, which touched off a frenzy of celebration, the narrative ends in 1873 in Washington under the Capitol rotunda, with the crushing fall of a popular politician and the exposure of a powerful, hidden railroad lobby - a scandal, which, for half a year, dominated the press and the country's imagination."--BOOK JACKET.