Union Pacific’s route winding and inefficient? For the most part UP’s current route (the Overland route) follows the original Transcontinental route, with the exception of some parts (including where the original golden spike was located) were changed as technology and profit allowed. Both railroads and right-of-way’s are key components of the current Union Pacific system (Original Union Pacific, Missouri Pacific, Western Pacific and Southern Pacific) and BNSF (Burlington Northern Santa Fe).

If the author really wanted to make his point, he should’ve used the Northern Pacific railroad verses the Great Northern.The NorPac was built with federal subsidies while the Great Northern was built with private funds. The Northern Pacific was merged out of existence in 1970 during the Burlington Route, Great Northern and Northern Pacific merger of 1970 which produced the Burlington Northern Railroad (Which later was merged with Santa Fe, which produced the BNSF railroad). NorPac’s route was poorly engineered, and was abandoned soon after the 1970 BN merger.

Ok, nerd switch off now, ha.