Continental Rail

Continental Rail (reporting mark CON) is a Class I line haul passenger and freight railroad. The railroad operates in all contiguous states (plus Alaska), with extensive trackage in Canada and Mexico, as well, plus additional trackage in Guatamala, Honduras, Belize, El Salvador, Nicuragua, and Panama (hence the name). It is owned and operated by Sammonds Industries as its largest and oldest subsidiary.

Early Years
The railroad was incorporated on June 1, 1862 (a month before Union Pacific) as the Central Valley Railroad, financed by Sammonds Industries (at the time, though, it was known as Sammonds Brothers Holdings, named for its founders, Daniel and Johnathon Sammonds). The railroad was initially planned to run from San Francisco to Sacramento to meet the connection with the First Transcontinental Railroad. However, the proposed bridge over the San Francisco Bay would have been too expensive and required too much engineering work, and the Central Pacific refused to allow another railroad to connect the Transcontinental Railroad to the Bay Area, instead preferring to do it themselves. Redoubling its efforts, the railroad instead conducted a survey of a route to the unincorporated community of Fresno in the Central Valley, hoping to spur growth of the community.

Construction was expected to begin in 1863, but the outbreak of the Civil War prevented this. To compensate, Sammonds Brothers instead built a temporary railroad called the San Francisco and San Jose Railroad. The first train from San Francisco to San Jose ran on August 30, 1865, powered by the first locomotive built in California (appropriately named California; this particular locomotive still survives and in operational condition for special events).

Meanwhile, a survey was carried out for a route between San Jose and Fresno. Eventually, a route via Pacheco Pass was selected, which would see trains pass through what eventually became Morgan Hill, San Martin, Gilroy, Los Banos, Califa, and Madera.

On July 4, 1870, the first train (fittingly pulled by California) departed San Francisco for Fresno, making a stop in San Jose (location of Sammonds Brothers headquarters), before arriving in Fresno five hours later, where schoolchildren greeted the train.

In 1871, the railroad further expanded, building a line from San Jose to Sacramento via Oakland, making the connection with the Transcontinental Railroad that Central Pacific had vehemently denied in 1862. Another extension was built the same year from Fresno to Sacramento, forming the "California Circle Route". In 1872, with traffic on the Valley Line growing, an alternate route via Firebaugh's Ferry was built to Fresno, along which such communities as Kerman were built.

Denied trackage rights over Donner Pass, the CVRR built its own line over the Sierras from Sacramento in 1875 (around the time Sammonds Brothers Holdings was renamed Sammonds Industries), calling at Cordova Vineyards, Folsom, El Dorado Hills, Shingle Springs, Placerville, Moore's Station, Slipperyford, and Strawberry, before cresting Echo Summit and entering the Lake Tahoe Basin, where it called at South Lake Tahoe (really, the depot was in Tahoe Village at what is now "The Y", but was named as so for convenience). It then continued across the California-Nevada stateline and over the Carson Range, through Cave Rock and cresting Spooner Summit, before coming into Carson City, where it made it the rest of the way to Reno via the pre-existing Virginia and Truckee Railroad trackage. At this time, the CVRR was renamed the Central Valley & Lake Tahoe Railroad. (CV&LTRR) to reflect this new route. Following the completion of the line to Carson City, the CV&LT and V&T entered into a partnership, which ultimately saved the latter from abandonment in 1950. The Sierra Line, meanwhile, remains in service, despite the building of US 50, which largely parallels the line, mainly due to the tourist trade.

Becoming Continental Rail and Finding Competitors
In 1880, the railroad was renamed to its current name of Continental Rail, coinciding with the railroad's scope expanding. This included building a major line from Gilroy to Los Angeles, meeting the Southern Pacific and Santa Fe. In the mid-1880s, SP built its own line from Los Angeles to Fresno via the Tehachapis and Bakersfield, as did ATSF, in an attempt to compete with Continental Rail and hopefully force it out of town. Thusly, the Great Fresno Railroad War began, in which CR, SP, and ATSF all competed to steal each other's traffic (ATSF's main form of access came in the form of trackage rights via the SP Tehachapi Pass line). Ultimately, though, CR won because of its direct connection to San Francisco and the lumber coming from the mountains at Madera. The SP was forced to concede, but was granted trackage rights to Sacramento so it could connect to the Transcontinental Railroad; in return, SP granted CR trackage rights via Donner Pass. ATSF, meanwhile, built its own parallel line to Sacramento, hoping to gain something from connecting to the Transcontinental Railroad while operating their own Southern Transcon.

CR next began building another major line, this time from Sacramento all the way to Seattle via Portland. The Cascades Line opened in 1889. After the completion of the line, CR began looking East, hoping to building its own Transcontinental Railroad to Chicago via the Rockies. However, James J. Hill's Great Northern Railway put pay to those thoughts, though CR was able to build a parallel line via St. Paul's Pass to Chicago, and later gained trackage rights on the GN to serve areas not already served by the latter (much of CR's secondary lines in Idaho and Montana were spun-off as Montana Rail Link in 1987).

CR next expanded across the US-Canadian border to Vancouver, and extended Northward to Whitehorse, Alaska in 1892, which spurred the building of a narrow-gauge line called the White Pass and Yukon Route to Skagway in order to serve the Yukon Gold Rush. CR proceeded to build out its network in Canada, directly competing with Canadian Pacific and Canadian National.

Here, There, and Everywhere
CR's expansion continued unabated in at the turn of the century. In 1900, having been granted trackage rights via the SP, Denver & Rio Grande Western, Union Pacific, and New York Central, the railroad introduced its flagship passenger train, the Transcontinental Zephyr, from San Jose to New York. Several other big-name trains (known as the "Star Trains") soon followed, including the Western Star (San Diego-Seattle), Transcontintental Star (Los Angeles-Chicago), Orange Star (New York-Miami), Midwest Star (Chicago-New Orleans), and Northern Star (Seattle-Chicago).

Throughout the first decade of the 1900s, CR managed to acquire several failing railroads in California, Nevada, Oregon, and Texas, adding them as branchlines.

Expansion continued throughout the 1900s and 1910s, with new lines in the Midwest and East. Having heard stories of CR's successes in the West, the Eastern roads (namely the NYC, B&O, and N&W) vowed to drive the railroad out of the East and take over its lines. The Eastern Seaboard became a great railroad warzone, perhaps one of the most intense in history. In the end, though, the war ended in a stalemate, but CR came out stronger than before and had acquired several failed Eastern roads.

Upon the United States' entry into the First World War and the establishment of the United States Railroad Administration (USRA), CR was briefly nationalized, operating in all three districts. After the war, CR greatly benefited from USRA designs.

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