sentences:  The land for the Northern Cross Railroad was surveyed and a contract was bid to build the line between the autumn of 1837 to April 1838 along a twelve-mile strip from Meredosia to a 19th-century settlement called Morgan City (not current IL town).The name Northern Cross reflects the fact that the northern half of the state of Illinois was still very sparsely settled in the 1830s.The construction method was to lay "parallel lines of mud sills (ballast), eight or ten inches square, under where the rails would come", in places that did not have a firm foundation.