A while back, 1863, actually, in San Jose, California, citizens
and business people got together to build a railroad from San
Jose north to San Francisco. At the time, the only
transportation available to span the 50 miles between the two
cities (although San Jose wasn’t really large enough to be
called a city) was by wagon or by steamship. So farmers bringing
produce and animals to market in San Francisco or people having
business in one of the cities or just visiting, had to put up
with the steamship’s all-day transit time, or several days
travel by wagon. And at the time it was being planned and built
there was a large amount of criticism of the railroad plan from
different groups: farmers complained that the train would
disrupt farming; steamship and stagecoach lines complained about
the competition; and many folks complained that the price ($7
million) was just too high and the train would never make any
money. And all of these groups were a little bit right and quite
a bit wrong. After the railroad, nam