La Central Pacific Railroad Company, conocida por sus siglas CPRR, es el antiguo nombre de la red ferroviaria construida entre California y Utah, en Estados Unidos, que construyó hacia el este de la Costa Oeste a partir de 1863, para completar la parte occidental del "primer ferrocarril transcontinental" en América del Norte. Ahora es parte de la Union Pacific.
Muchas de las propuestas nacionales del para construir un ferrocarril transcontinental fracasaron debido a la energía consumida por disputas políticas sobre la esclavitud. Con la secesión del Sur, los modernizadores en el Partido Republicano controlaron el Congreso de Estados Unidos. Aprobaron la legislación que autorizaba el ferrocarril con una financiación en forma de bonos ferroviarios gubernamentales, que fueron todos devueltos con intereses. El gobierno y los ferrocarriles ambos compartieron el aumento del valor de las concesiones de tierras, en las cuales se desarrollaron los ferrocarriles. La construcción del ferrocarril también aseguró que el gobierno "transporte de forma segura y rápida el correo, las tropas, municiones de guerra y las reservas públicas".
Referencias
Lecturas recomendadas
Questions whether promoters of the Central Pacific Railroad were oversubsidized. Confirms the traditional view that subsidies were not an economic necessity because they "influenced neither the decision to invest in the railroad nor the speed of its construction." Notes that estimates of rate of return for the railroad developers using government funds range from 71% to 200%, while estimates of private rates of return range from 15% to 25%.
Shows how Chinese railroad workers lived and worked, and managed the finances associated with their employment. Concludes that CPRR officials who employed the Chinese, even those at first opposed to the policy, came to appreciate the reliability of this group of laborers. There are many quotations from accounts by contemporary observers.
Analyzes the impact of land grants from 1864 to 1890 on rates of return from investment in the Central Pacific Railroad. Results suggest that even without land grants, rates of return were high enough to induce investment. Also, land grants did not pay for the construction of the railroad. Land grants, however, did produce large social returns in western states by accelerating construction of the system. Uses econometrics to determine the value of railroad land grants of the 19th century to the railroads and to society. The author summarizes and criticizes previous treatments of this subject, and discusses his own findings. Using the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific systems as the basis for his investigation, the author concludes that the railroad owners received unaided rates of return that substantially exceeded the private rate of return on the average alternative project in the economy during the same period. Thus, the projects were profitable, although contemporary observers expected that the roads would be privately unprofitable without the land grant aid. The land grants did not have a major effect, increasing the private rate of return only slightly. Nevertheless, he says the policy of subsidizing those railroad systems was beneficial for society since the social rate of return from the project was substantial and exceeded the private rate by a significant margin. Ong tries to resolve the apparent inconsistency in the literature on Asians in early California, with contradictory studies showing evidence both for and against the exploitation of Chinese labor by the CPRR, using monopsony theory as developed by Joan Robinson. Because CPRR set different wages for whites and Chinese (each group had different elasticities of supply) and used the two classes in different types of positions, the two groups were complementary, rather than interchangeable. Calculations thus show higher levels of exploitation of the Chinese than found in previous studies.
Leland Stanford and the men who ran the CPRR paid lip-service to the idea of free competition, but in practice sought to dominate competing railroad and shipping lines. Analyzing the period 1869-1893, the author shows how Stanford and his associates repeatedly entered into pooling arrangements to prevent competition, bought out competitors, or forced rivals to agree not to compete. He concludes that Stanford and his partners viewed laissez-faire as applicable only to government controls, and not to businessmen's destruction of competition within the system.
Enlaces externos
Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum Railroads in California, handwritten report by L. M. Clement. Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.
Categoría:Empresas ferroviarias desaparecidas de Estados Unidos Categoría:Empresas fundadas en 1861 Categoría:Empresas de California Categoría:Historia del Oeste estadounidense