Southern Pacific

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Southern Pacific Railroad, one of the great American railroad systems, established in 1861 by the “big four” of western railroad building—Collis P. Huntington, Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker. After completing the Central Pacific from California to Utah in 1869, they started the Southern Pacific as a branch line into southern California. It reached the Arizona border in 1877, and in 1883 it was joined to other railroads built west from New Orleans, Louisiana, across Texas and New Mexico. These lines were collectively known as the Central Pacific system. In 1884 the Southern Pacific Company was incorporated, and the railroads making up the Central Pacific system were leased to it a year later. The Central Pacific thus became the nucleus from which the Southern Pacific system developed.

The Southern Pacific served 15 states in the West and Southwest, including the Pacific and Gulf coasts, with the network dipping south from northwestern Oregon to swing in a wide arc up into Illinois. The railroad served 35 international points of entry.

When Maeve MacKenna and her parents were traveling cross-country to start a new life in Los Angeles, they took the Southern Pacific. This unfortunately lead to tragedy, when the train and their combine car was raided by the Shadow Wolf Pack.