Union Pacific Corporation is one of the largest transportation companies in the United States. It operates the Union Pacific Railroad, one of North America’s largest freight railroad networks. The network includes about 32,000 miles (51,500 kilometers) of track in the western and midwestern United States. It includes rail gateways on Canada’s and Mexico’s borders with the United States. The corporation has headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska.
Union Pacific was chartered in 1862. That year, the U.S. Congress passed the Pacific Railroad Act, which called for the extension of rail lines across the country. Congress gave the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific Railroad the responsibility for extending rail lines from the Midwest to the West Coast. The Union Pacific laid track westward from a point near Omaha, while the Central Pacific laid track eastward from Sacramento, California. The two railroads faced the daunting task of building track over the rugged Rocky and Sierra Nevada mountains. The tracks of the two railroads met on May 10, 1869, in Promontory, Utah.
