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\author{David Golombek}
\title{Large Scale Projects}
\date{\today}
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The Brooklyn Bridge and transcontinental railroad rank as two of the
largest engineering projects in American history, but after comparing
the scope of the projects, little else in common appears.  Both
projects were designed to ease movement from one place to another, but
the Brooklyn Bridge is only 486 meters long, was located on a river,
and was easily accessible for delivery of materials.  The
transcontinental railroad instead spanned 1800 miles, crossed mountain
ranges and prairies, and needed materials to be transported all the
way around Cape Horn for the Central Pacific part of construction.
The Brooklyn Bridge was funded by the New York government, while the
transcontinental railroad was privately financed (although with
government incentive).  Thus, despite the initial similarities
suggested by the time scale and large scope of each project, they are
actually quite different.

From an engineering perspective, the Brooklyn Bridge was a
comparatively straightforward project.  It posed a couple of new
design problems in how to construct the caissons on which the bridge
would rest, but overall was built upon well understood technologies
and merely increased their size, to create the largest suspension
bridge in the world.  A few fires broke out, almost ruining one of the
caissons completely, and the initial contractor for steel cabling
delivered very low quality materials.  John Roebling, the initial
engineer died early in the project, and his son Washington was
incapacitated soon after he took over.  However, these fall into the
category of generic problems in engineering that will pop up in {\it
any} new, large scale project, irregardless of where and when it is
being undertaken.  The Brooklyn Bridge never faced severe shortages of
stone, steel, or any of the other supplies on which it's construction
was so dependent.

The transcontinental railroad was meanwhile supposed to cross almost
2000 miles of only lightly traveled wildlands, filled with hostile
indians, mountains, and no cities to get supplies from.  Because the
railroad was being simultaneously constructed from the east and west,
they couldn't even use the railroad they were building to handle the
delivery of all supplies; instead, all materials for the Central
Pacific portion of the transcontinental railroad had to be shipped out
from the east coast by boat, taking the long trip around Cape Horn,
which is both expensive and time consuming.  There were no cities throughout
the path being crossed, so in addition to building the actual
railroad, rooming and facilities for the workers had to be constructed
as the work progressed, taking valuable time away from rail building.
Finally, the Native American Indians were not pleased with this
permanent incursion into their territory and some tribes fought back,
requiring workers to keep guns on hand to defend themselves if need
be.  The sheer distance covered by the transcontinental railroad puts
it in a near unique category of engineering, where each individual
component is easily understood, but there are simply so many of them
that no one person can really be in charge of the entire project.

The Brooklyn Bridge was constructed largely by European immigrants,
under the direction of John Roebling, a former military officer, and
later his son Washington.  John was able to design the entire bridge
in a three month span, leaving the implementation details till later,
and did so well enough that virtually no changes needed to be made
later on.  Because the Bridge was located within New York City, workers of
all ability levels were available, from day laborers to skilled
artisans.  The transcontinental railroad on the other hand was
designed by a multitude of engineers, for it needed to cross vast
distances, and multiple problems needed to be solved at the same time,
to enable the railroad to progress as quickly as possible.  Theodore
Judah did the initial mappings of the Sierra Nevada mountain range to
determine a possible path for the route, but after his early demise,
Charles Crocker took over as lead engineer for the Central Pacific
section.  Under them worked thousands of Chineses laborers, overseen
by more skilled (and more highly paid) American workers.  On the Union
Pacific route, Irish immigrants took the place of the Chinese, but
were still poorly paid.  These groups were joined by several other
minority groups, but in smaller quantities, and all were kept
separated to make any labor organizations harder to form.  This
difference in the organization of the engineers is one of the key
differences between the two projects.

The Brooklyn Bridge was essentially a project of the state of New
York, although it created the Brooklyn Bridge Company to act in it's
interests.  It's funding came through the state government, and almost
dissapeared when several prominent officials, including William
``Boss'' Tweed, were indicted on various corruption charges.  After
the indictment of these politicians, all projects they were associated
with came under fire, including the bridge, but the project managed to
stay afloat until a more legitimate government was elected.  The
transcontinental railroad by comparison was a private venture, each of
it's halves funded separately.  Leland Stanford, Collis Huntington,
Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker (the ``Big Four'') were responsible
for the funding of the Central Pacific portion, while the Union
Pacific was funded by a wider variety of people, including Edward
Harriman.  The government provided support for both sections in the
form of bonds and land grants, more for the Union Pacific than Central
Pacific.  Corruption was more prevalent on the Union Pacific section,
with the initial managers being far more interested in making their
own money than building a railroad in what was known as the Credit
Mobilier Scandal.

The Brooklyn Bridge was not unique for the distance which it needed to
span, but for the way in which it did so.  Its long-span suspension
bridge design was pioneered by Roebling, and it was the first to use
steel cabling, an innovation allowing the openness of the bridge.  The
main span was the longest in the world at the time, but was not
strictly neccessary; more caissons could have been dropped, and a more
conventional design followed.  However, Roebling chose the final
design both due to personal love of the design and a desire to add an
aesthetically pleasing sight to the crowded city.  The East River that
the bridge spans isn't particularly wide at that point, but fairly
deep and bedrock was quite far beneath the bottom, sufficiently deep
that one of the two caissons never reached it, and instead rests on
silt.  Roebling used compressed air within the caissons to enable
their use at the greater depths, but discovered first hand the
problems this caused with what was then called ``caisson disease'',
which we now know as the bends.  Bringing supplies to the site was
simple, due to its nice location, and except for the poor quality
steel cabling mentioned above, materials were never a problem.

The transcontinental railroad crossed such a wide variety of terrain
that it required a tremendous array of different tricks, ranging from
new ways of blasting tunnels through mountains to new elevated track
designs to cross chasms.  Perhaps the most challenging feat was
finding a path through the Sierra Nevada mountain range, which was so
rough as to be considered impassible by railroad by many.  As
mentioned above, Theodore Judah found a path through the range, and
once this challenge was passed, all others seemed overcomeable.
Constructing the neccessary tunnels required advances in blasting and
drilling technology, and much progress was made in the areas of
black-powder blasting and steam-powered drills.  However, these
technologies remained unstable enough that man-power remained the key
method of excavation throughout most of the path.  The Rocky
Mountains, while less rugged than the Sierra Nevada's, are larger in
scale, and cover a greater area.  Thus, they required more bridge
building and path leveling, as the track wound its way through the
mountains.  

Both projects were very high publicity events, the Brooklyn Bridge for
how much easier it made commuting between Brooklyn and Manhattan, the
transcontinental railroad for connecting the east and west parts of
the nation.  Both were easily understandable projects, in that the
public could grasp most aspects of their implementation and usage, and
so were popular subjects with the press.  When both opened, there were
large celebrations, although it actually took a few more years before
the transcontinental railroad was in a usable state for high frequency
traffic.

The Brooklyn Bridge and transcontinental railroad have many obvious
similarities, and certainly both can be closely associated as large
scale engineering projects of the late 1800's.  However, upon closer
examination of the two projects, more differences appear in what
problems the two were forced to solve in their construction and
intended usage.  Both projects were designed for the movement of
items, but the bridge was a mere shortcut, designed to decrease the
commuting time between Brooklyn and Manhattan, while the railroad was
intended to link the nation, allowing the efficient shipment of large
quantities of heavy materials at a rapid pace.  The bridge was a state
sponsored project, and one of a scope a single man could comprehend,
while the railroad was both privately and nationally sponsored, and so
large in scope that only a large team of engineers could complete it.
Both presented a few new design problems, but the railroad faced the
additional challenges of a remote location, difficult terrain, and
hostile natives, while the bridge was relatively free of engineering
problems.  Thus, overall, the two projects had many differences hiding
beneath the obvious similarities.

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