What was the name of the first train or engine that went across the continental United States?
The first engines to cross the continent after the joining of the rails were CPRR No’s. 156 “Success” and 157 “Excelsior,” both manufactured by Rogers and delivered by rail, not ship. Several trains were present at the ceremony on May 10, 1869. Regarding the first load of cargo and passengers: “On May 11, [1869] the first true ‘through’ train of excursionists and emigrants rumbled through the arid slopes of Promontory Point, heading west, while from the other direction came a California freight carrying the first consignments of Japanese teas to the cities of the East Coast.” [John Hoyt Williams. A Great and Shining Road. p. 268] “On May 11 the Cheyenne Daily Leader—incidentally scooping the New York newspapers by a full day—carried a one-sentence telegraphic dispatch from Sacramento: ‘The first invoice of Japanese tea was shipped today by the Pacific Railroad … inaugurating the overland trade with China.’ … [T]he brevity of the item conveys the matter-of-fact quality of an expecte
