Asa Whitney came home from China with a number in his head, and the number was thirty.
He was a New York dry-goods merchant, born in North Groton, Connecticut, in 1797, and he had made his money in the China trade. He knew what distance cost. The voyage out, in 1842 and 1844, ran the long way, around the Cape or by way of Europe, a hundred to a hundred and fifty days under sail. Somewhere in all that water the arithmetic turned over. Run a railroad to the Pacific, put steam on the far side, and the trip shrinks to about a month. He had seen an early British locomotive in 1830, and now the old impression had a purpose.
He was not an engineer, and the plan shows it. It was simple, almost serene. A line of about 2,160 miles from Lake Michigan to the mouth of the Columbia, somewhere between the 42nd and 45th parallels. Add the roads already built or planned east of the lakes and New York to the Pacific came to roughly 3,000 miles and eight days. He put the cost at $65 million, fifty to build and fifteen to run the road until it could pay its own way, and he admitted the figure was made without a real survey.