yeoldtrain Wrote:
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> That's an interesting question.
>
> The Northern Pacific, Southern Pacific, and
> Central Pacific Railroads all make sense, these
> were three early big federally backed pacific
> railroads broadly following the routes identified
> in earlier government pacific railroad surveys.
> But "union" pacific?
>
> In conventional railroad terminology a 'union'
> denotes ownership by multiple railroads, such as a
> "Union Station" or the "Union Loop" in Chicago
>
> But more broadly, there's the sense of 'union' as
> in an entity *serving* multiple railroads, if not
> owned by multiple railroads. And in a sense the
> Union Pacific historically served this purpose,
> linking the Central Pacific Route with numerous
> railroads that connected to it at the hubs of
> Council Bluffs and Kansas City. That's where I
> suspect the name comes from.

The "Union" referred to the United States.