For the Ferroequinologists, Sacramento Chapter
The Central Pacific Railroad’s 4-4-0 locomotive Success was built by Rogers in April 1869, and probably went into service with the CPRR shortly after completion of the first transcontinental railroad the following month. Success is seen here on Front Street in Sacramento. Image found online.
Here in 3D, as a red/cyan anaglyph:
Several of these buildings still stand today, and the locomotive is shown at the platform of what is now the California State Railroad Museum.
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Dead Confederates, A Civil War Era Blog 
Great pics. I love the old stuff like this, well done. Ben “We’re all actors without scripts”- dialog from The Good Wife
A very interesting photo. It’s rather amazing how quickly locomotive technology advanced in the 19th century, much like the airplane in the 20th century. The above engine looks primitive to what would come along within 20 years, but it was light years ahead of what had been used 20 years prior.
I visited the California State Railroad Museum last year; quite an impressive collection of railroad memorabilia, from the Gold Rush era up until nearly the present.
Sacramento was a major railroad town for many decades. In 1900, its estimated that as much as one-third of all workers in the city were employed by Southern Pacific at the city’s railroad industrial complex, the largest industrial site west of the Mississippi River. Not so any more.
The Southern Pacific eventually absorbed (in the 1880s) the Morgan Line of steamships that were so instrumental in the development of the Gulf of Mexico in the 1850s and after.
I know SP also ran a ferry across the San Francisco Bay, loading trains onto the ships and ferrying them across, where they would continue. They were rather diversified for a railroad operation, I suppose.
The genius and success of Charles Morgan was that he pioneered integrated transportation networks, that included both his main steamboat line, along with connecting stagecoach and railroad routes, as well. By the 1870s, the customer could go into the Morgan line agent in San Antonio, and purchase a single ticket that would take him all the way to New Orleans, by way of coach, railroad, and steamship. and all of these were set up on interlocking schedules to facilitate the speed of travel. It was all very sophisticated especially when you consider this was 140 years ago.
Railroads, and especially integrated transportation systems such as the one you describe were truly revolutionary in how they impacted not only travel but the nature business and how they were operated. I can’t imagine trying to line up coaches, railroads and steamships on an integrated schedule using today’s computers, never mind having to rely on no more than the telegraph back then. Amazing.