The Wedding of the Rails Maps 1.12

Few Minecraft maps are more entertaining than entertaining. This is the case of The Wedding of the Rails (meaning “the marriage of the rails”), which combines teaching of history and construction on a very large scale.

We are indeed not all aces on the great moments of America. However, some additional knowledge does not hurt, especially if one is interested in the meaning and origin of this superb map made by the Walschaerts construction team.

Sensitized by a great achievement, the team of Minecraft.net has also written an article a few weeks ago in his honor, which you can read here.

The first transcontinental railroad

May 10, 1869 was an important moment for the United States. That day took place the Golden Spike ceremony celebrating the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in America. The Central Pacific and Pacific railways of the Union met at Promontory Summit, Utah. 3000 km of rails were connected from the east of the country to the Pacific coast.

Thanks to this, trips that took weeks by boat or even months by train could be realized in just a few days.

This marriage of rails had an immediate impact. The American power experienced a rapid economic and demographic growth after the construction of this network.

The origin of this achievement

A few weeks ago we celebrated the 148th anniversary of this event. It was on this occasion that Nathan_Oneday, project leader, decided to make this map more than a year ago.

At first, he wanted to recreate the main locomotive on each side of the railway. Other manufacturers have joined later to reproduce the image below. It was taken on the day of this ceremony.

locomotives

As said above, Nathan_Oneday represented in this cubic world that is Minecraft, the two main locomotives of this new railway. Central Pacific No. 60 nicknamed Jupiter and Union Pacific No. 119. He spent a lot of time on them to reproduce them in great detail.

Central Pacific n° 60, JUPITER

Originally, this locomotive was not to be present at the ceremony. She took the place of another named Antelope. This one, while she was en route to Promontory Summit to participate in the marriage of the rails had an accident. She was following a train carrying passengers to the event. Workers waited for the first train to roll a huge log on the rails but did not see the locomotive Antelope, it was damaged.

Union Pacific n° 119

In 1868 the locomotives of the Pacific Union No. 116, No. 117, No. 118, No. 119 and No. 120 were built. Like Jupiter, No. 119 was not intended to participate in Golden Spike. She replaced another machine blocked at the entrance of a bridge. This one had suffered damages caused by the river. The engineer had judged it too dangerous to cross it. That’s why # 119 took its place.

Builders

Nathan is not the only one to have laid blocks and had a big role.

TheIrateSloth realized the vegetation of the map. Former member of Walscharts, he was called by Nathan to help him. Before his arrival, the soil was an arid desert, which was not the desired effect.
CorenGames is a member of this build team and expert in organic construction. He joined the project with Zeberah ™. Both populated the scene by multiple characters.