The railroads was the backbone of countries because i brought food, supplies and etc to people and companies. The workers moved west to 1 expand the west because there was unclaimed land and people wanted to build more railroads and this was a easy way of getting paid. Two the gold rush caused a lot of people to go crazy and run down their to get rich. People didn't want to go because back then there wasn't big machinery. The workers had to build the railroads by hand and this caused some to decline the move.