Outside Omaha, Nebraska territory in 1866, the first miles of Union Pacific roadbed, minus rails, point west across an open prairie.  Probably what the roadbed of the Atchison and St. Joseph Railroad looked like when Mr. Lincoln passed beside it on his way to St. Joseph, Missouri on the 7th of December, 1859.

The Old West, The Railroaders, by the Editors of Time-Life Books, page 6 and 7

Artist’s illustration from Harper’s Weekly, of track workers laying rails. 

Workers lay track for the Transcontinental Railroad.

Beyond the Mississippi

Northbound at Rushville.

Southbound at Rushville.