The more things change, the more they stay the same.

There have been incredible advances in railroad technology over the years, including remote-controlled switching locomotives. On the other hand, some things have remained the same for centuries. For instance, the width (gauge) of the rail track has remained 4 feet, 8.5 inches - the very same spacing used by imperial Roman chariots.

Union Pacific Railroad Museum Union Pacific Railroad Museum

At the Union Pacific Railroad Museum, which houses one of the oldest corporate collections in the nation, we learned a few things that we probably should have remembered from our school days: Abraham Lincoln stood here in Council Bluffs - a town just across the Missouri River from Omaha, Neb. - and picked this site to be the eastern terminus of the transcontinental railroad.

With the signing of the Pacific Railroad Act in 1862, Lincoln created Union Pacific Railroad and directed Union Pacific and Central Pacific to construct America's first transcontinental railroad from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to Sacramento, Calif.