The Cosmopolitan Railway was a proposed global
railroad
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
network advocated by
William Gilpin, formerly the first territorial
governor of Colorado
The governor of Colorado is the head of government of the U.S. state of Colorado. The governor is the head of the executive branch of Colorado's state government and is charged with enforcing state laws. The governor has the power to either app ...
(1861–62), in his 1890 treatise ''Cosmopolitan Railway: Compacting and Fusing Together All the World's Continents''. Gilpin named his capital city of
Denver
Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the United ...
as the "railroad centre of the West".
Components
''Cosmopolitan Railway'' was one of the earliest documents envisioning a land route to
Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S ...
, a vision that would first be realized (though not in the form of a railroad) in 1942, with the completion of the crude original version of the