The
Western Pacific Railroad was formed in December, 1862, by a group led by Timothy Dame and including Charles McLaughlin and
Peter Donahue, all associated with the
San Francisco and San Jose Railroad, to build a railroad from
San Jose north to Vallejo's Mills (mouth of
Niles Canyon, later
Niles, now part of
Fremont), east through Niles Canyon, north to
Dublin/
Pleasanton, east through the
Livermore Valley, and over
Altamont Pass to
Stockton, then north to
Sacramento, with the plan that the
transcontinental railroad would follow the Western Pacific to San Jose and then the San Francisco and San Jose to
San Francisco. In October, 1864, the
Central Pacific Railroad assigned all the rights of the
Pacific Railway Acts of 1862 and 1864 to the Western Pacific for the route between Sacramento and San Jose, including
land grants. In 1866, the first twenty miles from San Jose had been completed when funding problems halted construction within Niles Canyon. Part of the difficulty was that federal land grants were not available where Mexican land grants had previously been made.