California is a passage rather than a destination in Fogg’s journey: the train carries his party east from Oakland through Sacramento and into the Sierra Nevada, bringing the transcontinental route into view as both an achievement of railway engineering and a sequence of timed connections. The travelers cross much of the state without stopping to see its cities, while the changing landscape and the limits of the railway shape what the journey makes visible.

Route and Railway Geography

The line from San Francisco to Sacramento runs northeast along the American River, which empties into San Pablo Bay. Those 120 miles take six hours. From Sacramento, the Central Pacific Railroad extends eastward to meet the road from Omaha, making the city a junction between the California approach and the longer transcontinental route.

After leaving Sacramento, the train passes the junction at Roclin, then Auburn and Colfax, and enters the Sierra Nevada. The track winds through mountain passes, approaches slopes and precipices, and bends around abrupt angles rather than taking a straight line through the range. The account notes that there are few bridges or tunnels: the railway follows the sides of the mountains instead of forcing a shorter route through them. By about nine the next morning, the train has crossed the Carson Valley and entered Nevada.

A Timed Passage Through the State

The train leaves Oakland station at six in the evening. Night has fallen; the weather is cold and overcast, with clouds threatening snow. Counting its stops, the train averages no more than twenty miles an hour, yet this pace is considered sufficient for it to reach Omaha at the appointed time. The journey’s speed is therefore measured not only by how fast the train moves, but by whether the connected route keeps its schedule.

At eight, the car is converted into a dormitory. Seats recline, folded bedsteads are rolled out, and curtains give each traveler a private berth. The arrangement lets the party sleep as the train continues across California. Near midnight it passes through Sacramento; the travelers are asleep and see none of the city, despite its importance as the state government’s seat and its quays, streets, hotels, squares, and churches.

The following morning, Cisco is reached at seven. An hour later the dormitory has been changed back into an ordinary car, and passengers can look out at the mountain scenery. The transition from enclosed, sleeping carriage to open view marks a change in the journey: California’s cities have passed unseen, while the Sierra Nevada becomes the landscape through which the railway must visibly work its way.

Travelers and the View from the Train

The railway passage also carries the strain between Passepartout and Fix. Seated beside the detective, Passepartout does not speak to him; after recent events, their former intimacy and sympathy have given way to coldness. Fix’s manner remains unchanged, while Passepartout is so reserved and hostile that he is ready to attack at the slightest provocation. The shared carriage makes their unresolved conflict part of the California journey, even as the train moves them both eastward.

The narrative gives California chiefly through movement: station times, mileage, sleeping arrangements, and the landscape glimpsed from the cars. Sacramento’s urban sights are listed only to emphasize that the travelers miss them, while the mountain route receives close attention once the passengers are awake. The state thus appears less as a place to explore than as a segment of a vast railway system, where engineered connections make rapid travel possible but remain answerable to distance, weather, and terrain.