A best interest plea means that  a defendant does not admit guilt to any offense, but agrees that a guilty plea is in his best interest under the circumstances. The defendant is sentenced, while still able to disagree with the prosecutor's description of events.
The transcontinental railroad began in Omaha, Nebraska and ended in Sacramento, California. Two companies built the railroad. The Union Pacific Railroad company began laying track from Omaha to the west while the Central Pacific Railroad company headed east from Sacramento. They both met at the middle in Promontory, Utah on May 10, 1869.
Work on the first transcontinental railroad began after President Abraham Lincoln approved the Pacific Railway Act of 1862, a landmark law that authorized the federal government to financially back the construction of a transcontinental railroad.