Well, there was a little ..... like, where the terminus should be. That's why Stephen Douglas and Jefferson Davis made Senate cloakroom medicine that resulted in Douglas's Kansas-Nebraska Act with its doctrine of "popular sovereignty". Jeff Davis got "popular sovereignty" and the Little Giant got the railroad terminus in Omaha, due west of, and conveniently due west of, Chicago.
Now, if Davis got screwed on the "popular sovereignty" issue and Kansas came into the Union as a free State like California ..... how long do you think the South would have supported the Union Pacific road?
Douglas: "Tell you what. I'll give you popular sovereignty, and you give me the big railroad -- and the money to build it."
Davis: "Okay, deal, done."
Douglas: "Oh, sorry, Illinois Free Soilers and Abe Lincoln said 'screw you.' No popular sovereignty after all. Sorry."
Davis: <Leaves>
OK. Lets due a little time-line thing here instead of time shifting.
Jefferson Davis serves as Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce from 1853-1857. He was not in the Senate during those years.
The Kansas Nebraska Act passed in 1854.
The Trans Continental Railroad Act passed Congress in 1862 -- eight years after the Kansas-Nebraska Act. At that point, Stephan A. Douglas (April 23, 1813 – June 3, 1861) had been dead for nearly a year, and Jeff Davis was otherwise occupied in Richmond.