A Transcontinental railroad is a railway across an entire continent.
Examples include:
- Panama Railway, completed 1855, near the narrowest point on continent, 48 miles long.
- First Transcontinental Railroad (North America) completed 1869, after track was laid over a 1,700 mile (2,700 km) gap between Sacramento, California and Omaha, Nebraska in six years.
- Canadian Pacific, completed the first trans-Canada railway in 1885
- Trans-Siberian railway (with connecting lines in Europe), completed 1905, world's longest rail line at 9,289 kilometres (5,787 miles) long.
- The first trans-Australia railway was completed 1912. The first north-south trans-Australia railway should be completed in 2003.