The Western Pacific Railway was incorporated in 1903 to build a line from Salt Lake City, Utah, with a connection to the Denver and Rio Grande Railway, to Oakland, California, as a second transcontinental route into central California competing with the Southern Pacific Railroad. Completed in 1909 with the driving of a golden spike on the Spanish Creek Trestle at Keddie, California, near Quincy, the line followed the Feather River Canyon into the Sierra Nevada, maintained a gentle grade, included the Williams Loop to avoid exceeding a rise of 1 foot in every 100 feet, and crossed the range at Beckworth Pass on the California-Nevada border, allowing more freight to move with less power than its rival. Early advantages did not bring immediate success, because its charter forbade branch lines, traffic remained low, and the opening of the Panama Canal helped drive it into bankruptcy in 1916. Reorganized as the Western Pacific Railroad, it then acquired feeder lines including the Sacramento Northern Railway and Tidewater Southern Railway. In 1926 Arthur Curtiss James gained control and envisioned the railroad as a California extension of the Great Northern; while the Great Northern built south from Washington, Western Pacific built north from Keddie on the Northern California Extension, or High Line, and the two roads met at Bieber, California, in 1931, completing the largest railroad construction project undertaken during the Depression. Long overshadowed by the Southern Pacific, Western Pacific became known for innovation and frugality, upgrading older steam locomotives as funds allowed and even converting obsolete wooden boxcars into cabooses. It was also an early adopter of diesel power, becoming one of the first purchasers of the Electro-Motive Division FT diesel-electric locomotive in late 1941 and eventually the first large western railroad to eliminate steam locomotives entirely. After World War II, it modernized further with roller bearing freight car trucks, centralized traffic control systems, and turbocharged diesel locomotives. With the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad and the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, it operated the California Zephyr, the first passenger train designed around Vista-Dome cars; from 1949 to 1970, the train remained the railroad's pride even as it reportedly lost $1 million per year by the end. As the railroad industry consolidated, Western Pacific struggled to remain profitable, and on December 22, 1981, it was purchased by the Union Pacific Railroad along with the Missouri Pacific. Its Salt Lake City to Oakland main line now serves Union Pacific, the High Line was later sold to the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad, and heavy traffic over the former Feather River Route continues to reflect the vision of its builders more than 100 years after its founding.