"Sunset Limited explores the railroad's development and influence - especially as it affected land settlement, agriculture, water policy, and the environment - and offers a new perspective on the tremendous, often surprising, role the company played in shaping the American West." Based on his unprecedented and extensive research into the company's historical archives, Richard Orsi finds that, contrary to conventional understanding, the Southern Pacific Company identified its corporate well-being with population growth and social and economic development in the railroad's hinterland. As he traces the complex and shifting intersections between corporate and public interest, Orsi documents the railroad's little-known promotion of land distribution, small-scale farming, scientific agriculture, and less wasteful environmental practices and policies - including water conservation and wilderness and recreational parklands preservation.