There were a lot of reasons for having multiple companies do it. One theory many books claim is that no one company wanted to take the risk involved, that no company wanted to face the challenge of the Sierra Nevadas and the difficulties of going through the great plains and the like, that only the people who formed the Central Pacific were crazy enough, another theory I heard in a history class was that it was a lot more lucrative to those in the government seeking kickbacks to have multiple sources of graft, another was the one people mentioned, that they were paid for the amount of track they laid and the competition would mean they had incentive to outdo the other and do so in record time (if you paid one company x dollars a mile, wouldn't necessarily matter to them how fast they did it). The Central Pacific was at a disadvantage, given having to fight through the mountains, but I seem to recall (anyone know? ) that the Central pacific got a 'sweetening' for building such a hazardous route.
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