With an overflowing treasury in the Union Pacific, Harriman immediately turned his face toward the East. It had for years been one of his dreams to control a continuous line of railroad from the Atlantic to the Pacific. As early as 1902 he had all but completed negotiations for the acquisition of the New York Central lines in the interest of the Union Pacific; but this plan had met with opposition from the Vanderbilts and Morgan and had been dropped. Harriman now took advantage of an opportunity which presented itself to acquire for the Union Pacific what was practically a dominating interest in the Baltimore and Ohio, a large block of whose stock was disposed of by the Pennsylvania Railroad. Harriman had already largely added to the Union Pacific's holdings in the Illinois Central. Jointly with the Lake Shore of the Vanderbilt system, the Baltimore and Ohio had, as already described, acquired a dominating interest in the Reading Company, including all the latter company's interests and affiliations as well as its entry into the New York district through control of the Central Railroad of New Jersey. Harriman, therefore, by a single stroke, now found himself in practical possession of a coast-to-coast system of railroads extending all the way from New York to San Francisco, Portland, and Los Angeles, and passing through all the important cities of the country. The Illinois Central system, operating nearly five thousand miles of road southward from Chicago to New Orleans, passing through St. Louis, with an arm reaching out to Sioux City on the west and a network of branches covering the Middle States, had thus become the great link welding together the eastern and western Harriman systems. Later the Union Pacific acquired large interests in other properties and purchased substantial amounts of stock in the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, the New York Central, the St. Paul, and the Chicago and North Western railroads. It also acquired a dominating interest in the Chicago and Alton property, operating from Chicago to St. Louis, with Western branches. In the panic period of 1907, Harriman personally purchased from Charles W. Morse, who had acquired the property from Morgan a short time before, the entire capital stock of the Central of Georgia Railway, which he later turned over to the Illinois Central. The Central of Georgia lines connect at several points with the Illinois Central and have given the system various outlets on the South Atlantic seaboard.