September 9, 2012, Promontory Summit

I forgot to mention yesterday that when I was at the quilt store they had a sale on fat quarters - buy one, get one free. Too good to pass up.

We are beginning to see magpies again. They are such a very pretty bird.

We have seen several signs along the road that say a wildfire ember can travel more than 1 mile.

Here we are at Promontory Summit. These trains are exact replicas of the original ones. There were only 3 minor changes to meet current standards as they move these trains every hour so people can see them.The trains are in the exact position of the day they pounded the Golden Spike to complete the Transcontinental Railroad.

This is the Jupiter, the train the Central Pacific used for the ceremony. The trains of the day were really this colorful but since we have only black and white photographs we don't see the colors.

This is No. 119 used by the Union Pacific for the ceremony. We were able to watch both engines move up and down the track, complete with the bellss ringing and the whistle blowing.

 We were on the side of a mountain when I took this. It is flat with mostly alkali and salt on the ground for as far as you could see to the south.

 This is called the Big Fill. The Spring Creek Ravine had to be crossed and the Central Pacific decided to fill it with rocks and dirt. It took 250 mule-drawn dump carts and 500 men working 2 months to fill the ravine. The National Park Service says that "this remains one of the more impressive construction efforts in the history of American railroading."

 This is a picture of the bridge that the Union Pacific built to span the ravine. It was85' high and 400' long and took only 36 days to complete. It was only used for 6-8 months then the trains used the Big Fill tracks. Both companies built tracks, side by side, for 250 miles because Congress couldn't decide where to have the rails join.

 On the left you can see part of the Big Fill and in the center bottom you can see where the grade ends, then the open space where the bridge was, then the continuation of the grade. This is how close the two companies were in their building. It was a very competitive process to be the first to complete their half of the railroad.

 This was taken from near the Big Fill looking east. It is just so wide open. The mountains in the background are the Wasatch Range.