Back in '97, we took a trip out West. One of the places we visited was the Transcontinental Railroad "Golden Spike" site in Utah.
After the ceremony was over, I decided to head West and travel over the old Central Pacific roadbed once we left the National Park site. It was neat to me knowing that over 100 years ago, the old steam locos were traversing the same route I was on.
I had an all-wheel drive van so I often got off the beaten path when we went places.
I found some old spikes and tie plate bolts along the way. I wondered how old they were and if any were originals. During WWII, they pulled up all the track to use the metal for the war.
I also have a video on Youtube from the ride on the old C. P. route.
That's the Great Salt Lake on the left.
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The video. Just imagine you are riding in the cab of a noisy, hissing, steaming, smoke belching 4-4-0 headed back to California. The very last part of the video, I took a detour up a hill to see what was on the other side.
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That's a trip I'd like to make. Unlikely that any of that metal is from the 1860s, they maintained and upgraded that road regularly up until the Lucin cut off was completed in 1904.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucin_Cutoff
Even after that, original route remained in use in to serve a few ranchers along the line until the war came, and the rails were needed for the war effort.
I read a great article years ago about the removal of that track. A contractor did it with a couple of moguls bought from somewhere, and to begin the work there was a reverse-golden-spike ceremony at the original golden spike location. The two engines touched pilot to pilot and everything. Apparently the rails went to be used for trackage inside a navy base on the west coast.
It is doubtful that this route was ever sullied by the turn of diesel wheels.
I doubted that anything I got was original. Even so, they did leave stuff laying around after their work so they weren't diligent about making sure they got everything.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S1GI780dDz0&pp=ygUZQ2VudHJhbCBwYWNpZmljIG9sZCByb3V0ZQ%3D%3D
I wish I would have known more about the whole Transcontinental project back then. I didn't start with model railroading until about 1998 so I didn't know much at all about railroad stuff. I just knew about the Golden Spike stuff from history books. Had I known more then, I would have explored more. I think I might have still pics of the big fill area but I don't remember for sure.
That was the same trip where we rode the Black Hills Central Railroad. Back then, I didn't know what a 2-6-2T was that was pulling the train and why it was backwards pulling the train and without a tender. The narrator told us all that on the ride.
In 2001, when we went out West again, we rode the Yosemite and Sugar Pine Railroad. I had no idea what a Shay was. I just knew this thing pulling the train was called a "logger". The narrator educated us on that ride, too.
That was the trip where we went to the Tehachapi Loop and sat and watched the trains for a while.
Then to the San Diego Model Railroad Museum in Balboa.
We went to the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento. I got to see the Jupiter, the C. P. Huntington, the Governor Stanford, and the J. W. Bowker there. Plus, a pair of Warbonnet F7's on display outside.
Then we went to Railtown 1897 in Jamestown because I wanted to see #3, the movie loco. It was all in pieces being refurbished. That was a bummer for me. We did get to see the rest of the Sierra Railroad stuff and turntable and tour the roundhouse.
Next, we hit the Nevada State Railroad Museum in Carson City. There, I got to see the Inyo, the Glenbrook, the Dayton, V & T #25 and V&T's McKeen Motorcar.
We even visited the Ponderosa and the Bonneville Salt Flats while we were out there.
I wish I could do those things again now that I'm more knowledgeable about train stuff and would know more about what I was actually seeing.
I looked through my video and found some of the Big Fill part. It's before we got to the Gold Spike site. I'll edit that part and post it.
After watching the other Youtube video link, I wish we would have gone around to the West side of the lake to see the other stuff.
I never suspected that the cattle guards were made of old rails.
That's common practice lots of places.
One of the little known things I find fascinating about the Promentory area is that there was no meeting point originally specified for the two railroads, and the surveyors and graders built right past each other for miles before the government specified Promentory as the meeting point. After the railroad was completed, Union Pacific gave up the trackage from Promentory east to Ogden to CP and the actual interchange between the two railroads remained there up until UP bought SP in the 1990s. The never used roadbeds parallel the abandoned transcontinental railroad for miles.
Utah is a fascinating state for railroad history, and you can read about most of it at the exceptionally well researched website Utah Rails. https://utahrails.net/
They both wanted that trackage money so they kept building. :D
Talking bout cattle crossings using old train rails, then traveling through the back roads of New Mexico, you'll find quite of few cattle crossings made of old train rails.
I've been watching this thread with some interest for a little while and finally figured it's time to step in.
There were three main versions of the Pacific Railroad Act. The first, passed in 1862, authorized building the Transcontinental Railroad. The act created the Union Pacific, the Central Pacific already existed. The act authorized Union Pacific to construct a railroad line "...commence at a point on the one hundredth meridian of longitude west from Greenwich, between the south margin of the valley of the Republican river and the north margin of the valley of the Platte river, in the Territory of Nebraska, at a point to be fixed by the President of the United States, after actual surveys; thence running westerly upon the most direct, central, and practicable route, through the territories of the United States, to the western boundary of the Territory of Nevada, there to meet and connect with the line of the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California." Central Pacific was "...authorized to construct a railroad and telegraph line from the Pacific coast, at or near San Francisco, or the navigable waters of the Sacramento river, to the eastern boundary of California..." Union Pacific was further authorized to build into California if it reached the eastern border of that state before the CP reached that point, and in turn the CP was "authorized to continue the construction of said railroad and telegraph through the territories of the United States to the Missouri river, including the branch roads specified in this act, upon the routes hereinbefore and hereinafter indicated, on the terms and conditions provided in this act in relation to the said Union Pacific Railroad Company, until said roads shall meet and connect, and the whole line of said railroad and branches and telegraph is completed."
Congress passed a second Pacific Railroad Act in 1864 that authorized Central Pacific to build 150 miles into Nevada provided UP had not yet reached that point. The final version of the Act, passed on 3 July 1866, authorized each railroad to continue construction until they met and connected with the lines built by the other railroad, but it did limit each road to construction work no farther than 300 miles beyond the extent of their completed line. Both railroad had their own definition of what "met" actually meant. UP was intent on reaching Humboldt Wells- now the city of Wells, Nevada- while CP had their sites set on getting to the east end of Echo Canyon and especially the coal mines in that region.
One of the historical notes that is often overlooked is the extent to which the Mormons in Salt Lake City played in building the railroad. Both railroads hired Mormon crews to build grade in eastern Nevada and Utah, sometimes the same crews working on both grades. One of the biggest examples of this was in eastern Nevada, UP had surveys run as far west as Wells and hired a Mormon contractor to build a number of short stretches of disconnected grade between Wells and the north end of the Pequop range, then later in time Mormon contractors built the CPRR grade from Utah into Nevada that paralleled in some places and crossed in at least a few places the grade segments UP built. CPRR also had contractors building grade in Echo Canyon.
Anyway, back to the story, the two railroads by the spring of 1869 had roughly 200 miles of duplicate grade constructed between Wells and Echo Canyon, about 100 miles of it actual parallel grade and the rest shorter stretches of uncompleted and never used grade. The two railroads sat down to figure out a meeting point, and on 9 April 1869 Dodge of the Union Pacific and Huntington of the Central Pacific reached an agreement under which the railroads agreed to meet at Promontory Summit, after which CP would purchase UP's line between Promontory and Ogden. Congress approved the deal the next day, UP ordered all of its crews to stop work west of Promontory the next day, and CP ordered its crews to stop all work east of Promontory on 14 April. Thus was the golden spike driven at Promontory on 10 May 1869.
And yes, there are a lot of cattleguards in this part of the world made out of old rails. Not all of them to be sure but there are a lot of them.
Interesting conversation.
Jeff Moore
Elko, nV
That ROW looks like it is actually pretty heavily traveled.
I'm surprised you were able to find any kind of scrap iron at all on that ROW, as well traveled as it appears to be. Although it looks like you only saw one other car on your trip, I'd bet that typically at least two or three a day make it over that road. Whether or not it is maintained as a public road is unknown.
Some people say to not pick up any of that historic stuff. I'd have to believe that none of it is really terribly historic, but is left over from the 1940s demolition of track that had been maintained with modern material up till then.
Terry, you have a certain kind of bravery that I don't have, to go over a 120 mile stretch of minimally maintained gravel road in a desert with no outpost of civilization at all on it. That barren territory approaches Mars in many ways. But, I've always been terminally engaged by immense dry western land. The area that this roadbed goes through has almost nothing modern on it and it's here that you can get a real feel for what those construction crews went through..... especially if you hiked it all with only a small canteen of water.🫨😱🥵😂
The state of Utah has a fascinating railroad history. There were far more railroads built there and in Nevada than you would think given the desolation of much of those states. Utah Rails documents much of the history of these lines, and in conjunction with the US Geological Survey topographic maps online provides a fascinating look into the places these lines went. They literally built anywhere and everywhere especially if there were precious metals involved. Many of these railroads had short lives due to the volatility of the metals market. In some cases they had no sooner completed construction when the bottom fell out of the market, causing the loss of the very traffic these railroads were counting on for their survival. Among the most interesting was a planned extension of the Rio Grande into eastern Nevada. Grading was started in a few places but it was never completed.
Back to the CP/SP. I don't think it was mentioned here but the Promentory line was replaced by a causeway across the Great Salt Lake that is still in use to-day. DId the Promentory line last as long as it did in case something happened to put the causeway out of service?
Just to clear up one point....various acts, most notably the Antiquities Act and the National Historic Preservation Act, protect anything 50 years old or older where they are found on public land, meaning it is illegal to disturb or remove them. If you are doing math, 50 years today is anything on the ground since 1973. The CPRR grade crosses a generous amount of private land, the protections don't necessarily extend to artifacts located on them, but it's against the law to remove and take home with you anything from the grade where it crosses public land. Pretty safe to assume if its on the grade and metal it's over 50 years old.
The original main line around the north side of the lake continued to be used after the new line across the lake opened. From 1904-1906 SP ran a daily except Sunday mixed train from Ogden (Utah) to Montello (Nevada) over the original line. There was no service west of Kelton from 1906-1916, when SP again ran trains west to Montello. In 1923 service amounted to three day a week service between Ogden and Kelton and two day a week service between Kelton and Montello. What kept the line intact was not as a possible alternative to the line across the lake, but because the line had been offered as collateral for the a mortgage dating to the reorganization of the Central Pacific in 1889. SP tried abandoning the line west of Kelton in 1933 but the ICC denied the application in 1934. SP finally got permission from the State of Utah to drop train service west of Kelton in 1937. All regular train service ended in June 1940, but SP continued operating as needed service to Kelton until the ICC approved full abandonment in June 1942. The U.S. Military had already started the process of requisitioning the rails for use in military facilities in the area, which led to the railroad's quick removal after the line had been abandoned. Above information gleaned from SP's Salt Lake Division book by John Signor.
Jeff Moore
Elko, NV
https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=195442
This is one of the shortest lived boom towns out in the American desert. The railroad barely lasted a decade. The depot you see here was built for the ages, and miraculously survived destruction while the entire rest of the town crumbled. Ironically, the town did not crumble from weather, but rather people, salvaging rare in the desert building materials over many years.
An interesting side bar is that this place never has a dark night sky. Although over 100 miles away, the unbelievable wattage of Las Vegas is highly present in the sky.
I don't know if it was a part of the public or private land it was on. I made sure we were beyond the National Historic Site boundary before I messed with anything. I know it's a no-no inside National Park and Historic sites.
If I find an old license plate from 1959 on the shoulder of a Federal Interstate or say an old beer can from the 60's, it's against the law for me to to pick it up?
Short answer, the combination of three laws- Antiquities Act of 1906, National Historic Preservation Act, and Archaeological Resource Protection Act protect anything 50 years old or older on Federally owned or managed lands, not just national parks or monuments. Private lands are fair game, anything over 50 years on public qualifies. There is a lot of public land managed by BLM along much of the old CPRR grade, so you do have to be careful which land you are on. The general principal is take only photographs and leave only footprints.
Jeff Moore
Elko, NV