There are now two lines crossing the American continent. The western
section of the new route goes through on the thirty-parallel—far enough
south from the Rocky Mountains for the current of the train’s own motion
to be acceptable even in December, and to be a grateful relief in June.
Beginning at San Francisco, the additional line runs south through
California to Fort Yuma on the Colorado river; thence along the southern
border of the territories of Arizona and New Mexico, and across the
centre of Kansas, until it joins the lines connecting the Southern States
with New York. The undertaking is a vast one, and has been one of some
difficulty; but its completion has been the occasion of very little
display. Never was a great project of any kind brought to a successful
result with so much of active work and so little of actual talk. A cable
message a line in length told the story a month ago to European readers,
and none of the American papers appear to have dealt with the matter as
anything out of the ordinary run of daily events.
Far otherwise was it with the finishing touch twelve years ago to the
other Transcontinental line. The whole world heard of what was then
done. All the bells in all the great cities of the United States rang
out jubilant peals as the last stroke sent home the last spike on the
last rail of the new highway of travel. The news was flashed by
telegraph everywhere throughout the Union, and that there might be no
delay in its transmission and no hindrance to its simultaneous reception,
a certain pre-arranged signal was given and all the wires were for the
time being kept free of other business. There were cases in which, to
save time in ringing out the glad news, the message was conveyed on
special wires right up to the bell towers; and everywhere there was a
feeling that a great victory had been won. Preceding the consummation,
there had been some wonderful feats in railroad construction. From the
Missouri river on the one side and from the Sacramento on the other, the
two companies—the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific—advanced against
each other in friendly rivalry. The popular idea was that the length of
the line of each company would be measured to the point at which it
joined rails with the other. This was hardly the case; but an
arrangement was come to after the completion of the work which has given
this notion the strength of a tradition. The greater part of the Union
Pacific route was over comparatively even ground, and it was not until
the Salt Lake region was being approached that any serious constructive
difficulties presented themselves. It was otherwise with the company
advancing eastward. The line had to be carried over the Sierra Nevada,
the ascent beginning almost from the starting point, and rising seven
thousand feet in a hundred miles. On the other side of the mountain
range, the descent was in turn formidable. Over this part of the road it
was impossible to proceed rapidly. The work was surrounded with
difficulties, and there were competent engineers who had no confidence
that it could be carried out. Progress could only be made at the outset
at the rate of about twenty miles each year; but in this slow work there
was time to profit by experience, so that eventually, when it became a
question simply of many hands, the platelayer went forward with the swing
of an army on the march. Then it was that the two companies went
vigorously into the race of construction. In one day, in 1868, the Union
men were able to inform the Central men by telegraph that they had laid
as many as six miles since morning. A few days afterwards the response
came from the Central men that they had just finished as their day’s work
a stretch of seven miles. Spurred to fresh activity by this display, the
Union men next reported to the other side a complete stretch for a day’s
work of seven and a half miles! The answer came back in the
extraordinary announcement that the workers for the Central Company were
prepared to lay ten miles in one day! The Union people were inclined to
regard this as mere boasting, and the Vice-President of the company
implied as much when he made an offer to bet ten thousand dollars that in
one day such a stretch of railroad could not be well and truly laid. It
is not on record that the bet was taken up. But the fact remains that it
was made, that the Central army of workers heard of it, and that they
determined to make good the pledge given in their name. So a day was
fixed for the attempt. From the Union side men came to take note of the
work and to measure it, and their verdict at the close of the day’s toil
was that not only had the promised ten miles been constructed, but that
the measurement showed two hundred feet over! And this, on the words of
an authority, is how it was done:—When the car loaded with rails came to
the end of the track, the two outer rails on either side were seized with
iron nippers, hauled forward off the car, and laid on the ties by four
men who attended exclusively to this work. Over these rails the cars
were pushed forward and the process repeated. Then came a gang of men
who half-drove the spikes and screwed on the fish-plates on the dropped
rails. At a short interval behind these came a gang of Chinamen, who
drove home the spikes already inserted and added the rest. A second
squad of Chinamen followed, two deep, on each side of the single track,
the inner men carrying shovels and the outer men wielding picks, their
duty being to ballast the track. Every movement was thus carefully
arranged, and there was no loss of time. The average rate of speed at
which the work was done was 1 min. 47½ secs. to every 240 feet of
perfected track. There was, of course, an army of disciplined helpers,
whose duty it was to bring up the materials. In this great feat of
construction more than four thousand men found employment in various
capacities. When they had carried their line four miles further east,
the Central and the Union men met each other, the point of connection
being known as Promontory. Afterwards the two companies made an
arrangement whereby the Union Pacific relinquished fifty-three miles of
road to the Central, thus fixing on Ogden as the western terminus of the
one line and the eastern terminus of the other. The popular belief is
that the fifty-three miles were obtained by the Central Pacific directors
as an acknowledgement of the greater engineering difficulties they had to
overcome in laying their part of the track, and that they served a
handicapping purpose at the end of this wonderful railroad competition.
The placing of the final tie on the Pacific lines, as has been hinted,
was a ceremonious undertaking. The event took place on Monday, March
10th, 1869. Representatives were present from almost every part of the
Union, and the construction parties, not yet wholly dispersed, made up a
greater crowd than had been seen at Promontory before or is likely ever
to be seen there again—for, with the fixing of the termini at another
point, the glory of the place has departed. The connecting tie had been
made of California laurel. It was beautifully polished, and bore a
series of inscribed silver plates. The tie was carefully placed, and
over it the rails were laid by picked men on behalf of each company. The
spikes were then inserted—one of gold, silver, and iron, from Arizona;
another of silver, from Nevada; and a third of gold, from California.
President Stanford, of the Central Pacific, armed with a hammer of solid
silver, drove the last spike, the blow falling precisely at noon, and the
news of the completion of the road being flashed abroad as it fell. Then
the two locomotives, one from the west and the other from the east, drew
up to each other on the single line, coming into gentle collision, that
they in their way, in the pleasing conceit of their drivers, might
symbolise the fraternisation that went on. It does not spoil the story
of the ceremony to state that the laurel tie, with its inscriptions and
its magnificent mountings, was only formally laid, and that it became
from that day a relic to be officially cherished; and it should be added
that the more serviceable tie which replaced it was cut into fragments by
men eager to have some memento of the occasion. Other ties for a time
shared the same fate, until splinters of what was claimed to be “the last
tie laid” became as common as pieces of the Wellington boots the great
commander is said to have left behind him at Waterloo.
With the junction of the two lines, it became possible to make safely in
one week an overland journey that not many years before required months
in its execution, and was attended by many hardships and dangers. It
was, however, a route better known even in the days when the legend of
the pilgrims over it was “Pike’s Peak or bust!” than is the region
crossed by the new southern line. This line opens up what is practically
an undiscovered and an unsettled country, but the region traversed has
been ascertained to be so rich in resources as to fully justify the heavy
expenditure involved in the construction of the line. In another year
the line will become a powerful agent in the development of the Union,
for it will then be connected with the lines that run through Texas into
Louisiana, and New Orleans and San Francisco will be brought into direct
communication with each other. This, in fact, has been a prominent
object in the undertaking. The effect of it will be to cheapen the
tariff on goods from the Pacific Coast to Europe, and will, it is
believed, have the effect of controlling a large share of the Asiatic
trade.
—_Leeds Mercury_, April 23rd, 1881.