CONSTRUCTION OF RAILROAD LINES.
The Virginia and Truckee Railroad, runs from Virginia City to Reno, on
the Truckee River, at which point it connects with the Central Pacific
Railroad. The length of the road is 52 miles, and it is undoubtedly the
crookedest road in the United States—probably the crookedest in the
world.
Ground was broken for the road, on the 19th of February, 1869, and in
eight months after, it was doing business between Virginia and Carson
City—a distance of twenty-one miles.
The heavy work lies between these points—nearly all of the tunnels, deep
cuts and sharp curves—and for the greater part of the distance the road
was cut through solid rock.
From Virginia City to the Carson River, a distance of 13 miles, the
track is a continuous incline. The maximum grade is 116 feet. The
maximum radius of curves is 300 feet, and the degrees of curvature
amount in all—between Virginia and Carson City—to 6,120; or, in other
words, are equal to going seventeen times round a circle. Thus, in
traveling from Virginia City to Carson—twenty-one miles—one passes
through a sufficiency of curves to carry him round a circle, 360
degrees, seventeen times. This surpasses any “swinging round the
circle,” political or otherwise, that has ever been done in the United
States.
There are on the road six tunnels of an aggregate length of 2,400 feet.
All of these tunnels are lined through their whole length with zinc, as
a protection against fire. Wood is the fuel used on all the locomotives,
and in tugging up the mountain with heavy trains such a Vesuvius of
sparks is poured from the smoke-stacks, that without the protection of
the zinc lining the woodwork of tunnels would constantly be taking fire.
As I have said, the heaviest work on the road was between Virginia and
Carson City. The cost of this section of 21 miles of road was
$1,750,000, or about $83,000 per mile, which includes permanent way and
graduation—that is, with the track laid, and the road ready for
business. The cost of the whole road was about $3,000,000. From Virginia
City to Reno, the terminus of the road, the distance in an air-line is
16½ miles, while by rail it is 52 miles. By the wagon-road, over the
mountain, the distance from Virginia to Reno is only 22 miles. Over this
wagon-road, known as the Griger Grade, supplies of all kinds, including
heavy machinery for the mines, were brought to Virginia, previous to the
completion of the railroad; the hauling being done by teams of ten,
twelve, fourteen, and sixteen mules each, attached to huge wagons known
as “prairie schooners.”
As will be seen, by the distance from Virginia City to Reno in a direct
line, the traveler not only swings seventeen times round the circle, in
going from Virginia to Carson, but has almost completed a grand circle
when he reaches the end of the road and connects with the Central
Pacific. He starts off in a southerly direction, and so continues until
Carson is reached, when he turns and travels northward until he arrives
at Reno.
At Steamboat Springs, between Carson City and Reno, the traveler who
starts from Virginia has traveled forty miles by rail, yet it is but 5½
miles from the place whence he started, Steamboat Springs being situated
just back or west of Mount Davidson, on the eastern face of which
Virginia City stands. Between Virginia and Carson the only piece of
straight road is one little stretch about 5½ miles in length, but
between Carson and Reno are found several miles of road tolerably
straight. The road does an immense local carrying business. From 500 to
800 tons of ore are daily carried over it to the mills on the Carson
River, and return trains bring great quantities of wood, lumber, and
timber for use at the mines. From thirty to as high as forty-five trains
per day pass over that part of the road lying between Virginia and
Carson City.
Notwithstanding the crookedness of the road, trains run over it at a
high rate of speed, as the road is kept in perfect order and steel rails
are used on the mountains where short curves most abound. So crooked is
the road that in places, in going down the mountain with a long train,
the locomotive seems to be coming back directly toward the rear car,
when directly it gracefully sheers off and heads down the mountain
again, the train being thrown into the form of the letter S, reminding
one of what the Bible says of the “way of a serpent on a rock.”
From Reno—over the whole length of the road—come vast amounts of
machinery, stores, and supplies of all kinds for the mines and mills,
and goods and merchandise for all of the towns along the river and in
the mines. Along the road are a great number of side tracks and switches
leading to mills and mining works. Some of these are of considerable
length and, as more are constantly being constructed, the indications
are that the added length of these will possibly exceed that of the main
road.
Branch roads, all of a permanent and substantial character, are
being built to the shafts of the leading mines, to be used in taking
in machinery, wood, timber, lumber, and other supplies, and for
sending ore out to the mills. Many of these side-tracks are laid in
places where it would be almost impossible to construct an ordinary
wagon-road, and to see trains darting out of tunnels, and rushing
along the face of almost perpendicular hills, disappearing behind a
great tower of rock one moment, and the next coming in sight again and
swinging round a second rugged tower, looks somewhat too “lively.”
All the wonderful engineering required in the construction of these
side-tracks, as well as in the main road, was done by Mr. I. E. James,
an old resident of the country—the man who has done nearly all of the
intricate surveying that has been required in the leading mines on the
Comstock lode. Although one of the most modest and unassuming men on
the Pacific Coast, with him nothing in the way of engineering appears
to be impossible.
After having seen the Virginia and Truckee Railroad, all will say that
there is no region so rugged but that a track for the “iron horse” may
be found over it and through it in all directions. When engineers,
conductors, and other railroad men from the Atlantic States, first begin
running on the Virginia and Truckee road they promise themselves that
they will make a very short stay, but in a few months they begin to take
pride in their ability to run on such a road; they like the excitement
of it and consider that those who only run on roads that are straight
and level know but little about the beauties of the business—about
railroading as a fine art. Although these men run trains down the
mountains from Virginia City to Carson River swinging seventeen times
round the circle and going at a fearful rate of speed, yet serious
accidents very seldom occur. The trains are timed by telegraph and the
stations are so numerous that the conductors are always well informed in
regard to the trains on the road, and their position.
Surveys have been made for a narrow-gauge railroad from Virginia City to
Reno, and thence to the northward, along the eastern base of the Sierra
Nevada Mountains. This road will run northward from Virginia—starting
out in an opposite direction from that taken by the Virginia and Truckee
Railroad, and will pass over some very rough country, but will reach
Reno by a shorter _route_ than the other road named. The object in
building this narrow-gauge road is the tapping of the vast forests of
pine lying along the eastern slope of the Sierras.
[Illustration]