Western Railroad Discussion > Transcontinental question

A worker I know claims the UP and CP railroads parallel each other for over 200 miles before the golden spike. True?

Posted from iPhone

The two railroads built parallel right of way for a considerable distance west of Ogden. This dual activity ceased when inspectors from Washington City toured the work in early 1869. They set the meeting point at Promontory Summit.

There were inspectors assigned to each railroad to verify they had done the work they were supposed to do. These two sets of inspectors apparently didn't compare notes or communicate with each other. It was up to the special inspectors to sort out the final meeting point.

Here's an article from my new book "The Short Line Enterprises Story, Volume 1" which will be available very shortly

"The Daily Union
Monday, January 11, 1869
CITY INTELLIGENCE

TO INSPECT ANOTHER SECTION,- The Central Pacific Railroad Commissioners will leave the city to-morrow morning to inspect another section of the road -the twenty miles east of Carlin."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/20/18 21:15 by px320.

To clarify perhaps, they built embankments and some bridges past each other but rail was needed for their own main lines exclusively.
One exception was a Promotory Summit, where they overlapped enough to switch out their short-lived interchange.

Reading Signor's Salt Lake Division Book, around pg 33, it appears the overlap was around 20 miles or so. There is a map/diagram but the 'route' runs off the edge of the map. In that material it's described that there were no obvious places to simply switch over to the other route, due to differences in elevation of the surveyed route. In one drainage the one built a tall fill while the other built a tall trestle. Some areas where graded only while some areas had rail. The CP apparently saw the issue early but could not find anyone to negotiate with.

Eventually the CP paid UP for the 'line' to within 5 miles of Ogden in compensation for the overlap that was graded and rail layed.

+ we have had some interesting posts about the overlap and Promontory Summit in the past. they should be pretty easy to find in the TO archive. 'Boilingman' photographed his passage on the trails last year or so.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/20/18 18:50 by TCnR.

The surveying and grading extended past each other, can't remember how far. Somebody mentioned 20 miles of overlap for the rails that were laid and that sounds about right. It's kinda funny that no one thought that in a competition to build the most track that they needed to keep an eye on things and set a meeting point. The law of unintended consequences strikes again!

Nathan

Some clarification is in order.

Below are some notes I compiled from various resources a couple years ago for a friend of mine who was writing an article on the subject of the parallel grading work for the Elko Daily Free Press.

- Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 authorized building the Transcontinental Railroad, including creating the Union Pacific Railroad to construct the eastern part and recognizing the Central Pacific to build the western part, as the CP had already been incorporated in California. Union Pacific authorized 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 further authorized to build across 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.”

-Pacific Railroad Act of 1864 limited the Central Pacific to 150 miles of construction east of the California state line provided the Union Pacific had yet to complete their line to that point.

-Pacific Railroad Act of July 3, 1866 changes wording again, this time simply authorizing 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.

-Each railroad had its own interpretation of the 1866 Act, and advanced construction forces blew past each other. UP surveyed a line as far west as Humboldt Wells (now Wells), and CP surveys extended to the east end of Echo Canyon. By fall/early winter of 1868, graders from both railroads passed each other on the north shore of the Great Salt Lake. The two railroads eventually built nearly complete parallel and in some places crossing grades between Monument Point and Ogden, and UP built pieces of grade as far west as Humboldt Wells.

- 9 April 1869- with track layers rapidly approaching each other, the railroads finally compromise. Huntington of the CP and Dodge of the UP hammer out an agreement, under which the railroads will meet at Promontory Summit, after which CP will purchase UP’s completed line from Promontory to Ogden. Congress approves the deal on 10 April 1869. UP orders its crews to stop all work west of Promontory the next day, and CP stopped all grading work east of Promontory on 14 April. The rails met at Promontory on 10 May 1869, and CP completed purchasing the line into Ogden in September 1869. All told, the railroads built a little over 200 miles of parallel grade (about half completed, the rest preliminary or patchword), wasting over a million dollars.

Bottom line, all told the UP and SP built about 100 miles of parallel grade over about a 200-mile long stretch. The visible side by side stretch of completed to nearly completed grade extends about 40 miles, from five miles east of the Gold Spike monument to near Kelton. A good part of the rest of the duplicate grade looks more like this stretch, a few miles east of Moor off the northwest side of the Pequops:

https://goo.gl/maps/cqkGCgTYtU22

You might have to zoom in and scroll around a bit, but what we have here is a partially completed stretch of UP grade, starting at the western end in a partially excavated cut and ending on the eastern end at a partially completed fill, with the completed CPRR grade crossing the stillborn UP grade. To my knowledge the farthest west UP graders got was right at the top of Moor Summit, where there are a series of fills connecting cuts in ridgelines that were never built.

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

CPRR Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> A worker I know claims the UP and CP railroads
> parallel each other for over 200 miles before the
> golden spike. True?
>
> Posted from iPhone


I live up in Idaho about an hour north of Promontory summit and golden spike historic site. I try to do a yearly trip along the old right of way, which is drivable. I start at a place called Lucin, which is where the new SP Lucin cutoff (the causeway) splits off and goes to Ogden over the lake, and the old line continues northeast to travel around the northern edge of the lake. Eventually, the grade ends up at golden spike and later Corrinne, Utah. Along the way, there are lots of old townsites to see, such as Terrace(the old SP division point) and Kelton. The line goes through cuts and over fills in various spots as it crosses red dome pass as well as the promontory mountains. This was the real reason that the new line over the causeway was built. Not only did it cut off nearly 50 miles, but it also cut out significant grades which existed along the original routing. I would encourage you to look up Lucin, Utah on google maps and follow the old grade, which is clearly visible.

During the time that the CP and SP grading crews were in the area, there was definitely overlap, some places more than others. Surveying and grading crews on the SP had made it as far east at weber canyon and the wyoming border, looking for a route. UP surveying/grading crews had made it as far west as Wells, Nevada although actual construction of the line did not make it this far. However, if you start at Lucin and work your way along the line to a place called Kelton, which was another old CP town, you can begin to clearly see two distinct railroad grades paralleling each other. This continues all the way to Corrine, a significant distance. During this section crews actually passed each other while constructing the grades. When driving along the old line, both grades are clearly visible. During this section, the grades are at the same elevation and parallel each other nearly exactly. Once you reach the promontory mountains, the grade begins to climb and both railroads had to build cuts and fills. In many spots the grades run parallel, but at different elevations. Once the summit is reached and both grades decend down the other side toward Corrine, the real distinction can be seen as the routes both had to navigate down the steep grade using very different alignments. The SP built a large fill and the UP built a large trestle over a wash in this section, both of which can be seen today. When the golden spike ceremony took place, the UP and engine 119 ran over the large UP trestle, which does not exist today. The trestle was poorly built and terrifying to go over by many accounts, and since the large earthen fill was a much better grade, the UP line over the trestle was soon abandoned, and the permanent main line became the SP right of way over the big fill. After the grades drop to the bottom of the valley, they turn on a horseshoe curve to the east and both original grades can be seen as one drives the highway into Corrine. At Corrine, the original main line turned south toward Ogden and an old steel bridge can be seen.

So yes, there are very real signs of two distinct grades going through this section. I would highly recommend checking it out. If you do go to Lucin to drive the old grade, take food, water and plenty of gas. It's still the old west out there and very little has changed since 1869. There are no gas stations, no restaurants, no convienient stores and no one to save you if you run out of gas.

Here is a link to the google map of the big fill/big trestle location just east of Promontory https://www.google.com/maps/@41.641327,-112.4791513,810m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Fill



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/20/18 20:43 by HogheadMike.

Thanks Jeff ...

Appreciate the background history and the link to Google Earth

Odyssey
Evergreen, CO

Thank you gentlemen. I will let my coworker read the replies

Posted from iPhone

I photographed the cut the UPRR started about half way between Wells and Cobre. I posted them here about a year ago.
Search for Necrophoaming the Pequites (however you spell it!?) by Boilingman.
Also Necrophoaming the CPRR. I’ve done a few threads on the subject.
SR

Pequops.

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

What he said!
SR

Sorry, Jeff- I’m at a dinner thing with my wife and didn’t have a way to look it up w/o starting over.
SR

and spellcheck was useless on this one!

HogheadMike Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Fill


The Wikipedia has a couple of great photos of the fill and the trestle.

You can count the pilings on the trestle at a cross-section and see how the design of the day used two vertical posts with additional outside pilings leaning into the bridge. Similar to today except they use a few more posts. Perhaps they intended to back fill the trestle at some time, or just wanted to run up some additional construction charges. The UPRR had recurring trouble with the Dale Creek trestle in Wyoming as well.