A Railroad Remembered

May 10, 1869. The day the U.S. transcontinental railroad was completed at Promontory Point, Utah. The east coast was now connected to the west coast by train! It was a monumental moment for a country not even 100 years old yet.

Now there is a nice National Historic Site here, and every May 10, they do a reenactment of this event. If you look closely, you can see Abraham Lincoln in the left crowd. He was NOT present at the 1869 event. This is a re-creation of the photo taken of the event of the two trains' meeting.

The train from the west, the Jupiter, met the train coming from the east, the 119. Where they met a golden railroad spike was placed (it's now in the Smithsonian Museum).

There was a contest between the two railroad companies to see who could lay the most track, the west-to-east crew from California or the east-to-west crew that came across the Great Plains. When the two teams finally met at Promontory, the contest was still on--so they passed each other by! It was finally settled here at this spot.

In 1905, a trestle system was built across the Great Salt Lake, cutting 6-9 hours off the journey from California to Ogden, Utah. The trestle was one of the great engineering marvels of its time. The following photos show some of what remains of this trestle system.

This looks like the remains of a pier (above).

Here, another pier system is shown (above). The ground is very muddy here! I ruined a good pair of shoes for this shot while slogging through the salty goo.

I hope to hike to that pile of rocks in the distance this coming year (above).

Here is kind of an "artsy" shot of the pilings (above). It's one of my favorites.

This photo was featued on EarthShots.com a few months ago (above). It's too far away to see, but my camera is aimed right at Salt Lake City there, nestled below the mountains.

You'll note more water in this shot (above) than in similar shots above of the same place. The Great Salt Lake is only 35 feet deep at its deepest, so if it rains a lot, the lake fills up quickly.

In the 1950s a causeway of rocks and gravel took the place of the trestle, and all that is left of the trestle are these posts, or pilings as they are called. The trestle used to run atop these.

The pilings are being salvaged and are being sold as expensive lumber. The wood is indeed very nice; a friend of mine has a fireplace mantle made from it. Each piling is from 25 feet to even 100 feet long (made from lashings of several together as they tried to find solid ground in the deep Salt Lake mud).

These pilings stand on the very tip of the geographic Promontory Point (above). The famous Promontory Point where the golden spike was laid is about 30 miles north of this place and gets its name from being near here.

Unfortunately, I'm sure these pilings are scheduled for removal, and the U.S. will lose yet another chapter of its history. We in the U.S. have a difficult time preserving many of our important historical sites. Here's the good news: I've been lobbying my state congressman to have these preserved and opened to the public. We'll see what happens. Perhaps in a year or two, I'll have an update with, or without, the pilings.

The Great Salt Lake is only 35 feet deep at its greatest depth, and flats like these abound all around it. When rainfall is heavy, these flats fill with a few centimetres of water. The makeup of the mud you see in some of the photos does contain lots of salt, but the flat salt flats, where the Bonneville Raceway is, for example, are almost smooth because they contain so much salt and other minerals. Were you to eat this dirt, an action against which I would advise(!), it would taste very salty, though.

Nearly all rainfall in the Great Basin region, which comprises western Utah and eastern Nevada, ends up in this lake with no outlet. Of course, it only rains from 6-15 inches each year, so it is a real desert! There has been a drought for the past seven years with only about 6-9 inches of rain per year. We have the highest snow pack in state history this year, though, so it looks like our drought might be over. In some of the photos above, you can see some of this snow pack in the very ski-able mountains in the distance--the Wasatch mountains.

I love old train stuff; thanks for reading!