Promontory Summit
Recently, The Captain and I traveled to some of our western states. It was quite the occasion because out travels coincided with the airlines resuming snack and beverage services on their aircraft. Who knew something like that was so significant in measuring progress in the struggle with Covid-19 policies?
Our trip started at the Salt Lake City airport, where we rented a car to make our calls in more remote parts. During the excursion, we took time to visit the Golden Spike National Historic Park. Never heard of it? That’s a shame, because like pretzels and soda on an airplane, Golden Spike marks a significant milestone in the growth of the United States.
Our drive up to Promontory, Utah took us many miles back the only road that serves the park. The scenery ranges from nearly desolate valleys to high ridges with unobstructed views of similarly desolate landscapes. It is a remarkable drive into the past. It isn’t hard to image what it was like to walk, ride a horse, or make the passage in a steam train. There were very few examples of human influence then, and there aren’t many more now.
At the visitor center, a kid in a park service uniform collected $20, gave us a quick description of what there was to see, and sent us to the locomotive shed. Inside the shed, there are two replicas of the Victorian era steam railroad engines used to bring together the dignitaries and laborers who created the first transcontinental railroad. The Jupiter and No. 119 are pretty cool, and it would be neat to seem them operate. Unfortunately, that is a summer only attraction.
Back at the main building, there are numerous artifacts from the mid to late 19th Century. A close reading of the signs and descriptions give some idea of the massive effort required to lay track from Omaha to Sacramento between 1863 and 1869. Captured in the records is the change in the way the world was powered. Prior to the mid 19th Century, if it was going to get done, it required muscle power. In the case of this railroad, it was spades, picks, hammers and back-breaking work. Within another two decades, it was coal fired steam shovels, drag lines, and trains, as were used in the successful digging of the Panama Canal.
Along side the main building is a remnant of the original rail line. It is maintained for several miles in each direction with a switching to the locomotive shed. Located in the center of the track section, a heavily varnished wood rail tie with a placard marks the exact spot where the Golden Spike was driven home, joining the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads. For fifty yards along the track, there are photos from the event, setting up the panorama of May 10, 1869. The hills are the same. The rails are in the same place, and the same deep quiet fills the observers ears. All that is different is the sounds of the day. There is no locomotive chuffing, or whistle blowing. No railway crew singing out as they banged together iron and wood. But it doesn’t matter. Manmade sounds, from then or now, are quickly swallowed up by the immensity of the landscape, where there is nothing to reflect the sound waves back to the observer.
After taking in the history of the event, we contemplated the human toll to build the engineering marvel. Work gangs of newly arrived immigrants and former Civil War soldiers cleared the route, graded the land, blasted rocks and laid down the rails in a 6 year race for government supplied dollars. Many died in the process, but that was to be expected. Life and labor were cheap commodities in the quickly growing industrial age.
Within a couple decades, the route across Utah was shortened. It bypassed Promontory and this section of the line fell into disuse. By 1941 the rails were being pulled up to feed the need for war material. Engineering and technology can be like that. Revolutionary and very important for a moment, only to be bypassed and forgotten the next.