Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume III

138 ENGINEERING WONDERS OF THE WORLD. {Photo, Southern Pacific Railway Company.) FILLING IN FROM TRESTLE ON LUCIN CUT-OFF. were approaching the Great Salt Lake, public interest in the coming completion of the track increased greatly. Special correspond- ents flashed messages from the “ front ” to their respective journals, giving particulars of the daily advance. The railway builders had now to decide whether they should pass to the north or to the south of the Great Salt Lake, a body of water over 80 miles long. If Anxiety of were selected, the the Mormons. city of the Mormons would be left on a branch line. It was preached from the pulpits that the line must take the south- erly route ; the railway surveyors announced that the northerly route was vastly prefer- able. Then the head of the Mormon Church, Brigham Young, issued an edict forbidding his people to contract or work for the Union Pacific, and exerted his great influence on behalf of the Central Pacific, which was creep- ing towards the lake, in hopes that it might be induced to pass at the southern end. But his expectations were disappointed by the physical features of the country. The Central Pacific’s explorations confirmed the decision of the Union Pacific—to go north. So the Mormons accepted the inevitable, and assisted the completion of the work, which would at least bring them much nearer than before to centres of civilization, by means of a fifty- mile branch track. At Ogden, about twenty-five miles east of the lake, the two lines were to have met. But the Union Pacific, getting there first, and being anxious to earn the sub- sidy, pushed on. The Central ^ra^es Pacific folk, urged by the same desire, in turn carried their rail-head past that of their rivals. So there was seen the extra- ordinary spectacle of two tracks being graded parallel to one another, one of which would be of no value whatever. When this stupid business had been persisted in until the