Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume III

FIRST AMERICAN TRANS-CONTINENTAL RAILROAD. 145 single impact would send it down as many feet. Again, a succession of blows might seem to be without effect, the pile Pile=driving. having struck a hard stratum. Suddenly this would give way, and the pile would drop several feet. It often happened that a pile, after having been driven in from 30 to 50 feet, would rise a couple of feet between the blows of the driver. In one place a really serious difficulty was encountered. The first pile, 26 feet long, was driven out of sight with a single blow. Difficulties. A second pile, 28 feet long, set on top of the first, also dis- appeared in like manner. Upon examination it was discovered that the mud deposited by the Bear River, flowing into the lake from the north, had accumulated here to a depth of 50 feet. To overcome the difficulty trestles were made of two 40-foot piles spliced end to end, and on them were laid the rails to carry the trains while rock was being dumped in between the trestles to form a solid embank- ment. The last part of the business, the filling with rock, took a long time, as the material broke through the salt crust, and had to be piled up from the firm bottom below it. A forest of two square miles’ area was felled to supply timber for the job, which cost at least eight million dollars from first to last. Apart from the reduction of distance, the curvature saved by the new line would be enough to turn a train round eleven times ; while the power saved in moving a train, owing to the smaller mileage, is equal to that re- quired to haul the weight of a single passenger four hundred times from New York to San Francisco. In addition to the two cut-offs described above, some very long tunnels have been driven through the mountains to reduce grades and distances. The Central Pacific has been practically rebuilt. More than 13,000 degrees of curvature, and 3,000 feet of rise and fall, have been eliminated. pro- but the Recent History of the Track. After the completion of the track the Union Pacific leased its portion to the Central Pacific, which, was afterwards absorbed by the Southern Pacific system. The moters discovered that little revenue came to corporations from through traffic with the east, and that they would have to depend upon local traffic for re- muneration. Unfortunately, while the country was being opened up, the railroad starved, and passed into the hands of receivers. The stock values fell almost to vanishing point. Then the late Mr. E. H. Harriman took the Great Trans-continental in hand, threw all his extraordinary energy into making it pay, and now the ordinary stock is quoted at about a hundred per cent, above par, in spite of the enormous sums spent on the reconstruction of the track. The Union Pacific has done a wonderful work. It has changed the nature of the country through which it passes. Omaha has become the third place in the United States for packing meat products. Fremont has sprung from nothingness into a pros- perous and beautiful city of ten thousand people. As the “ Limited ” passes westwards it traverses what was once prairie and is now a great agricultural district, dotted thickly with snug farms, capacious barns, and active windmills. An area that produced nothing fifty years back now exports produce worth half a million dollars, excluding live stock and minerals. Lexington, where, in 1867, the Southern Cheyenne Indians burned a freight train, is now a town of 25,000 people, surrounded by fertile irrigated fields. Laramie is given over to railroad shops and to mining. From Granger branches off the Overland Route to Portland, Seattle, Tacoma, and Spokane. Dropping down through the wonders of Echo Canon—waterfalls, frowning cliffs, turrets, and domes of weather-worn rock—we reach Ogden, What*the Overland Route has done. (1,408) 10 VOL. III.