Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume III
Forfatter: Archibald Williams
År: 1945
Serie: Engineering Wonders of the World
Forlag: Thomas Nelson and Sons
Sted: London, Edinburgh, Dublin and New York
Sider: 407
UDK: 600 eng- gl
With 424 Illustrations, Maps, and Diagrams
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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.