Workin’ on the Railroad: Today’s Builders Hurdle Barriers Unknown in Transcontinental Era

By Nicole Warburton Deseret Morning News

PROMONTORY SUMMIT, Box Elder County — It was a record that historians claim has yet to be matched: 10 miles of rail laid by hand, in just one day.

Over 1,000 men, all employed by the Central Pacific Railroad, accomplished the feat on April 28, 1869. Twelve days later, the last spike was hammered into the nation’s first transcontinental railroad here at Promontory Summit.

Now, about 50 miles from this historic site, the Utah Transit Authority has begun work on a commuter-rail line. But even with modern equipment such as bulldozers, cranes and special rail-laying machines, the work is slow, and UTA has yet to lay even one mile of rail in one day during construction of the FrontRunner commuter- rail line.

The first phase is 44 miles long, stretching from Salt Lake City to Pleasant View in Weber County. UTA began construction in July 2005. Work is expected to be done in June 2008 — three years after construction started.

Steve Meyer, UTA project manager over commuter rail, said the differences between his rail project and the transcontinental railroad are substantial. If laying rail was all UTA had to worry about, modern equipment would allow the agency to lay up to 20 miles or more in one day, he said.

“If I had a wide open space, we could do that,” Meyer said of the transcontinental railroad’s 10-mile record. “There is equipment that would do it all at once: pull the rail out, set the ties, clip them and keep on rolling.”

Construction of the entire transcontinental railroad took six years, according to the Central Pacific Railroad’s online museum. It stretched 1,776 miles, from Omaha, Neb., to Sacramento, Calif.

Today, only an outline of the historic 10-mile segment remains. Erosion and time are slowly erasing the path. Up against the Promontory Mountains, just a few miles from the “last spike” site, you can see places where dirt was pushed up and packed down to create a level surface for the tracks to be laid.

“It’s hard to see,” said Bret Guisto, archaeologist for the Golden Spike National Historic Site. “The tracks are gone.”

But the record stands.

Back in 1928, Erle Heath, associate editor of the railroading magazine Southern Pacific Bulletin, wrote in an article reminiscing about the event: “The scene was an animated one. From the first ‘pioneer’ to the last tamper, about two miles, there was a line of men advancing a mile an hour; iron cars with their load of rails and humans dashed up and down the newly laid track; foremen on horseback were galloping back and forth.”

Modern complications

Meyer said the process of building a modern rail line — even a small, locally operated line — is more complicated in some respects than laying the transcontinental railroad. Before beginning construction, UTA was required by federal law to complete a two- year study of the environmental effects of building commuter rail and also had to outline how it would “mitigate,” or help to lessen any impacts.

After that, UTA worked six months to obtain approval from 43 cities and jurisdictions to build commuter rail. Now, it is in the middle of a two-year process of diverting utilities that run under the commuter-rail line.

UTA has had to deal with oil pipelines, as well as fiber-optic, sewer, water, natural-gas and power lines. Rails are being laid, but along the way, the utility work must first be done.

“You name it, we’ve got it,” Meyer said. “It’s not a small thing.”

With the transcontinental railroad, very few, if any, environmental clearances were required, according to historical reports. It was all about building as fast as you could to obtain money from the federal government to build more, said Guisto.

In fact, Guisto said that many historians attribute the demise of the great herds of American bison to the railroad, which made the West more accessible for people to settle. The herds were essentially hunted to extinction by hunters and the settlers, he said.

But unlike commuter rail, creating a path, or grade, for the transcontinental railroad was one of its greatest obstacles. After leaving Sacramento, the Central Pacific Railroad crews had to deal with the high mountain passes of the Sierra Nevadas.

The crews mainly consisted of workers from China, who were paid low wages and worked long hours. Many of the workers died from freezing temperatures and injuries sustained during construction.

Rebecca Cooper Winter, in an article for the Central Pacific Railroad’s online museum, said it took a full day, or “three eight- hour shifts,” for workers to drill holes where explosives could be placed to blast through the granite rock of the Sierras.

The Union Pacific Railroad crews, many of whom were former soldiers in the Civil War or immigrants from Ireland, began construction in Omaha. They were building on much flatter ground but had to deal with Indian attacks and wild animals such as bison, according to historical reports.

Laying rails

With commuter rail, the only delays have been because of strict safety requirements that prohibit when, and where, work can be done. Also, the train tracks cross over 43 different roads. UTA has had to limit its work because of that issue, said Meyer.

But what of the 10-mile record?

Historical reports say it was a well-orchestrated endeavor. Thousands of men and horses, wagons and equipment were used to place wooden ties, lay the rail, then hammer it in with spikes.

Only a handful of local and out-of-state workers, and a few big machines are used to lay track for commuter rail. Meyer says that a crane is used to pick up the concrete ties, place them, and then pick up the rail. Metal clips are used to connect the rail to the ties.

After the tracks are pieced together, a lightweight, angular rock known as ballast is spread on the top of the rail. A machine then grabs the rail and pushes it up on top of the ballast. The ballast keeps the rail in place, and also limits how much it can expand due to heat, said Meyer.

Ron Wilson, a locomotive engineer for the Golden Spike National Historic Site, said that the iron rail used on the transcontinental railroad was “more susceptible to heat and cold” than the steel rail used today. It would expand in the heat, and then the track would lift off the ground, causing derailments.

Also, the iron rail had a tendency to “peel back like a banana” when something heavy ran over the top of it. It wasn’t safe, he said, but was used because it was American-made. The states had yet to refine steel as well as Europe did, and the bill authorizing the transcontinental railroad required that American materials be used.

“They knew when it was going down that it was not right,” Wilson said.

But, said Guisto, the railroad itself left a lasting legacy that changed how Americans moved across country. And the 10-mile record still stirs admiration.

“It was just an amazing feat,” said Guisto.

E-mail: nwarburton@desnews.com

(c) 2007 Deseret News (Salt Lake City). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.