Railway Adventures and Anecdotes: Extending over More Than Fifty Years

by Unknown

DRIVING A LAST SPIKE.

There are now two lines crossing the American continent. The western section of the new route goes through on the thirty-parallel—far enough south from the Rocky Mountains for the current of the train’s own motion to be acceptable even in December, and to be a grateful relief in June. Beginning at San Francisco, the additional line runs south through California to Fort Yuma on the Colorado river; thence along the southern border of the territories of Arizona and New Mexico, and across the centre of Kansas, until it joins the lines connecting the Southern States with New York. The undertaking is a vast one, and has been one of some difficulty; but its completion has been the occasion of very little display. Never was a great project of any kind brought to a successful result with so much of active work and so little of actual talk. A cable message a line in length told the story a month ago to European readers, and none of the American papers appear to have dealt with the matter as anything out of the ordinary run of daily events.

Far otherwise was it with the finishing touch twelve years ago to the other Transcontinental line. The whole world heard of what was then done. All the bells in all the great cities of the United States rang out jubilant peals as the last stroke sent home the last spike on the last rail of the new highway of travel. The news was flashed by telegraph everywhere throughout the Union, and that there might be no delay in its transmission and no hindrance to its simultaneous reception, a certain pre-arranged signal was given and all the wires were for the time being kept free of other business. There were cases in which, to save time in ringing out the glad news, the message was conveyed on special wires right up to the bell towers; and everywhere there was a feeling that a great victory had been won. Preceding the consummation, there had been some wonderful feats in railroad construction. From the Missouri river on the one side and from the Sacramento on the other, the two companies—the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific—advanced against each other in friendly rivalry. The popular idea was that the length of the line of each company would be measured to the point at which it joined rails with the other. This was hardly the case; but an arrangement was come to after the completion of the work which has given this notion the strength of a tradition. The greater part of the Union Pacific route was over comparatively even ground, and it was not until the Salt Lake region was being approached that any serious constructive difficulties presented themselves. It was otherwise with the company advancing eastward. The line had to be carried over the Sierra Nevada, the ascent beginning almost from the starting point, and rising seven thousand feet in a hundred miles. On the other side of the mountain range, the descent was in turn formidable. Over this part of the road it was impossible to proceed rapidly. The work was surrounded with difficulties, and there were competent engineers who had no confidence that it could be carried out. Progress could only be made at the outset at the rate of about twenty miles each year; but in this slow work there was time to profit by experience, so that eventually, when it became a question simply of many hands, the platelayer went forward with the swing of an army on the march. Then it was

that the two companies went vigorously into the race of construction. In one day, in 1868, the Union men were able to inform the Central men by telegraph that they had laid as many as six miles since morning. A few days afterwards the response came from the Central men that they had just finished as their day’s work a stretch of seven miles. Spurred to fresh activity by this display, the Union men next reported to the other side a complete stretch for a day’s work of seven and a half miles! The answer came back in the extraordinary announcement that the workers for the Central Company were prepared to lay ten miles in one day! The Union people were inclined to regard this as mere boasting, and the Vice-President of the company implied as much when he made an offer to bet ten thousand dollars that in one day such a stretch of railroad could not be well and truly laid. It is not on record that the bet was taken up. But the fact remains that it was made, that the Central army of workers heard of it, and that they determined to make good the pledge given in their name. So a day was fixed for the attempt. From the Union side men came to take note of the work and to measure it, and their verdict at the close of the day’s toil was that not only had the promised ten miles been constructed, but that the measurement showed two hundred feet over! And this, on the words of an authority, is how it was done:—When the car loaded with rails came to the end of the track, the two outer rails on either side were seized with iron nippers, hauled forward off the car, and laid on the ties by four men who attended exclusively to this work. Over these rails the cars were pushed forward and the process repeated. Then came a gang of men who half-drove the spikes and screwed on the fish-plates on the dropped rails. At a short interval behind these came a gang of Chinamen, who drove home the spikes already inserted and added the rest. A second squad of Chinamen followed, two deep, on each side of the single track, the inner men carrying shovels and the outer men wielding picks, their duty being to ballast the track. Every movement was thus carefully arranged, and there was no loss of time. The average rate of speed at which the work was done was 1 min. 47½ secs. to every 240 feet of perfected track. There was, of course, an army of

disciplined helpers, whose duty it was to bring up the materials. In this great feat of construction more than four thousand men found employment in various capacities. When they had carried their line four miles further east, the Central and the Union men met each other, the point of connection being known as Promontory. Afterwards the two companies made an arrangement whereby the Union Pacific relinquished fifty-three miles of road to the Central, thus fixing on Ogden as the western terminus of the one line and the eastern terminus of the other. The popular belief is that the fifty-three miles were obtained by the Central Pacific directors as an acknowledgement of the greater engineering difficulties they had to overcome in laying their part of the track, and that they served a handicapping purpose at the end of this wonderful railroad competition.

The placing of the final tie on the Pacific lines, as has been hinted, was a ceremonious undertaking. The event took place on Monday, March 10th, 1869. Representatives were present from almost every part of the Union, and the construction parties, not yet wholly dispersed, made up a greater crowd than had been seen at Promontory before or is likely ever to be seen there again—for, with the fixing of the termini at another point, the glory of the place has departed. The connecting tie had been made of California laurel. It was beautifully polished, and bore a series of inscribed silver plates. The tie was carefully placed, and over it the rails were laid by picked men on behalf of each company. The spikes were then inserted—one of gold, silver, and iron, from Arizona; another of silver, from Nevada; and a third of gold, from California. President Stanford, of the Central Pacific, armed with a hammer of solid silver, drove the last spike, the blow falling precisely at noon, and the news of the completion of the road being flashed abroad as it fell. Then the two locomotives, one from the west and the other from the east, drew up to each other on the single line, coming into gentle collision, that they in their way, in the pleasing conceit of their drivers, might symbolise the fraternisation that went on. It does not spoil the story of the ceremony to state that the laurel tie, with its inscriptions and its magnificent mountings,

was only formally laid, and that it became from that day a relic to be officially cherished; and it should be added that the more serviceable tie which replaced it was cut into fragments by men eager to have some memento of the occasion. Other ties for a time shared the same fate, until splinters of what was claimed to be “the last tie laid” became as common as pieces of the Wellington boots the great commander is said to have left behind him at Waterloo.

With the junction of the two lines, it became possible to make safely in one week an overland journey that not many years before required months in its execution, and was attended by many hardships and dangers. It was, however, a route better known even in the days when the legend of the pilgrims over it was “Pike’s Peak or bust!” than is the region crossed by the new southern line. This line opens up what is practically an undiscovered and an unsettled country, but the region traversed has been ascertained to be so rich in resources as to fully justify the heavy expenditure involved in the construction of the line. In another year the line will become a powerful agent in the development of the Union, for it will then be connected with the lines that run through Texas into Louisiana, and New Orleans and San Francisco will be brought into direct communication with each other. This, in fact, has been a prominent object in the undertaking. The effect of it will be to cheapen the tariff on goods from the Pacific Coast to Europe, and will, it is believed, have the effect of controlling a large share of the Asiatic trade.

—Leeds Mercury, April 23rd, 1881.