WOOD AND WATER.
CHAPTER XXXI.
CONSTRUCTION OF RAILROAD LINES.
The Virginia and Truckee Railroad, runs from Virginia City to Reno, on the Truckee River, at which point it connects with the Central Pacific Railroad. The length of the road is 52 miles, and it is undoubtedly the crookedest road in the United States—probably the crookedest in the world.
Ground was broken for the road, on the 19th of February, 1869, and in eight months after, it was doing business between Virginia and Carson City—a distance of twenty-one miles.
The heavy work lies between these points—nearly all of the tunnels, deep cuts and sharp curves—and for the greater part of the distance the road was cut through solid rock.
From Virginia City to the Carson River, a distance of 13 miles, the track is a continuous incline. The maximum grade is 116 feet. The maximum radius of curves is 300 feet, and the degrees of curvature amount in all—between Virginia and Carson City—to 6,120; or, in other words, are equal to going seventeen times round a circle. Thus, in traveling from Virginia City to Carson—twenty-one miles—one passes through a sufficiency of curves to carry him round a circle, 360 degrees, seventeen times. This surpasses any “swinging round the circle,” political or otherwise, that has ever been done in the United States.
There are on the road six tunnels of an aggregate length of 2,400 feet. All of these tunnels are lined through their whole length with zinc, as a protection against fire. Wood is the fuel used on all the locomotives, and in tugging up the mountain with heavy trains such a Vesuvius of sparks is poured from the smoke-stacks, that without the protection of the zinc lining the woodwork of tunnels would constantly be taking fire.
As I have said, the heaviest work on the road was between Virginia and Carson City. The cost of this section of 21 miles of road was $1,750,000, or about $83,000 per mile, which includes permanent way and graduation—that is, with the track laid, and the road ready for business. The cost of the whole road was about $3,000,000. From Virginia City to Reno, the terminus of the road, the distance in an air-line is 16½ miles, while by rail it is 52 miles. By the wagon-road, over the mountain, the distance from Virginia to Reno is only 22 miles. Over this wagon-road, known as the Griger Grade, supplies of all kinds, including heavy machinery for the mines, were brought to Virginia, previous to the completion of the railroad; the hauling being done by teams of ten, twelve, fourteen, and sixteen mules each, attached to huge wagons known as “prairie schooners.”
As will be seen, by the distance from Virginia City to Reno in a direct line, the traveler not only swings seventeen times round the circle, in going from Virginia to Carson, but has almost completed a grand circle when he reaches the end of the road and connects with the Central Pacific. He starts off in a southerly direction, and so continues until Carson is reached, when he turns and travels northward until he arrives at Reno.
At Steamboat Springs, between Carson City and Reno, the traveler who starts from Virginia has traveled forty miles by rail, yet it is but 5½ miles from the place whence he started, Steamboat Springs being situated just back or west of Mount Davidson, on the eastern face of which Virginia City stands. Between Virginia and Carson the only piece of straight road is one little stretch about 5½ miles in length, but between Carson and Reno are found several miles of road tolerably straight. The road does an immense local carrying business. From 500 to 800 tons of ore are daily carried over it to the mills on the Carson River, and return trains bring great quantities of wood, lumber, and timber for use at the mines. From thirty to as high as forty-five trains per day pass over that part of the road lying between Virginia and Carson City.