Opening the iron trail

by Edwin L. Sabin

At end o’ track itself there were the track-builders—the rail-layers, the gaugers, the spikers, the bolters, the ballasters. And upon the new track there were the boarding-train and the construction-train.

The boarding-train, for the track-gang, held the advance. It was a long train of box-cars fitted up with bunks and dining tables and kitchen—with hammocks slung underneath to the cross-rods and beds made up on top, for the over-flow; and with one car used as an office by General “Jack” Casement and his brother, Dan Casement, who were building the road for the U. P.

The construction-train of flat-cars and caboose plied back and forth between end o’ track and the last supply depot, twenty miles back. These supply depots, linked by construction-trains, were located every twenty miles, on the plains beside the track, back to North Platte, the supply base.

From its depot the train for end o’ track brought up rails, ties, spikes, fish-plate joints—everything. It backed in until its caboose almost touched the rear car of the boarding-train. Overboard went the loads from the flat-cars; with a shrill whistle, away for another outfit of track stuff puffed the construction-train; with answering whistle the boarding-train (Terry’s father at the throttle) followed, a short distance, to clear the path for the rail-trucks.

The rail-truck, Terry’s or Jimmie Muldoon’s, according to whose turn, loaded at the farthest pile. Then up track it scampered, to the very end, where two lines of track-layers, five on a side, were waiting. Each squad grabbed a rail, man after man, and hustled it forward at a run; dropped it so skillfully that the rear end fell into the last fish-plate. They forced the end down, and held the rail straight.

“Down!” signaled the squad bosses. The gaugers had measured the width between the pair of rails: four feet eight and one-half inches. The spikers and bolters sprang with spikes and bolts and sledges. “Whang! Whang! Whangity-whang!” pealed the sledges—a rhythmic chorus. By the time that the first spikes had been driven two more rails were in position. Now and again the little car was shoved forward a few yards, on the new track, to keep up with the work.

A pair of rails were laid—“Down! Down!”—every thirty seconds! Two hundred pairs of rails were reckoned to the mile; there were ten spikes to each rail, three sledge blows to each spike. A pair of rails were laid and spiked fast every minute, which meant a mile of track in three hours and a third—or say three and a half. In fifteen minutes the fish-plate joints had been bolted and everything made taut.

It was a clock-work job, at top speed, with maybe 1,000 miles yet to go in this race to beat the Central Pacific.

The Central Pacific was the road being built eastward from Sacramento of California. The Government had ordered the Union Pacific to meet it and join end o’ track with it, somewhere west of the Rocky Mountains. That would make a railroad clear across continent between the Missouri River and the Pacific Ocean!

The Union Pacific had much the longer trail: 1,000 miles across the plains and the Rockies and as much farther as it could get. The Central Pacific had started in to build only about 150 miles, and then as much farther as it could get, east from the California border.