It was in 1862 that, notwithstanding the opposition of Confederate members of Congress, who desired a more southerly route, the railroad track was planned between the forty-first and the forty-second parallels of latitude. President Lincoln himself fixed the termination of the new line at Omaha, in Nebraska. The work was immediately begun and continued with characteristic American energy, which is neither red-tapeish nor bureaucratic. The rapidity of the work did not affect its completeness; they laid a mile and a half of line across the prairie every day; an engine, carrying the rails to be used next day, ran on the line only just laid, and advanced as quickly as they were fixed.
The Pacific railroad has several branches in the States of Iowa, Kansas, Colorado, and Oregon. When it leaves Omaha the line runs along the left bank of the river Platte, as far as the mouth of the northern branch, follows the south branch, crosses the Laramine territory and the Wahsatch Mountains to Salt Lake City (the Mormon capital), plunges into the Tuilla Valley across the desert, Mounts Cedar and Humboldt, the Humboldt river and the Sierra Nevada, and then descends by Sacramento to the Pacific; the gradient all the way, even over the Rocky Mountains, not exceeding a hundred and twelve feet to the mile.
Such was the line along which Phileas Fogg hoped to be carried to New York in seven days in time to reach the Steamer to Liverpool on the 11th.
The car in which our travellers were seated was a sort of long omnibus, with four wheels at each end, without compartments; rows of seats were placed at each side, a passage running between them from end to end of this carriage, and practically of the train, for every carriage was closely connected with the next. There were drawing-room cars, smoking-cars, and restaurants. The only thing wanting was the theatre-car, but no doubt that will some day be supplied. Vendors of books and papers, eatables, drinkables, and tobacco, continually passed through the train.
The train started from Oakland Station at six p.m. It was already dark, and snow was threatening; the pace did not exceed twenty miles an hour, including stoppages. There was not much conversation amongst the passengers, and most of them soon went to sleep. Passe-partout was next to the detective, but did not address him, for after what had happened there could be no sympathy between them. Fix had not altered, but Passe-partout was extremely reserved, and on the least suspicion would have strangled his former friend.
In about an hour snow began to fall, but not sufficiently thick to hinder the progress of the train. Nothing could be seen from the windows but an immense white sheet, against which the steam of the engine looked gray.
At eight o'clock the steward entered and said that bed-time had come. The backs of the seats were thrown down, bedsteads were pulled out, and berths improvised in a few moments. By this ingenious system each passenger was provided with a bed, and protected by curtains from prying eyes. The sheets were clean, the pillows soft. There was nothing to do but to go to bed and sleep, which everybody did as if they were on board ship, while the train rushed on across the State of California.
The territory between San Francisco and Sacramento is not very hilly, and the railroad runs in a north-easterly direction along the American river which falls into the Bay of San Pablo. The hundred and twenty miles' distance between these cities was accomplished in six hours, and as it was midnight when they passed through Sacramento, the travellers could see nothing of the city.
Leaving Sacramento and passing Junction, Rochin, Auburn, and Colfax, the railroad passes through the Sierra Nevada range, and the train reached Cisco at seven o'clock. An hour afterwards the sleeping-car was retransformed to an ordinary carriage, and the passengers were enabled to look out upon the magnificent scenery of this mountainous country. The track followed all the caprices of the mountains, at times suspended over a precipice, boldly rounding angles, penetrating narrow gorges which had apparently no outlet. The engine, with fire gleaming from the grate and black smoke issuing from its funnel, the warning-bell ringing, the "cow-catcher" extending like a spur, mingled its whistlings and snortings with the roar of torrents and waterfalls, and twining its black smoke around the stems of the pine-trees. There are few tunnels or bridges on this portion of the route, for the line winds round the sides of the mountains and does not penetrate them.
About nine o'clock the train entered the State of Nevada by the Carson Valley, still proceeding in a north-easterly direction. At midday the train quitted Reno, where it had stopped twenty minutes for luncheon.