The story of the first trans-continental railroad

by William Francis Bailey

The line was originally laid with fifty pound iron from the mills of Pennsylvania for four hundred and forty miles and with fifty-six pound iron west of there. As has been mentioned before, the first section was laid with cottonwood ties of local growth, treated by the burnettizing process, which was erroneously supposed would prevent decay. West of there hard wood ties from the East were used, some of them coming from far away Pennsylvania, and costing the Company two dollars and fifty cents laid down in Omaha. For the mountain section, ties of local growth were largely and satisfactorily used. The basis was twenty-four hundred ties to the mile on the plains, twenty-six hundred and forty through the mountains, and twenty-five hundred west of Laramie.

The lumber for bridges and building came from Minnesota and Wisconsin, excepting in the far West, where native lumber was used.

The grading was done to a very large extent by manual labor. It was before the day of the steam shovel or air drill. Pick and shovel and wheelbarrow reinforced by teams and scrapers were the means used, excepting where rock was encountered and then hand drills and black powder and occasionally nitro-glycerine were relied upon to quarry the rock which was very much in demand for masonry work.

The graders worked as much as two hundred miles ahead of the track. They were housed in tents, and all supplies for their sustenance and material used by them were necessarily hauled from the several terminal points. This resulted in the employment of a good sized army of teamsters and freighters. In the buffalo they had a food that, while cheap, was of the first order, and the number thus utilized was away up in the thousands.

No pretense was made to ballast the track, as the construction work was done. The ties were laid on the grade with just enough dirt on them to keep them in place. Speedy construction was considered of the first importance and then the ballasting could be done much cheaper after the track was down.

To a very great extent temporary trestles of timber were used, to be replaced later by more permanent culverts of stone. In some places where the piles were thus replaced by masonry, it was necessary to tear out the stone and put in piles again. The heavy freshets proved more than the culverts could carry off, and besides the stone work would wash out much quicker than did piles.

The bridges were mostly Howe wooden truss uncovered, with stone or wooden abuttments. Where the span was short, wooden trestles on piles were used.

One reason for deferring the masonry work as well as the ballasting was the inability to handle the necessary supplies. Every engine and all the equipment were kept in constant use hauling construction material to the front.

Notwithstanding what, to the contractor of today, would seem antiquated and expensive methods, the work progressed and made headway to an extent that has never since been equalled. It was the immense army, as high as twelve thousand men at times, that enabled this to be the case. One-fifth the number of men with modern methods and labor-saving devices would have been equally efficious.

The expense of hauling water and supplies for the army of men was enormous. The statement has been made that this cost more than it did to do the actual grading.