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The
Transcontinental Railroad, Part III
Brian
Trumbore
President/Editor, StocksandNews.com
Whenever I fly I try to get a window
seat, the better to daydream as I stare down at the
world below. And one of the best views is in flying
over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, then down the valley
towards San Francisco. I often think of the first
pioneers and how difficult it would have been traversing
them (or the Rockies, for that matter).
But
think of the transcontinental railroad and how difficult
it was to build it over the mountains back in the
1860s. What a remarkable feat. And for a good sense
of just how tough it was, I turn to author David Haward
Bain and his book "Empire Express: Building the First
Transcontinental Railroad." [1999, Viking Penguin]
As
I noted in the earlier pieces, the project didn't
really get off the ground until the end of the Civil
War in 1865. You'll recall the Union Pacific was heading
west from Omaha, while the Central Pacific headed
east from Sacramento. You should also know from your
geography that just about 25 miles out of Sacramento
the terrain begins to rise significantly and 75 out
(following present-day Route 80?roughly the route
of the railroad), you are smack dab at the peak of
the Sierras.
So
with this in mind, following are some excerpts from
Bain's book on the conditions faced.
---
"
'The winter of 1865-66 was a very wet winter,' said
one foreman, 'it was terribly muddy. It was impossible
to haul goods to the amount required for our use,
and we were obliged to pack it over the mountain trails,
and we had to pack bales of hay, even, a distance
of 25 miles on animals, and pretty nearly all of our
supplies for four or five months were furnished in
that way.'"
By
October 1865, the snow was falling thick in the Sierras.
But in Sacramento, balmy by comparison, the owners
of the Central Pacific couldn't understand reports
telling of how difficult the job had become. Co-founder
Charles Crocker, on the scene in the mountains, recalled.
"I would say, 'Here is this snow in the way,' and
I would ask, 'Who will pay for removing it?' And they
would say, 'We will pay for it.' Of course I was not
going to pay for it. I was not going to get any pay
except for the removal of the rock. I know there was
a 60-foot ravine that we cleared of snow and pitched
it over and over and over before we could get to the
rock. The engineers would not allow the track to go
on snow or ice."
California
Governor, and fellow co-founder of CP, Leland Stanford
went to see it and became a believer.
"
'(The snow was) somewhere from 30 to 40 feet deep,
as near as we could measure. The snow would fall sometimes
five to six feet in the night; I believe in one case
that nine feet fell in a single night. It obstructed
all the roads, and made it almost impossible to get
over the mountains.' To do so they used not only horses
but ox teams, 'moving constantly trying to keep the
road clear and the snow packed so that when the storm
was over we could pass along with our material and
could transport our iron.' They 'oftentimes had long
tunnels under the snow to reach the mouth of the tunnel
in the rock where we were doing our work.' Thus, for
weeks at a time, the workers lived a troglodyte's
existence, entirely underground, as the tunnel work
continued; not only were crews going at the Summit
Tunnel from both ends but the work expanded to run
three shifts per day."
---
"On
the Sierra slope in the late weeks of fall (of 1866)?the
Central Pacific had unveiled its answer to the mountain
snowstorms, a gargantuan snowplow. An assemblage of
iron over wood, looking awkwardly like a big black
ship perched on a railway car, the plow was 11 feet
high, 10 feet wide, and 30 feet long. Engineers swore
it would scoop up drifts with its forward end, a wedge
which hung down to track level, and fling the snow
with its superstructure to either side of the track
by as much as 60 feet. Wherever there was track they
were confident they could clear it?.
"The
snowplow did not have to wait very long. There was
no snow at the summit on October 30, when the tracks
were laid to Emigrant Gap, but it began falling in
earnest in November? (Nonetheless) in the last week
of November, despite the snows, (manager) Strobridge's
tracklayers spiked their way into Cisco, some ninety-two
miles from Sacramento and exactly 5,911 feet above
sea level."
The
Sacramento Union commented on the fact that work had
to be stopped for the winter, however, just twelve
miles from the summit. "It is expected that during
the year 1867 the road will be completed and in operation
to the eastern line of the state, from which point
the work of construction toward Salt Lake is comparatively
light and can be prosecuted at all seasons of the
year at the rate, it is believed, of a mile a day,
and to reach Salt Lake City of the 1st of January,
1870."
Wrote
Charles Crocker, "The snow has been no trouble at
all so far. It is the least of our troubles - & we
no longer fear it." Wishful thinking, as events proved.
By
late December 1866 / early January 1867, the Sierras
were one continuous snowstorm. Crocker wrote, "Snow
3 or 4 days then rain one or two days then snow 2
days then Sunshine one or two days - then Storm in
about same proportion & so on during the two months."
Both ends of the Summit Tunnel were completely snowed
over, "'but they have tunneled under the snow, so
that they haul out the rock through both rock & snow
tunnels - & it works first rate.'"
It
proved to be a winter for the record books. Engineer
John R. Gilliss "recorded no fewer than forty-four
storms?.The worst began on the afternoon of February
18, continuing for four days and depositing six feet
of snow on the mountains. For five days nothing fell,
though heavy winds piled drifts so high that the snow
tunnel to the eastern end of the Summit Tunnel had
to be lengthened by fifty feet."
"Then
for five days it snowed again, 'making,' said Gilliss,
'ten feet snow and thirteen days storm.' Nonetheless,
the engineer thought the storms were 'grand.' He was
living in quarters in the narrow east end of Donner
Pass, which concentrated the summit winds to alarming
speeds. 'About thirty feet from our windows was a
large warehouse,' he recalled.
'This
was often hidden completely by the furious torrent
of almost solid snow that swept through the gorge?.No
one can face these storms when they are in earnest.
Three of our party came through the pass one evening,
walking with the storm - two got in safely. After
waiting a while, just as we were starting out to look
up the third, he came in exhausted. In a short, straight
path between two walls of rock, he had lost his way
and thought his last hour had come.'
"Avalanches
were commonplace?one slide killed 'fifteen or twenty
Chinamen' - Gilliss could not be bothered to get the
body count right. But he clearly recalled one episode
near the close of a storm around the same time, in
which an avalanche crushed and buried a large log
house with a plank roof. Sixteen men were inside -
A Chinese work gang and their subcontracting supervisors,
three Scots brothers?.
"
'Towards evening,' Gilliss said, 'a man coming up
the road missed the house and alarmed the camp, so
that by six o'clock the men were dug out. The bulk
of the slide had passed over and piled itself up beyond
the house, so that it was only covered fifteen feet
deep. Only three were killed; the bunks were close
to the log walls and kept the rest from being crushed.
The snow packed around the men so closely that only
two could move about; they had almost dug their way
out; over the heads of the rest little holes had been
melted in the snow by their breath. Most of them were
conscious, and, strange to say, the time had passed
rapidly with them, although about fourteen hours under
the snow.'
"This
alarmed the other workers, whose main camp was overshadowed
by a cliff wreathed in heavy snow, a veritable iceberg
against the winter sky which could descend at any
moment. The next day someone climbed to the top -
'to reach the overhanging snow required courage and
determination,' Engineer Lewis Clement remembered,
'and the call for volunteers for this daring undertaking
was always answered' and he planted a powder keg behind
the accumulation and set it off. 'A white column shot
up a hundred feet,' wrote Gilliss, 'and then the whole
hill-side below was in motion; it came down a frozen
cascade, covered with glittering snow-dust for spray.
It was a rare sight, for snow-slides are so rapid
and noiseless that comparatively few are seen.' Seeing
the snow level rising, being within a wind's whistle
of Donner Pass, easily and poignantly reminded the
engineer of the earlier tragedy twenty years gone."
More
weather tales next time, plus perhaps a bit on Donner
Pass.
---
And
just a note about the issuance of land grants to both
the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads, as
spelled out last time. Historian Stephen Ambrose had
the following comment in his book "Nothing Like It
in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental
Railroad, 1863-69," as adapted in the October 2000
issue of American Heritage.
"The
land grants are much misunderstood?The grants are
denounced, lambasted, derided. In one of the most
influential textbooks ever published, 'The Growth
of the American Republic,' [ed. I have used this source
widely over the years] Samuel Eliot Morison and Henry
Steele Commager, who were two of the most distinguished
historians of their day, if not of the whole twentieth
century, wrote: 'The lands granted to both the Union
Pacific and the Central Pacific yielded enough to
have covered all legitimate costs of building these
roads.' A colleague of theirs, also distinguished,
Fred A. Shannon, wrote, 'The half billion dollars
in land alone to the land grant railroads was worth
more than the railroads were when they were built.'
"It
was the land grants and the bonds the government passed
out that caused the greatest outrage, at the time
and later. Still, although the concern of the investigators
was justified - it was, after all, the people's money
that had been taken - there is another side.
"The
land grants never brought in enough to pay the bills
of building either railroad, or even to come close.
In California, from Sacramento to the Sierra Nevada
range, and in Nebraska, the railroads were able to
sell their strips of land at a good price, $2.50 per
acre or more. But in most of Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada,
the companies could never sell the land. Unless it
had minerals on it, it was virtually worthless, even
to cattlemen, who needed far more acres for a workable
ranch. So too the vast amount of land the government
still owns in the West.
"The
total value of lands distributed to the railroads
was estimated by the Interior Department's auditor
as of November 1, 1880, at $391,804,610. The total
investment in railroads in the United States in that
year was $4,653,609,000. In addition, the government
got to sell the alternate sections it held on to in
California and Nebraska for big sums. Those lands
would have been worth nearly nothing, or in many cases
absolutely nothing, if it had not been for the building
of the railroads. As the historian Robert Henry points
out, the land grants did 'what had never been done
before - provided transportation ahead of settlement.'"
Brian
Trumbore
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