Existing comment:
Stop 6. Big Fill and Big Trestle:
As late as December 1868, Central Pacific surveyors planned a route that would require blasting an 800-foot tunnel through the east face of the Promontory Mountains. During an inspection of the site, Central Pacific President Leland Stanford overruled the idea as too costly and time consuming. Surveyors picked a new route that avoided tunneling but posed a new problem: how to cross Spring Creek Ravine. In February 1869, The Mormon construction firm of Benson, Farr, and West, began work on the Central Pacific's Big Fill to span the ravine. Imagine placing the first small mule-drawn dump cart load of fill at the bottom of the ravine below you. The work that followed took over two months of intense effort by 250 dumpcart teams and more than 500 workers. Load after load of fill, totaling more than 101,000 cubic yards, was required to conquer the 500 foot chasm. The Big Fill remains one of the more impressive construction efforts in the history of American railroading. To span Spring Creek Ravine, the Union Pacific constructed the Big Trestle, which was located 150 feet east of the Big Fill. Because it was meant to be a temporary structure, construction of the Big Trestle took only 36 days, as compared to the Central Pacific's Big Fill, which took more than two months. The trestle was 85 feet high and 400 feet long, and as one reporter put it, there are no words that "…would convey an idea of the flimsy character of that structure." Another reporter suggested that it "…will shake the nerves of the stoutest hearts of railroad travelers when they see that a few feet of round timbers and seven-inch spikes are expected to uphold -- a train in motion." About eight months after completion of the transcontinental railroad, however, the Central Pacific gained control of the route from Promontory Summit to Ogden, Utah and trains began using the Big Fill rather than the Big Trestle. Ogden then replaced Promontory Station as the terminus for both railroads, and track was removed from the trestle. Today, only photographs, abutments, and footings remain to remind us of the Big Trestle.
Stop 9: Big Trestle Abutments:
The area on which you are standing is one of the abutments of the Big Trestle. Take a moment to imagine what the Big Trestle looked like spanning the ravine in front of you, as compared to the Big Fill on your left. If you were traveling by rail to Promontory, which would you prefer? |