Nothing Like It in the World The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869 (75 page)

Left: A UP construction train at Granite Canyon, Wyoming, chugs its way across what the railroad called the “Big Fill,” at Mile Post 536 from Omaha, between Cheyenne and Sherman Hill. The fill was 375 feet long and 50 feet deep, the largest fill on the UP. Middle left: The Petrified Fish Cut two miles west of Green River, Wyoming. Fills and cuts, then more fills and cuts—it seemed it would never end. Bottom left: The engine Osceola passes through Fish Cut. The locomotive had been confiscated by the government during the Civil War and later turned over to the UP.

The UP's steam shovel at Hanging Rock, in Echo Canyon, Utah. This was the only mechanical power used to move earth on the entire line.

Mormon graders at work in Echo Canyon. At the top, they are bringing down rocks for a fill and to make certain no rocks tumbled down to interfere with the scrapers working on the roadbed. In the bottom photograph, they are digging out a cut. Photos taken in 1868.

Mormons dig out the East Tunnel—the second of four. It was 772 feet long and consumed 1,064 kegs of black powder. As it was being dug, the UP built a flimsy eight-mile temporary track over a ridge. Photo taken 1869.

A UP train crosses the Weber River, having just gone through Tunnel 3. Photo taken 1869.

One of the Casements' construction trains near Bear River City, Wyoming. Bear River City was one of the worst Hell on Wheels towns.

The dock of the steamships and the Pacific Rail Road Depot at the Sacramento River Wharf, where the CP began. Here rails, spikes, cars, and locomotives, shipped around South America from New York and other eastern ports, were unloaded and started toward the end of track.

At Sailor's Spur, a cut is being made in the background and the debris being hauled by onehorse carts to the fill in the area in the foreground. This took enormous patience, since everything was being done by muscle power. Photo taken summer 1866.

Chinese laborers at work from both ends of the Heath's Ravine Bank in the Sierra Nevada—one cartload of rock and dirt at a time. The trees have been cleared away on both sides of the fill; at the top center are trunks piled up to be cut at a sawmill for ties. Photo taken summer 1867.

Chinese laborers at work on the Prospect Hill cut in the Sierra Nevada.